PATH TO THE PRIZE : Ask not what your country can do for you, but how you can win a Nobel for your country

You say I am a riddle--it may be

For all of us are riddles unexplained

Begun in pain, in deeper torture ended

This breathing clay, what business has it here?

Some petty wants to chain us to the earth,

Some lofty thoughts to lift us to the spheres

And cheat us with that semblance of a soul

To dream of immortality, til Time

O’er empty visions draws the closing veil

And a new life sets in--the life of worms

Those hungry plunderers of the human breast . . .

--Alfred Nobel

*

When the Swedish dynamite inventor (and sometime poet) Alfred Nobel died in 1896 at age 63, he left an explosive legacy. His estate--worth an estimated $9 million at the time and scattered across eight countries--was to be invested in blue-ribbon securities. The annual income was to be divided in five equal parts and used to bestow five annual awards “as prizes to those who, during the course of each year, have been of the greatest service to mankind.”

Nobel, who never married and had no immediate family, apparently believed that large fortunes should not be inherited. Nobel’s nieces and nephews--save one, Emanuel--vigorously fought the terms of the will for three years, at one point even engaging the King of Sweden to argue with Emanuel that his uncle had “been misled by peace fanatics.” Nobel’s fellow Swedes were none too happy when the details of his bequest became public. Many inhabitants of the impoverished and largely agricultural country were unhappy with the idea that such a vast fortune might benefit foreigners.

Nobel instructed that three of the awards were to recognize discoveries in chemistry, physics and medicine, three areas in which he had worked or dabbled. The Peace Prize was to be given to the person who had done the most “for fraternity among nations, for abolition or reduction of standing armies, and for the holding and promotion of peace congresses.” Nobel delegated this task to the Norwegian parliament to honor the union of Sweden and Norway. Although the two countries parted in 1905, Norway still presents the prize. An annual prize for economics, established and financed by the Bank of Sweden, was established in Nobel’s name in 1968.

The final award was to go to the person who had produced the most outstanding literary work of an “ideal tendency.” In addition, Nobel wrote: “It is my express wish that, when the prizes are awarded, there shall be no kind of racial discrimination, wherefore the most worthy person shall receive the prize, whether he is a Scandinavian or not.”

After five years of haggling over Nobel’s will and estate, the executors finally created the Nobel Foundation to oversee the institutes that administer the prizes, and to enforce the prize rules. The Swedish Academy of Letters--an association of writers and academics established by King Gustav III in 1786 to promote Swedish language and literature--was charged with choosing the annual winners of one of the world’s richest literary awards. Members of the Academy are Swedish writers and literary scholars and critics who are elected for life by the Academy itself.

That Special Something

Each generation of the Academy has redefined its sense of what Nobel meant by “ideal tendency.” The prizes first reflected a conservative version of “ideal tendency”: a firm belief in God’s order on Earth based on the family. Later, it was decided (by interpreting a letter from a close friend of the inventor) that Nobel meant a critical stance toward religion, the monarchy, marriage and the social order as a whole. In the 1920s and ‘30s, newly elected Academy members took “ideal tendency” to mean profound human sympathy and broadly humanitarian authorship.

In the 1970s there was renewed emphasis on Nobel’s wish to promote authors who were still active and the Academy began to emphasize what it called neglected pioneers, masters, genres, languages and cultures. Members of the Academy also thought the prize should bring attention to writers not necessarily known to a worldwide audience. One Academy member said the prize should bring attention to writers on “efforts which are not gaining the respect they deserve.”

Making the Short List

No writer can apply for a Nobel Prize. Indeed, self-nomination can rule one out for life. Rather, according to the Academy statutes: “The right to nominate candidates for the prize shall be enjoyed by members of the Swedish Academy and of other academies, institutions, and societies, who are similar to it in constitution and purpose; by professors of literature, Nobel prize winners of literature, and presidents of those societies of authors that are representative of the literary production of their respective countries.”

A subgroup of the Academy--the Nobel Committee--reviews the nominations it receives from former laureates, academics and various institutions worldwide that have an interest in literature. From this list, the committee forms a secret “short list” of writers whose works are to be scrutinized and debated by the entire Academy.

Near the end of May, the “short list” is distributed to all Academy members so that they can spend their summer holidays reading and briefing themselves for the fall discussions that lead to the choice of that year’s laureate.

Nominations must be received no later than Feb. 1 of each year (Tolstoy’s backers learned this rule the hard way: In 1901, they failed to nominate him in time, and the first Nobel went to Sully Prudhomme of France, despite the fact that it had been quite some time since he had produced his great works. Tolstoy never did receive a Nobel.) Writers also apparently cannot hope to reach the final stages of consideration unless they have been nominated several years in a row.

The annual list of candidates is a closely guarded secret, as are the details of the group’s deliberations. (But the Academy’s records are opened after 50 years, and this has allowed insight into why some candidates were accepted or rejected, resulting in numerous books and articles on the selection process itself.) The names of the nominees are not published, there is never any announcement regarding the proportion of votes, and the decision of the Academy cannot be appealed.

When the Academy makes its decision, 12 of its 18 members must be present or have sent in ballots. If no candidate receives more than half the votes, the awarding of the prize is postponed, and may be reserved until the following year. This has happened 13 times in the history of the awards, primarily during World Wars I and II, when the world situation prevented the gathering of information required to reach a decision. If the prize is not awarded in the second year, the prize money reverts to the foundation.

And the Award Goes to . . .

Nobel laureates typically receive a gold medal, a diploma with a short statement listing the Academy’s reasons for awarding the prize, and a check for the prize money. The statutes declare that the winner will give a lecture within six months of becoming a laureate, but this rule has not always been observed. If a laureate refuses the honor for any reason (or has been made to refuse) but later requests that the prize be awarded, the medal and the diploma may be awarded without the money because it has already been returned to the foundation.

From the august manner in which the prize is announced--the Academy’s permanent secretary reads a short statement from the Academy’s headquarters atop the magnificent Royal Stock Exchange building in Stockholm at exactly 1 p.m. on a Thursday in October--the casual observer might think the final decision is made in a peaceful, orderly manner. Such, apparently, is not the case.

Academy members understandably have favored candidates, and tempers often flare as they argue on their behalf. Back-room dealing surfaces as members agree to vote for candidates in return for support for their favorites in subsequent years. Historically, such infighting has been kept within the walls of the Academy; the only way for a member to protest was to boycott the group’s weekly meetings.

Although politics is not supposed to enter into the Academy’s decision making, it obviously has. In 1982, when Gabriel Garcia Marquez won the prize, political implications were apparent when the Academy cited Marquez’s fiction as “strongly committed politically on the side of the poor and against domestic oppression and foreign economic exploitation.” In 1990, three members of the Academy resigned, accusing the group of failing to protest strongly enough Iran’s death threat against British author Salman Rushdie. One Academy member said Rushdie was “too controversial,” and hadn’t yet “attained the literary standing necessary for serious consideration.”

In 1983, Academy member Artur Lundkvist--a radical novelist in his youth and 1958 winner of the Lenin Peace Prize--broke the Academy’s pledge of silence, telling reporters he didn’t think that year’s winner--British novelist William Golding--deserved the prize. Lundkvist claimed the Academy had split its vote between Golding and his choice--Claude Simon, a Frenchman who Lundkvist claimed had had a “Faulknerian” influence on Latin American writers. The Academy secretary said, however, that the group voted by a “great majority” in favor of Golding, whom Lundkvist denounced as “a little English phenomenon of no special interest.”

Over more than 90 years of prizes, the Academy has been criticized for giving prizes mostly to Western European and American writers (out of 89 literature prizes, only 30 went to non-Western Europeans), although this has changed in the last 10 years.

These days, the Swedes show none of their initial hesitation over Nobel’s charge that they administer the awards. The annual ceremony and banquet to honor the Nobel laureates is one of the highlights of the Swedish social calendar, and foreign press coverage of the awards almost always places Sweden in a favorable light.

This year’s prizes will be announced later this month, and Prize Day is Dec. 10, the anniversary of Nobel’s death.

So, if you think you or someone you know is Nobel fodder, you had better get busy. The deadline for next year’s nominations is fast approaching. Remember Tolstoy.

THE NOBEL PRIZE IN LITERATURE

Winners Worldwide France: 13 United States: 8 (The first African American laureate won in 1993--Toni Morrison.) Britain: 7 Sweden: 7 Germany: 6 Italy: 5 Spain: 5 Soviet Union: 4 Denmark: 3 Norway: 3 Switzerland: 3 Chile: 2 Greece: 2 Ireland: 2 Poland: 2 Australia: 1 Belgium: 1 Bulgaria: 1 Colombia: 1 Czechoslovakia: 1 Egypt: 1 (The first Arab laureate won in 1988--Egyptian Naguib Mahfouz) Finland: 1 Guatemala: 1 Iceland: 1 India: 1 (The first non-European won in 1913--Rabindranath Tagore.) Israel: 1 Japan: 1 Mexico: 1 Nigeria: 1 (The first black laureate won in 1986--Wole Soyinka of Nigeria) South Africa: 1 West Indies: 1 (The first Caribbean laureate won in 1992--West Indian Derek Walcott) Yugoslavia: 1

NOBEL STEP-BY-STEP

1) Write not one but many great pieces. The prize recognizes a body of work rather than a single great book. In most cases, authors can’t hope to reach the final stages of consideration unless they have been nominated several consecutive times.

2) Nominations are made by Feb. 1 of each year to the Swedish Academy of Letters, an association of writers and academics.

3) Self-nomination isn’t permitted. Under academy statutes, nominations are made by members of the academy and other similar institutions; professors; past Nobel literature prizewinners and others involved in serious literature.

4) When the academy makes its decision, 12 members must be present or have sent in ballots. If no candidate has received more than half the votes, the awarding of the prize is postponed and may be delayed until the following year.

5) The names of nominees are not published, nor is any announcement made of how voting went. The academy’s decision can’t be appealed.

6) The Nobel Prize For Literature is announced from the Royal Stock Exchange building in Stockholm at exactly 1 p.m. on a Thursday in October.

7) Prize Day is Dec. 10, the anniversary of Nobel’s death. Winners typically receive a gold medal, a diploma with a short statement listing the Academy’s reasons for awarding the prize and a check for the prize money.

NOBEL CURIOSITIES

* Jean-Paul Sartre refused his 1964 Nobel, saying he feared it would turn him into an institution.

* George Bernard Shaw very nearly declined his in 1925, but eventually donated the prize to a fund for the translation of Swedish literature into English.

* The Soviets refused to allow Boris Pasternak and Alexander Solzhenitsyn to accept their awards in 1958 and 1970, respectively.

* After missing the deadline in 1901, Leo Tolstoy was rejected because he “preached theoretical anarchism and mystical Christianity,” and because he gave “sheer coincidence a decisive role in world events.”

* Thomas Hardy was snubbed because his heroines “seem to lack any religious and ethical substance.”

* Emile Zola was rejected because of his “crudely cynical naturalism.”

* Henrik Ibsen was turned down because of he was “negative and puzzling in an offensive way.”

* August Strindberg, who often opposed the Swedish establishment and referred to the award as “dynamite money,” was never considered.

* Graham Greene was often nominated but never a winner. (Academy member Artur Lundkvist revealed once that he considered Greene too popular and that, in any case, he didn’t need the money.)

Nobel laureates you’ve probably never heard of: Jacinto Benavente Giosue Carducci Grazia Deledda Rudolph Eucken Paul Heyse Carl Spitteler Sully Prudhomme

THE PURSE

The value of the prize is determined by how the foundation’s investments are paying off. The approximate value of the award in recent years: 1911: $40,000 1921: $40,000 1930: $46,000 1950: $32,000 1960: $44,000 1970: $78,000 1975: $143,000 1980: $212,000 1985: $225,000 1990: $700,000 1993: $825,000

The Laureates

1901: Rene F.A. Sully-Prudhomme (1839-1907), French. 1902: Theodor Mommsen (1817-1903), German. 1903: Bjornstjerne Bjornson (1832-1910), Norwegian. 1904: Frederic Mistral (1830-1914), French. Jose Echegaray (1832-1916), Spanish. 1905: Henryk Sienkiewicz (1846-1916), Polish. 1906: Giosue Carducci (1835-1907), Italian. 1907: Rudyard Kipling (1856-1936), British. 1908: Rudolf C. Eucken (1846-1926), German. 1909: Selma Lagerlof (1858-1940), Swedish. 1910: Paul J.L. Heyse (1830-1914), German. 1911: Maurice Maeterlinck (1862-1949), Belgian. 1912: Gerhart Hauptmann (1862-1946), German. 1913: Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941), Indian. 1914: NO PRIZE (During several of the WWI and WWII years, the world situation prevented the gathering of infomation necessary for candidates to win more than half the votes). 1915: Romain Rolland (1866-1944), French. 1916: Verner von Heidenstam (1859-1940), Swedish. 1917: Karl A. Gjellerup (1857-1919), Danish. Henrik Pontoppidan (1857-1943), Danish. 1919: Carl F.G. Spitteler (1845-1924), Swiss. 1920: Knut Hamsun (1859-1952), Norwegian. 1921: Anatole France (1844-1924), French. 1922: Jacinto Benavente y Martinez (1866-1954), Spanish. 1923: William Butler Yeats (1865-1939), Irish. 1924: Ladislaus S. Reymont (1868-1925), Polish. 1925: George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950), British (born in Ireland). 1926: Grazia Deledda (1875-1936), Italian. 1927: Henri Bergson (1859-1941), French. 1928: Sigrid Undset (1882-1949), Norwegian (born in Denmark). 1929: Thomas Mann (1875-1955), German. 1930: Sinclair Lewis (1885-1951), American. 1931: Erik A. Karlfeldt (1864-1931), Swedish (awarded posthumously). 1932: John Galsworthy (1867-1933), British. 1933: Ivan A. Bunin (1870-1953), French (born in Russia). 1934: Luigi Pirandello (1867-1936), Italian. 1936: Eugene O’Neill (1888-1953), American. 1937: Roger Martin du Gard (1881-1958), French. 1938: Pearl S. Buck (1892-1973), American. 1939: Frans E. Sillanpaa (1888-1964), Finnish. 1944: Johannes Jensen, Danish 1945: Gabriela Mistral, Chilean 1946: Hermann Hesse, Swiss 1947: Andre Gide, French 1948: Thomas Eliot, British 1949: William Faulkner, American (awarded in 1950) 1950: Bertrand Russell, British 1951: Par Lagerkvist, Swedish 1952: Francois Mauriac, French 1953: Winston Churchill, British 1954: Ernest Hemingway, American 1955: Halldor Laxness, Icelandic 1956: Juan Ramon Jimenez, Spanish 1957: Albert Camus, French 1958: Boris Pasternak, Soviet (forced to decline award) 1959: Salvatore Quasimodo, Italian 1960: Saint-John Perse, French 1961: Ivo Andric, Yugoslav 1962: John Steinbeck, American 1963: Giorgos Seferis, Greek 1964: Jean-Paul Sartre, French (declined award) 1965: Mikhail Sholokhov, Soviet 1966: Shmuel Y. Agnon, Polish-born Israeli 1966: Nelly Sachs, German-born Swede 1967: Miguel A. Asturias, Guatemalan 1968: Yasunari Kawabata, Japanese 1969: Samuel Beckett, Irish 1970: Alexander Solzhenitsyn, Soviet 1971: Pablo Neruda, Chilean 1972: Heinrich Boell, German 1973: Patrick White, Australian 1974: Eyvind Johnson, Swedish 1974: Harry Martinson, Swedish 1975: Eugenio Montale, Italian 1976: Saul Bellow, American 1977: Vicente Aleixandre, Spanish 1978: Isaac Bashevis Singer, Polish-born American 1979: Odysseus Elytis, Greek 1980: Czeslaw Milosz, Polish-born American 1981: Elias Canetti, Bulgarian-born Briton 1982: Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Colombian 1983: William Golding, British 1984: Jaroslav Seifert, Czechoslovakian 1985: Claude Simon, French 1986: Wole Soyinka, Nigerian 1987: Joseph Brodsky, Soviet-born American 1988: Naguib Mahfouz, Egyptian 1989: Camilo Jose Cela, Spanish 1990: Octavio Paz, Mexican 1991: Nadine Gordimer, South African 1992: Derek Walcott, St. Lucia, West Indian 1993: Toni Morrison, American (There were no prizes awarded in 1914, 1918, 1935, 1940, 1941, 1942 and 1943.) Sources: Facts on File, and World Almanac

Researched by Peter Johnson