On Thursday the Swedish Academy announced the winners of the 2018 and 2019 Nobel Prize in Literature, sparking controversy in the literary world. The winner for 2018, after a year’s delay due to a sexual assault scandal in the academy, was Olga Tokarczuk, a Polish writer. This win was generally celebrated, but it was the 2019 winner that became a cause for concern: the prize was awarded to Peter Handke, a prominent apologist of the Bosnian genocide.
When genocide apologists are winning the most prestigious awards in literature, those that are meant to represent all that is important and beautiful about the medium, it must be called into question what these awards really mean, and what is really being celebrated. In the will of Alfred Nobel, in which the prizes are described, it says “one part to the person who shall have produced in the field of literature the most outstanding work in an ideal direction.” It’s impossible to think that this result could have been the most outstanding work in any sort of ideal direction, calling into question not only the Nobel prizes, but the values of all prestigious awards for literature. The quality of the literature is important, but subjective. The values, ideas and emotions of the works should be taken into consideration more.
Perhaps the most interesting part of the scandal surrounding the Nobel prize is the fact that, following the year-long break from the Swedish Academy, the head of the committee claimed to make a confident comeback by “avoiding the 'male-oriented' and 'Eurocentric' perspective that has dominated judging in the past.” The results of the prize do not live up to this claim at all. Of course, Olga Tokarczuk’s win is a victory for women, as she is only the 15th woman to receive the prize since 1901 — and it can’t hurt that right-wing Polish nationalists don’t like her. Despite that, the 2019 award was still handed to a European man who defends the genocide of Bosnian Muslims.
In response to the controversy, PEN America issued a statement condemning the choice of Handke’s award: “We are dumbfounded by the selection of a writer who has used his public voice to undercut historical truth and offer public succor to perpetrators of genocide, like former Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic and Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic.”
The statement was written by PEN America President Jennifer Egan, who is a recipient of the Pulitzer Prize in Fiction for her 2011 novel, “A Visit from the Goon Squad.” There was controversy around Egan’s win, too, though of course not about her political activity, but about the quality of the novel itself. The book is somewhere between a novel and a collection of short stories, following the interconnected lives of many different characters in every different time period of their lives and every literary tense, even featuring a chapter written entirely as a Powerpoint presentation.
In my opinion, it’s a work of genius, but it’s undeniable that it goes against the grain of the traditional novels making up the prize-winning canon. It seems that, even now, every single winner of a prestigious literary prize, whether it be the Nobel, Pulitzer or Booker, is brought into question on its literary merits.
The quality of Handke’s body of work has been much less discussed than his political ideas and activity — I haven’t read any of his works, but perhaps critics still consider his writing to be “serious literature.” Literary theorist Roland Barthes called for the death of the author, separating the authors from their work, and it can be assumed that many critics still take his theory to heart and practice.
Of course, every major literary award is a bit different. The Nobel goes to an author as opposed to one piece of literature, commenting more on a life or body of work. The Pulitzer is American and looks for distinguished fiction that provides some commentary on American life. The Booker looks for the best original novel written in English. Naturally they overlap, but it is impossible to determine a clear set of values for what makes literature deserving of a prestigious award. None of the awards specifically lay out criteria to which the authors or works must adhere.
Another great example of this conflict of values is one of my personal favorite novels and most controversial Pulitzer winners, “The Goldfinch” by Donna Tartt, which won the Fiction prize in 2014. Critics declared the win as the death of literature itself — James Wood told Vanity Fair, “I think that the rapture with which this novel has been received is further proof of the infantilization of our literary culture: a world in which adults go around reading Harry Potter.” I sincerely could not disagree with this statement more.
Personally, I love the literary award season, and I’m sure many other book lovers agree. I read every winner, longlist and shortlist, learning about all sorts of new authors and books, and I have found many new favorites this way — for example, I found Anna Burns’ “Milkman” after it won the Booker prize last year, and it instantly became one of my favorites of all time.
That being said, I don’t enjoy every award-winning book I read, and critics obviously don’t either. The entire process is entirely subjective and not even necessarily beholden to any set of criteria. I am not advocating that there should be an extensive set of values any book or author must uphold, and personally, I could care less whether or not a book that receives a prize is truly “literary” — I don’t think that word holds very much meaning, anyway. I am deeply concerned, though, that one of the most prestigious literary awards in the world could go to someone with such a deeply upsetting and problematic political history.
The author is important, and when it comes down to it, award committees should be working from a place of dignity and compassion. Good books should evoke emotions and ideas from their readers, and those don’t even have to be positive, but they cannot be violent and hateful. I hope the Swedish Academy learns from its mistakes.
