Place Your Bets

Tomorrow the Nobel Prize for Literature winner will be announced. For anyone looking to make their bets, here are the latest odds.

I must say that of the names from this list, my pick would be Ernesto Cardenal (though I am unfamiliar with many of the other candidates). I would love to see Nicanor Parra get the award, but he’s not even on the goddamn list. Sad.

I’d be pleased if Ngugi wa Thiong'o nabbed it as well. Murakami? I’d be nice, but it’ll never happen. At least not this year. Besides, Murakami, as much as I love him, is too popular for the likes of the Nobel crowd, or so say many of their detractors. You never know... I mean, Toni Morrison won it and she is pretty damn popular.

If Joyce Carol Oats wins, that’d not really rile me, but I am hardly a fan. It would be on par with Doris Lessing winning two years back. I can’t understand the decision, personally. Phillip Roth is always considered a likely American candidate, but the award has long eluded him. Many like to speculate as to the reasons why, which you can find by Googling the topic, should you be so inclined. his fans havea lot to say. Pynchon wouldn’t show up at the ceremony, so they’ll likely pass him over. Adonis’s name is always tossed about by the predictors. It would be nice if Tranströmer got it. He deserves it. He’s the real goddamn deal. Or Antonio Lobo Antunes. Or Adam Zagajewski. But please, don’t let Bob Dylan snag the fucking thing. That would give his rabid fans all the more reason to continue propping up that wheezy fuck as the genius he ain’t. I mean, he has a few songs, sure, but the Nobel fucking Prize? Ugh. The mere fact that his odds are 25/1 and Cardenal’s are 100/1 sickens me.