I suppose if the late PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat, the late Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, and former Israel Prime Minister Shimon Peres could win the Nobel Peace Prize for a Palestinian peace that never was, [then why not Obama for accomplishments yet to be accomplished].
Which brings me to this final word about the Norwegian cabal behind the Nobel Prize: It is naïve to think that politics do not govern its purportedly merit-based selections.
(Obama awarded (affirmative action) Nobel Peace Prize, The iPINIONS Journal, October 10, 2009)
I am using this opening quote as something of a disclaimer. Because on the one hand, I’m really happy that the Nobel Committee awarded Peruvian Mario Vargas Llosa the 2010 Nobel Prize for literature yesterday, but on the other hand, I’ve been a persistent critic of the obvious bias that informs most of this Committee’s selections.
In this category, for example, I have railed against its Eurocentric bias. And nothing demonstrates this quite like the fact that the last six winners have been five Europeans and one European wannabe: Elfriede Jelenik of Austria in 2004, Harold Pinter of the UK in 2005, Orhan Pamuk of Turkey (the European wannabe) in 2006, Doris Lessing of the UK in 2007, Jean-Marie Gustave Le Clézio of France in 2008, and Herta Müller of Germany in 2009.
Meanwhile, the members of this cabal have overlooked such obvious candidates as Chinua Achebe of Nigeria:
Nobody familiar with his work would be surprised that I think one of the great injustices in the world of literature is the Nobel Committee never awarding Achebe, 76, this hallowed prize. Especially given that he is universally acclaimed as “the father of modern African literature.”
(Achebe awarded the Man Booker International Prize, The iPINIONS Journal, June 15, 2007)
No doubt this perennial slight accounts for the genuine surprise Vargas Llosa expressed when he was informed of his selection:
At first I thought, but what if this is a joke?
(Vargas Llosa, BBC, October 7, 2010)
Nevertheless, I congratulate him on being recognized for his body of work, which includes Conversation in The Cathedral and The War of the End of the World. The Committee quite properly cited his:
… cartography of structures of power [and] trenchant images of the individual’s resistance, revolt, and defeat.
It would be remiss of me, however, not to admit the schadenfreude I experienced from the fact that the announcement of this award was probably greeted with quiet resentment by two of Vargas Llosa’s most notorious nemeses:
One is Nobel Laureate Gabriel García Márquez, his erstwhile best friend, whom Vargas Llosa gave a black eye in 1976 for reportedly counseling his wife to leave him after he (Vargas Llosa) had an affair. The two men did not speak for over 30 years after that bout, and reports are that their relationship today is cordial at best.
The other is former Cuban dictator Fidel Castro who became the target of Vargas Llosa’s poison pen after he renounced the leftist ideology he shared with old comrades like García Márquez to become one of the world’s most celebrated right-wing intellectuals … much to my dismay.
Related commentaries:
Achebe awarded the Man Booker
Obama awarded Nobel Peace Prize
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