[lit-ideas] Nobel Prize for Doris Lessing...
- From: "Andreas Ramos" <andreas@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: "Lit-Ideas" <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Fri, 12 Oct 2007 15:29:33 -0700
Lessing's Reaction
Doris Lessing told reporters yesterday after the announcement of her Nobel
victory: "I can't say I'm overwhelmed with surprise. . . . I'm 88 years old
and they can't give the Nobel to someone who's dead, so I think they were
probably thinking they'd probably better give it to me now before I've
popped off."
She also said, "This has been going on for 30 years. I've won all the prizes
in Europe, every bloody one, so I'm delighted to win them all. It's a royal
flush."
Academy secretary Horace Engdahl told Reuters that "members of the academy
had discussed her as a potential laureate for years." He said: "Now the
moment was right. Perhaps we could say that she is one of the most carefully
considered decisions in the history of the Nobel Prize. She has opened up a
new area of experience that earlier had not been very accepted in
literature. That has to do with, for instance, female sexuality."
Meanwhile, NYT reporter Motoko Rich sent a dispatch from the Fair via the
Papercuts blog, reporting on reaction to the Doris Lessing news. In the
jubilant Harper booth, Patrice Hoffman from France's Flammarion noted
"Lessing's reputation in France has been revived with the publication of
'The Grandmothers,' a short story that originally appeared in a volume with
three other shorter works. The story, about two mothers who have sexual
relationships with each other's sons, has sold 40,000 copies in France."
Harper was intrigued by the possibility of doing the same.
-----
Doing the same? With the sons of other publishers?
yrs,
andreas
www.andreas.com
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