2001 Nobel Prize in Literature

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2001 Nobel Prize in Literature
Vidiadhar Surajprasad Naipaul
"for having united perceptive narrative and incorruptible scrutiny in works that compel us to see the presence of suppressed histories."
Date
  • 11 October 2001 (2001-10-11) (announcement)
  • 10 December 2001
    (ceremony)
LocationStockholm, Sweden
Presented bySwedish Academy
First awarded1901
WebsiteOfficial website
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The 2001

Lettres persanes and Candide. In a vigilant style, which has been deservedly admired, he transforms rage into precision and allows events to speak with their own inherent irony."[3] The Committee also noted Naipaul's affinity with the novelist Joseph Conrad
:

Naipaul is Conrad's heir as the annalist of the destinies of empires in the moral sense: what they do to human beings. His authority as a narrator is grounded in the memory of what others have forgotten, the history of the vanquished.[3]

Laureate

In the heart of many V.S. Naipaul's works, colonialism and post-colonial society are the main settings, and the key themes are alienation and identity in a heterogeneous society. When A House for Mr Biswas was released in 1961, it was an enormous hit and Naipaul's big break on the world stage. His other well-known literary prose include A Flag on the Island (1967), The Mimic Men (1967), In a Free State (1971), Guerrillas (1974).[4][5]

Deliberations

V. S. Naipaul had been considered by the Nobel committee for many years. He was nominated in 1973 by committee member Artur Lundkvist,[6] and according to another member, Anders Österling, Naipaul was one of the main contenders for the prize the following year.[7]

Reactions

The choice of V.S. Naipaul caused mixed reactions. In the Swedish newspaper

Antonio Lobo Antunes, Mario Vargas Llosa and Carlos Fuentes, perhaps the three most prominent novelists alive and still remarkably active and productive, right in the middle of a creativity booming with vigour."[8]

Nobel lecture

V. S. Naipaul delivered his Nobel Lecture entitled Two Worlds at the Swedish Academy in Stockholm on 7 December 2001.[9]

References

  1. ^ The Nobel Prize in Literature 2001 nobelprize.org
  2. New York Times
    . 11 October 2001. Retrieved 21 May 2021.
  3. ^ a b "The Nobel Prize in Literature 2001: V. S. Naipaul (Press Release)". Svenska Akademien. 11 October 2001. Archived from the original on 20 October 2012.
  4. ^ V. S. Naipaul – Facts nobelprize.org
  5. ^ V. S. Naipaul britannica.com
  6. ^ "Nobelarkivet-1973" (PDF). svenskaakademien.se. 2 January 2024. Retrieved 2 January 2024.
  7. ^ Johan Svedjedal Min egen elds kurir. Harry Martinsons författarliv, Albert Bonniers förlag 2023, p. 612
  8. ^ Helmer Lång Hundra nobelpris i litteratur 1901-2001, Symposion 2001, p.409-410
  9. ^ 2001 Nobel lecture nobelprize.org

External links