German Herta Muller wins the Nobel Prize in Literature: it's only the U.S. who's dispossessed now

October 8, 11:23 AMBook ExaminerMichelle Kerns

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German novelist Herta Muller officially joined the ranks of literature's most exclusive club today -- she's been awarded the 2009 Nobel Prize in Literature, only the 12th woman to have been so honored since the Prize was established in 1901.

The Nobel judges praised Ms. Muller's work for depicting the "landscape of the dispossessed" with "the concentration of poetry and the frankness of prose." Ms. Muller's work focuses on political oppression and tyranny, especially tyranny as experienced by women. Her writing is not jolly or uplifting, but that's hardly surprising: according to Ms. Muller, "The most overwhelming experience for me was living under the dictatorial regime in Romania."

The Swedish Academy pemanent secretary, Peter Englund, suggested that anyone wanting to experience Ms. Muller's best work read her novels Hertzier (translated in English as The Land of Green Plums) and Atemschaukel (Everything I Possess I Carry With Me), which Mr. Englund called "absolutely breathtaking."

It's no wonder that Mr. Englund feels the need to lend a bit of guidance to readers interested in Ms. Muller's writing. While she is much admired in Germany, her work is virtually unknown elsewhere, particularly in the United States.

But the United States has been getting the cold shoulder lately from the Nobel committee. Last year's Nobel Academy permanent secretary, Horace Engdahl told the Associated Press that no Americans would be considered for the Prize since:

The U.S. is too isolated, too insular. They don't translate enough and don't really participate in the big dialogue of literature. That ignorance is restraining.

As you can imagine, American authors had a few choice words to say about this cutting indictment of their work.

American journalist and author David Remnick retorted:

You would think that the permanent secretary of an academy that pretends to wisdom but has historically overlooked Proust, Joyce and Nabokov, to name just a few non-Nobelists, would spare us the categorical lectures.

The Washington Post's Michael Dirda joined in the fray, criticizing Engdahl et al for their

insular attitude towards a very diverse country.

It has been 15 years since the last Nobel Laureate came from the United States (Toni Morrison in 1993), and many of the recent winners of the Prize have been aggressively outspoken against America.

The 2005 winner, Harold Pinter, indulged in a bit of America-bashing in his Nobel lecture, saying that

the crimes of the United States have been systematic, constant, vicious, remorseless.

The 2007 Laureate, British author Doris Lessing went even further, saying in an interview that the events of September 11th were

neither as terrible nor as extraordinary as [Americans] think

and that

They're a very naive people, or they pretend to be.

What is naive is to think that the Nobel Prizes are awarded without politics leavening the decision. And don't think the Literature Prize is the only one infected with political wranglings: from the Medicine to the Physics to the coveted Peace Prize, the hand of political favoritism has played a heavy role in them all since the inception of the Nobel Academy.

 

Take a look at Burton Feldman's The Nobel Prize: A History of Genius, Controversy, and Prestige, a well-written and exhaustively researched history of all aspects of the Nobel Prize. There are enough politically motivated machinations in here to make Machiavelli sit up and take notes.

The only thing worth noting about the Nobel Academy's snarks on American literature is their willingness to finally speak aloud what they have been practicing behind closed doors for decades. Maybe it's the rise of anti-American sentiment in Europe that has made them so bold. Maybe it's anger that, despite their best and brightest efforts, most European literature can only manage a weak glow in worldwide literary attention compared to many American authors.

Whatever the reason, a lack of talented and highly deserving American authors (Philip Roth, anyone? John Updike? Joyce Carol Oates?) is not one of them.

But none of this should detract from Ms. Muller's triumph: she has overcome a bleak past to become a successful and highly regarded writer  and has now joined literary Grand Dames like Pearl S. Buck and Toni Morrison in literary immortality. Congratulations to Ms. Muller.

And here's hoping that the Nobel committee won't continue to exile America's flocks of worthy writers to eternal Nobel dispossession.

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