Louise Glück Should Refuse the Nobel Prize for Literature. Heres Why.
The Swedish Academy, which selects the Nobel winner, is a corrupt
institution that has tolerated genocide denial and sexual assault.
Peter Maass
October 7 2020, 4:00 a.m. The Intercept
I DONT KNOW what the American poet Louise Glück said when the Swedish
Academy informed her that she won this years Nobel Prize for Literature,
but I know what she should have said: Thanks, but no thanks.
October is the season of the Nobel Prizes, when a handful of people are
catapulted into fame and fortune due to the philanthropic legacy of the
inventor of dynamite. Four of the six prizes named after Alfred Nobel are
generally uncontroversial physics, chemistry, medicine, and economics
but the peace and literature prizes arouse passions. There is good reason to
be dubious of the peace prize, which has gone to some great people and
organizations but also went to Henry Kissinger and Aung San Suu Kyi. Yet
its the literature prize that, in its current form, has definitely outlived
its usefulness and caused great damage.
Last year, the Nobel Prize for Literature was awarded to Peter Handke, an
Austrian writer who created a set of impressive literary works in the first
part of his career but since the 1990s fell into a morass of genocide
denial. In recent decades, Handke wrote at least a half-dozen books and
plays that downplayed and denied the genocide committed by Serbs against
Muslims during Bosnias war. Handke even attended the funeral, and delivered
an eulogy, for the former leader of Serbia, Slobodan Milosevic, who died
while on trial for war crimes.
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Literary awards have consequences in the real world. The Serb
ultra-nationalists whom Handke defends are heroes to violent white
extremists throughout Europe and in the United States. By giving a Nobel
prize to Handke, the Swedish Academy, which selects the literature winner,
essentially ratified a conspiracy theory embedded in his work: that Muslims
represent a threat to Christians they live with. Handkes genocide-denying
books, rather than being relegated to the rubbish, were vested with the
authority of the Nobel Prize.
The Swedish Academy is a strange organization. It has just 18 members who
are appointed for life and who select new members by secret ballot and the
countrys king must approve them. The decision to give the 2019 prize to
Handke is not the only evidence of the organizations unfitness to manage
the literature prize. The Academy had to postpone the 2018 award because of
revelations that for decades it had abetted sexual harassment and rape by
the husband of one of its members. Once that scandal broke open, thanks to
the investigative work of journalist Matilda Gustavsson of Dagens Nyheter,
the dismal response of the male-dominated Academy included forcing out a
female member, Sara Danius, who was pushing for sweeping reforms in its
ranks.
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In a way, we can be thankful for these scandals because they are reminders
of the need to implement a root-and-branch reform of the Nobel literature
prize. For much of its existence, the prize generally served as a referendum
on the best in Western literature. For that task, the 18 members of the
Swedish Academy were a serviceable jury. But more than ever, the reach and
aspiration of the Nobel literature prize is truly global. It is laughable
and tragic that an award of such influence should be controlled by a tiny
and secretive group of Swedes, let alone ones who have shown themselves to
be abettors of sexual assault and genocide denial.
The Nobel Foundation, which oversees all the Nobel Prizes, would do the
world a huge favor by firing the Swedish Academy. I dont have a precise
proposal for a replacement, but it would seem wise for a world literature
prize to be decided by a diverse jury for whom non-European languages such
as Chinese, Hindi, Arabic, and Urdu are first or second languages. And it
would be wise to not have these jurors appointed for life, because
unassailable privilege is an inherent force of rot.
It was expected that the Swedish Academy would announce a safe choice
today who would not invite criticism that is to say, an individual who
unlike Handke does not support genocide and is not European and is not male.
Glück, a celebrated and uncontroversial poet who lives in Massachusetts,
checks every box. The Academy, in this scenario, hopes it will have ridden
out its scandals and shown that it can do the job. But lets not be fooled.
The Swedish Academy is fatally flawed. It will do wrong again because it
cannot surmount its inherent limitations
Its the moment to challenge corrupt institutions rather than thank them.
The Nobel Foundation has not shown a willingness to do what it should.
Thats why Glück should refuse the award to force a desperately needed
change that would benefit the worlds readers and writers. Glück would
become materially poorer by passing up the $1 million prize money, but she
would probably become more famous and, who knows, that could lead to more
book sales. Writers are supposed to be forces of conscience, so standing up
to the Swedish Academy would be fitting. It has happened before: In 1964,
Jean-Paul Sartre refused to accept his literature Nobel.
Thats a lot to ask for, of course. There is a halfway point accept the
award but ceaselessly call out the Swedish Academy, which has little
backbone. Bob Dylan, the literature laureate in 2016, didnt even issue a
statement of thanks and sent Patti Smith to the award ceremony, and he still
got the check. The year is 2020, a time of emergency. Its the moment to
challenge corrupt institutions rather than thank them.
