Alice Munro, called by the Nobel committee “Master of the contemporary short story,†has won the 2013 Nobel Prize for literature. Munro, 82, is the first Canadian to take the prize. She told a National Post reporter earlier this year that she’s retiring from writing.
The Millions : Canadian Short Story Master Alice Munro Wins the Nobel Prize for Literature.
China has its first literary Nobel Laureate as the prize has gone to 57-year-old novelist Mo Yan. Yan is said to make use of magical realism and satire in addressing China’s recent history. His books have been frequently banned in China and “Mo Yan†is a pen name meaning “don’t speak.†Yan’s given name is Guan Moye.
Author Alex Shakar wrote about Yan’s novel Life and Death Are Wearing Me Out.
Yan’s style here is maximalistic, headlong, sloppy to be sure, but bursting with life; or rather, lives — human and otherwise. A Chinese landowner is executed at the dawn of the Cultural Revolution, and the story follows him literally to hell and back, again and again as he’s reborn in a progression of animal incarnations. Each time, he winds up near his former family and participates in its dramas, goes on animal adventures, and witnesses the hardships, cruelties, and absurdities of life in China over the last half-century. Mo Yan himself shows up as a character from time to time.
The Millions : Chinese Novelist Mo Yan Wins the Nobel Prize for Literature.
Peruvian writer Mario Vargas Llosa has won the 2010 Nobel Prize in literature.
The Swedish Academy said it’s honoring the 74-year-old author “for his cartography of structures of power and his trenchant images of the individual’s resistance, revolt and defeat.”
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Belgium: Peter Terrin, De Bewaker (The Guard)
Cyprus: Myrto Azina Chronides, To Peirama (The Experiment)
Denmark: Adda Djørup, Den mindste modstand (The least resistance)
Estonia: Tiit Aleksejev, Palveränd (The Pilgrimage)
Finland: Riku Korhonen , Lääkäriromaani (Doctor Novel)
Germany: Iris Hanika, Das Eigentliche (The Bottom Line)
Luxembourg: Jean Back, Amateur
Romania: Răzvan Rădulescu, Teodosie cel Mic (Theodosius the Small)
Slovenia: Nataša Kramberger, Nebesa v robidah: roman v zgodbah (Heaven in a blackberry bush: novel in stories)
Spain: Raquel MartÃnez-Gómez, Sombras de unicornio (Shadows of the unicorn)
Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia: Goce Smilevski, СеÑтрата на Зигмунд Фројд (Sigmund Freud’s sister)
The [EU Prize for Literature], supported through the EU Culture programme, aims to draw attention to new talents and to promote the publication of their books in different countries, as well as celebrating European cultural diversity.
So, please help yourself to some European literature.
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“The idea that GLBT literature is confined to GLBT characters and therefore of limited audience interest represents interconnected misconceptions.” Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, and Transgendered Literature. Readers probably recognize gay and lesbian authors Oscar Wilde and Virginia Woolf. But many might be surprised that classics by Herman Melville and William Shakespeare are also considered as having GLBT themes. Stop in and see our display–you just might find you’ve read more GLBT literature than you think!