{"id":20864,"date":"2012-07-09T15:58:55","date_gmt":"2012-07-09T11:58:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/?p=20864"},"modified":"2012-07-09T15:59:02","modified_gmt":"2012-07-09T11:59:02","slug":"the-politics-behind-the-award-of-literary-prizes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/middle-east-society\/the-politics-behind-the-award-of-literary-prizes\/","title":{"rendered":"The Politics Behind the Award of Literary Prizes"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

A literary prize \u2014 let\u2019s say, tentatively \u2014 should be given on the merits of the literature alone. The strength of a literary culture is that it can reward creative work from many different perspectives and traditions, and can even doff its hats to those who have espoused icky, counter-culture, or \u201cenemy\u201d views.<\/p>\n

I often think of Norwegian Nobel laureate Knut Hamsun in this context, as he threw his support behind Germany in the 1940s, even sending Goebbels his Nobel medal as a gift. (He certainly gets the \u201cicky\u201d award for that.) Notwithstanding, Hamsun wrote Hunger<\/em>. And Pan<\/em>. So we still read and admire his novels. But would the Nobel committee have given him the big prize after<\/em>\u00a0he\u2019d declared his love for Hitler? Eh, I doubt it.<\/p>\n

Returning to the initial hypothesis: Does this make the Nobel prize folk cowards? I don\u2019t know. It does make them aware of how their actions appear in the larger world. In our smaller world of Arabic literature,\u00a0Boualem Sansal\u2019s prize money should not have been revoked<\/a>, no. And even if Saadi Youssef\u2019s political views <\/a>are not mine, his poetry can be illuminating<\/a>. In this space, poetry wins.<\/p>\n

However, there are problems with the \u201cliterary prizes are just for literature, stupid\u201d argument. For one, there\u2019s the context of how prizes often work. It\u2019s certainly the case that authors like Boualem Sansal are often given Western literary prizes precisely because<\/em> of their political views. In 2011, Sansal won the German Book Trade Peace Prize<\/a>.<\/p>\n

According to Gottfried Honnefelder, head of the German Publishers and Booksellers Association, the selection of the Algerian novelist was \u201ca symbol of support for democratic movements in North Africa.\u201d So the choice of Sansal was political; Sansal\u2019s The German Mujahid<\/em>\u00a0(a rare Arabic novel about the Holocaust) has been given a number of international prizes. One assumes the prize-givers have found something they like, and they\u2019re trying to grow more of it with their money.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s one thing. There\u2019s also a history of corruption and cronyism in some literary prizes (many Arab state prizes, for instance). So suspicion over who\u2019s won a prize, and what his allegiances might be, is not entirely unwarranted.<\/p>\n

There is also a very human suspicion that an author\u2019s life and literature are inextricably linked, and that poisons from one will find their way into the other. That politics cannot be separated from poetry, however much we love Hunger\u00a0<\/em>and Pan<\/em>.<\/p>\n

In the end, I would like to join the \u201cliterary prizes are just for literature, stupid\u201d camp. But I\u2019m not entirely sure what that would mean, besides the obvious that judging panels should be fully independent, which is certainly true, yes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

M. LYNX-QUALEY: Whether it’s the Nobel Prize or those closer to home there’s always a bit – or more – of politics when literary prizes are awarded. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":16,"featured_media":20865,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[154,80,5],"tags":[13782,2237,6566,18291,7192,18324,4706],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20864"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/16"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20864"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20864\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20865"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20864"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20864"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20864"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}