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Nobel Literature Prize Speculation: Jon Fosse


Myshkin
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3 hours ago, sologdin said:

eighth best novelist in France

is that houellebecq, then?

 

odds on murakami or rushdie? 

Wrong. Houellebecq is the fifth best novelist in France. Odds on French favorite is Annie Ernaux.

I’ll give Murakami odds at 1 in 500, and Rushdie odds at 1 in 1001.

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15 hours ago, Clueless Northman said:

Wait, there's an official list of "Best novelists in France"? I'd like to see that, I've no idea who could be 1st (assuming it's not a previous Nobel like Modiano or Le Clezio).

Both Modiano and Le Clezio were the eighth best novelist in France, but were then upgraded upon winning the Nobel 

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  • 2 weeks later...

Some thoughts:

I’m incredibly happy to see a Black African writer win the Nobel. It’s only the second time in the prize’s history, and the first time since Wole Soyinka won in ‘86.

I’m pretty disappointed that the Swedish Academy didn’t select Ngugi. They missed out on Achebe, and now they’ll also miss out on Ngugi, and that’s not okay.

 

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Bittersweet for sure. Unless they try to be (extra) edgy next year by giving it to him anyway (crossing my fingers).

Just saw on twitter Abdulrazak Gurnah has sold only 3000 copies of his books worldwide, combined.* The Swedish Academy is sketchy for sure, but I can't say I'm not also really happy about this one.

*of course one has to take into account the accuracy of twitter claims.

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1 hour ago, Kyoshi said:

Bittersweet for sure. Unless they try to be (extra) edgy next year by giving it to him anyway (crossing my fingers).

Just saw on twitter Abdulrazak Gurnah has sold only 3000 copies of his books worldwide, combined.* The Swedish Academy is sketchy for sure, but I can't say I'm not also really happy about this one.

*of course one has to take into account the accuracy of twitter claims.

I feel like that has to be wrong, as one of his novels was Booker shortlisted. 

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I don't know how to check book sales and so forth, but the tweet has gone unchallenged. And maybe this says more about me and my ignorance, but I'd never heard about him until yesterday when he was announced as the winner.

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5 hours ago, Kyoshi said:

I don't know how to check book sales and so forth, but the tweet has gone unchallenged. And maybe this says more about me and my ignorance, but I'd never heard about him until yesterday when he was announced as the winner.

He’s definitely on the obscure side. The only reason I’ve heard of him is because past Booker shortlists are my go to when I’m looking for things to read. Even then, when they announced him yesterday, I didn’t recognize the name until I started looking up his books and found that one of them was on my Amazon wish list.

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I recognized the name as one I'd heard before, and low and behold I actually own a copy of Gurnah's first novel, Memory of Departure, which I purchased at a used book store in Omaha back in 2004 and have never read yet (I own WAY too many books :) .)  Wonder if that is now worth more than the $5.71 I paid for it? 

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1 hour ago, Ormond said:

Wonder if that is now worth more than the $5.71 I paid for it? 

In an NPR story on his Nobel win, since they couldn't get through at that time to interview the author (I did hear a BBC radio interview though) they interviewed publisher and bookstore owners.  All ten of his books are now sold out.  With the supply chain gridlock for reprinting older titles and printing new ones, there may not be more available for a while?

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21 hours ago, Kyoshi said:

Bittersweet for sure. Unless they try to be (extra) edgy next year by giving it to him anyway (crossing my fingers).

Just saw on twitter Abdulrazak Gurnah has sold only 3000 copies of his books worldwide, combined.* The Swedish Academy is sketchy for sure, but I can't say I'm not also really happy about this one.

*of course one has to take into account the accuracy of twitter claims.

Looking on Goodreads he's got about 3000 ratings for his books, which is not a huge number but that would only be a fraction of the total readers so I think significantly more than 3000 copies.

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the original twitter referenced the US sales as being 3,000--not global sales.  publisher's weekly has the explanation:

Quote

Gurnah's books are not widely available in the U.S. as, despite having been published here consistently, many of them are currently out of print. Sales of foreign literature in America are often small for all but the best-known writers, and Gurnah's work is no exception; according to NPD BookScan, his best-selling book in the U.S., Desertion, has sold under 2,000 copies at outlets that report to the service since the book's 2005 publication.

not sure how to discover the global sales. ask his agent, i suppose.

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