Writers who did not win the Nobel Prize for Literature

In a year in which the Nobel Prize in Literature is suspended in 117 years of trajectory, review the history of one of the most prestigious awards in letters has made us rescue these following writers who did not win the Nobel Prize for Literature. Authors that despite the critical and public success throughout their career were always eternal candidates for the pools.

Haruki Murakami

Those writers who never won the Nobel Prize for Literature are known as «the lost nobels«. A design of which the Japanese Haruki Murakami is the greatest representative. Eternal candidate for the Swedish Academy award and a name that appears every year in the pools, the author of Tokyo Blues and Kafka on the shore has been overshadowed by other writers of Japanese origin who have won the Nobel such as Kazuo Ishiguro. Among the reasons why Murakami has been denied the award, there are various theories, including the status of best-seller that his works have achieved and how little the Academy likes it, or the light novel character indicated by various critics in his beginnings in reference to his simple style. However, we trust that the most famous Japanese writer in the world win the award some day.

Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o

In recent years, another of the recurring authors in the pools for the Nobel Prize in Literature has been Thiong'o, a writer of Kenyan origin who defended the culture of the Kikuyu people, its performing arts, its language and literature in the face of the oppression of the colonizing powers. Author of works that are already part of the contemporary history of Africa such as A grain of wheat or the recommended essay Decolonize the mind, this writer exiled from his home country should become an award winner thanks to his hard work as a defender and voice of the black continent. The reasons are still unknown.

Jorge Luis Borges

If there is a Latin American author who deserved the Nobel, it was Jorge Luis Borges. Maker of a prose that would forever change the trajectory of XNUMXth century literatureBorges sounded like a candidate for the two decades prior to his death in 1986 without ever being a winner. In fact, the year his name rang loudest was 1976, although his meeting with Pinochet that September 22 served to discard him altogether. One more reason to think that, as happened with the author of The Aleph, other authors never received the award for political reasons.

Virginia Woolf

A member of the select London literary scene of the 20s and one of the women who helped the integration of feminism In various areas of society, Virginia Woolf had to break through at a time when machismo invaded everything. In fact, a woman's inability to write in a male-dominated world was the main theme of his famous essay A Room of His Own, a work that would be rediscovered in the 70s during the feminist movement. Author of works as popular as Mrs. Dalloway or At the Lighthouse, Woolf was bypassed by the Academy at a time when the world seemed unprepared to reward a female writer.

Franz Kafka

The author of Jewish origin is one of the most influential in XNUMXth century literature by creating unusual stories, totally removed from what was conceived so far. Writer of the novels The Trial, The Castle, The Missing and the famous MetamorphosisKafka never won the Nobel Prize for Literature, according to experts, for a literary vision for which the Academy was not yet ready. However, time has proved an author whose influence on current jargon and literary works is totally palpable.

Leo Tolstoy

They say that during the celebration of the first Nobel Prize in Literature in 1901, the Russian Leon Tolstoy sounded like the main candidate to win the award. However, it eventually fell to the French poet Sully Prudhome. Years later, after the publication of a book by the Swedish academic Kjell Espmarkse that explained the reasons that led to the award, it was learned that the Academy refused to offer him the award, considering his work as an "inadversion against culture" as well as against culture. Church and State. A rejection that the author of Guerra y paz He came to thank, claiming that "he preferred not to receive money that was full of evil."

James Joyce

According to Gabriel García Márquez, James Joyce was the most influential writer of the XNUMXth century for many reasons. But the main one was his ability to adapt a classic like Homer's Odyssey to 1910s Dublin giving away a captivating novel and perhaps too transgressive for its time. In fact, as stated by the aforementioned academic Kjell Espmark, "the Academy was not prepared for this new type of literature, relying more on traditionalist letters." Mentor of a generation that still celebrates the famous bloomsday Every June 16, Joyce is another of the great forgotten by the Nobel Prize committee.

Julio Cortazar

Beyond the very phenomenon that the so-called "Latin American boom" supposed in the 60s, Julio Cortázar was an author who revolutionized the style and way of telling stories. For example, his work remains Rayuela, which was a challenge for readers of his time (and today). At the time, the author was asked if he would like to win the Nobel Prize for Literature, to which Cortázar replied "Yes, I would like to get it to use it as a political weapon against those Latin American writers who sold themselves to fascism." The reasons why he never got to win the Nobel are not clear, but we intuit that the Academy never liked them the authors so politically incorrect like Cortázar.

Do you think these writers who did not win the Nobel Prize in Literature deserved the award? What other authors would you include?