Dispatches | October 09, 2009

Did anything eventful happen this week? Oh yeah the Nobel Prize for literature was announced!  And the winner is…  Herta Müller for her works depicting the ‘landscape of the dispossessed’ with “the concentration of poetry and the frankness of prose.”  I’d like to give a celebratory high five to Müller for becoming only the 12^th woman to win the prize in 108 years, making this the first year in history that four women have been Nobel laureates (the others being U.S-based researchers Elizabeth Blackburn and Carol Greider for medicine, and Israel’s Ada Yonath for chemistry).  While I’m happy to see the ladies holding their own, the truth is that I know very little about the Nobel Prize, and rarely do I even hear mention of the Nobel Prize for literature.  NobelPrize.org offers a complete list of past winners, and for some interesting commentary HTMLGIANT also offers a funny and brief history of the winners.  Scanning through these lists I recognized very few of the writers, so I’m wondering what impact (if any) winning the award has had on their writing.  Looks like I have a lot to add to my reading list.

So the question remains, will you be reading Herta Müller in the near future? Do awards and prizes influence your decisions about what authors to read?

Oh and this just in, as I’m sure you know, Obama has won the Nobel Peace Prize.  Any thoughts?

Have a great weekend