This year's Nobel Prize for Literature has been awarded to the US poet, Louise Glück.
She is the fourth woman to win the prize for literature since 2010, and only the 16th since the Nobel prizes were first awarded in 1901.
Glück was recognised for "her unmistakable poetic voice, that with austere beauty makes she individual existence universal" said the Swedish Academy, which oversees the award.
Glück, born 1943 in New York, lives in Massachusetts and is also professor of English at Yale University.
Glück won the Pulitzer Prize in 1993 for her collection The Wild Iris and the National Book Award in 2014. Her other honours include the 2001 Bollingen Prize for Poetry, the Wallace Stevens Award, given in 2008, and a National Humanities Medal, awarded in 2015.
Her poetry focuses on the painful reality of being human, dealing with themes such as death, childhood, and family life. She also takes inspiration from Greek mythology and its characters, such as Persephone and Eurydice, who are often the victims of betrayal.
The Academy said her 2006 collection Averno was a "masterly collection, a visionary interpretation of the myth of Persephone's descent into Hell in the captivity of Hades, the god of death".
The chair of the Nobel prize committee, Anders Olsson, also praised the poet's "candid and uncompromising" voice, which is "full of humour and biting wit".
Her 12 collections of poetry are "characterised by a striving for clarity", he added, comparing her with Emily Dickinson with her "severity and unwillingness to accept simple tenets of faith".
The Nobel prize is given to the person who has "produced in the field of literature the most outstanding work in an ideal direction".
* Courtesy, BBC
Congratulations!!
ReplyDeleteKUDOS, indeed !
ReplyDeleteA wonderful feat. Something to celebrate and cherish forever. Well done
ReplyDeleteI remember when Wole Soyinka won the Nobel Award in Literature many decades ago – the first black African to do so – it was a stupendous feat, something to relish forever. Imagine such luster and allure. Toni Morrison I think was the first black woman (and American) to win it. No words can describe the respect that goes with winning such a global award. Congratulations to Gluck.
ReplyDeleteA towering wordsmith.... now world celebrated...even here in Africa! Congratulations
ReplyDeleteAt least some outstanding African writers have won the Nobel for Literature over the decades, apart from Nigeria’s Soyinka, South Africa has produced two winners, Nardine Gordimer and Coetze. One African writer who more than deserves to win the Award is Kenya’s Ngugi wa Thiong’o. Hope his time comes
ReplyDeleteGreat African writers who deserve to have won the Nobel for Literature! An interesting topic, but firstly let me congratulate Ms Gluck here for her sterling achievement. In Africa I think Ayi Kwei Armah (Ghana), probably my most favourite writer, deserves the award, what a wonderful essayist, polemicist and creative writer! Others include Es’kia Mphahlele of South Africa, Zakes Mda also of southern Africa. Ngugi of course is probably the closest, African-wise. Tsitsi Dangaremmbga of Zimbabwe would have many rooting for her, and of course Chimamanda Adochie of Nigeria. Talking of Nigeria, it remains a mystery why the great great Chinua Achebe was not honoured with the Nobel.
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