Who Will Win the Nobel Prize in Literature?

The Nobel Prize in Literature will likely be announced tomorrow (although there is no set date for this announcement, unlike for the other Nobel Prizes). Who will the winner be? There has been much speculation, as there is every year. A look at the various articles and blogs, as well as the odds set by the UK-based bookmaker Ladbrookes, produces the following summary of good possibilities. Near the top of many lists are: Sweden's Tomas Transtromer, Kenya's Ngugi wa Thiong'o, the U.S.'s Cormac McCarthy, Japan's Haruki Murakami, the U.K.'s A. S. Byatt, and Canada's Alice Munro and Margaret Atwood. Other strong contenders include the U.S.'s Don DeLillo, E. L. Doctorow, Joyce Carol Oates, Thomas Pynchon, and Philip Roth. There are others on various lists who are far less well-known. In fact, the Nobel Committee is famous for choosing lesser-known (beyond the borders of their own countries or continents, or the knowledge of literary experts), unexpected winners, so we may all be completely surprised at the announcement. My own hope is that either Alice Munro or Margaret Atwood wins. But no matter who wins, I am grateful that for at least one news cycle, the focus of many stories and of much conversation will be on literature.