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leon284
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Cool Articles on Rowling

Post by leon284 »

somente queria poer este erticulo no website!
just wanted to put this article on the website ... i think the author is right!!

http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/opinio ... -headlines

From the Baltimore Sun
Set aside snobbery: Rowling's wizardry worthy of Nobel

Click here to find out more!
By Douglas MacKinnon

June 7, 2007

Orhan Pamuk. Elfriede Jelinek. Imre Kertesz. And ... J. K. Rowling?

In recent years, the Swedish Academy has awarded the Nobel Prize in literature to the first three authors on the preceding list. Heard of them or their books? Come on, be honest now. If you answered in the affirmative, congratulations on being a lover of obscure and unread literature.

I want to state clearly that I have absolutely nothing against Mr. Pamuk, Ms. Jelinek or Mr. Kertesz. In fact, I'm thrilled for them. However, as a fellow author - one who is never going to be getting a call from anyone in Stockholm - I am disgusted with the elitist attitude of the academy's Nobel Prize nominating committee for literature. It is failing in its duties, and in so doing, it's giving the love of reading and literature a bad name.

According to the Nobel Web site, when Alfred Nobel drew up his partly incomplete will, he stated that prizes should be given to those who, during the preceding year, "shall have conferred the greatest benefit on mankind," and that one part be given to the person who "shall have produced in the field of literature, the most outstanding work in an ideal direction."

Those instructions seem plain enough. While the Swedish Academy will never admit it, though, over the last number of years, the winners of the literature prize have at times been politically correct choices, relatively unread authors or both. I guess that standard is fine for academics, the intelligentsia and the media elite, but that litmus test and those choices do little to represent or promote "the greatest benefit on mankind."

One wonders: Does the mere fact that millions of people chose to buy the book of a "commercial" author automatically cause the academy to remove him or her from their august nominating list? Does the academy secretly hate the fact that people buy and read books?

Knowing it will never happen, I would nonetheless like to propose to the Swedish Academy that it nominate someone who has single-handedly reintroduced reading and literature to a large part of the world. I suggest that for the 2007 Nobel Prize in literature, the Swedish Academy select the formidable Ms. Rowling, whose Harry Potter books have brought joy, escape and peace of mind to hundreds of millions of people.

Before they turn up their already elevated noses and laugh at the very thought, in the name of Alfred Nobel, they might give the idea serious consideration. By any honest assessment of what Mr. Nobel had in mind for his prizes, Ms. Rowling more than fits the bill.

Of course, there is precedent for anti-Harry snobbery. Back in 2000, Ms. Rowling and her novel The Prisoner of Azkaban were up for the Whitbread Book of the Year award - the consummate literary honor in Britain. Sadly but predictably, one of the judges said it would be a "national humiliation" if Ms. Rowling won. Another judge defended Ms. Rowling, saying, "That is one of the most pompous things I've ever heard." She lost by a 5-4 vote.

Elitism aside, what greater gift can literature receive than a work that awakens hundreds of millions of children - and their parents - to the power of words and books? What greater tool can the dream of peace have than a book that enables the mind of a child, or an adult, to at least temporarily escape the pain of war, poverty, abuse or dysfunction? Is that not the ultimate "ideal direction"? Growing up, my brother, sister and I knew more than our fair share of pain and poverty. We learned quickly to rely on the immense power of the written word and its magical ability to transport one away from the turmoil of the moment.

This summer, Harry Potter and his wonderfully gifted creator will wave their holly and phoenix-feathered wand once again and unleash the seventh novel in the series. It will sell tens of millions of copies to fans the world over. This, on top of the hundreds of millions the other six have sold. It's an achievement unmatched by any author in the history of writing.

The committee needs to get over itself, climb down from the ivory tower, stand with the unwashed Muggles and award a Nobel Prize in literature to the best-selling author on the planet.

Douglas MacKinnon, a former White House and Pentagon official, is the author of the new novel "America's Last Days." His e-mail is dmackinnon@sandw.com.
Mist
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Post by Mist »

Being a Swedish resident and a literature lover, yes, I had beforehand heard of and read some of the works of the Nobel Prize winners you mentioned.

Of course, there are a lot of authors well worthy of getting this prestigious prize. Many far more accomplished authors than Mrs Rowling, even if I love her work and marvellous books.
Many popular authors should have earned the Noble Prize of Literature, and rightly so, but didn't.

Further more there have just been seven winners from Sweden, if I remember correctly.
We have for one, an author of children's books loved all over the world, Astrid Lindgren, who never earned the prize.
Joyce Carol Oates ought to have it. Bob Dylan? I mean if Dario Fo, could recieve it, why not old Bob???
A couple of prize winners have refused to recieve the price!

Here are some of the winners from the beginning.

1901 Sully Prudhomme, France
1907 Rudyard Kipling, Great Britain
1921 Anatole France,France
1923 William Butler Yeats, Ireland
1925 George Bernhard Shaw, Ireland
1929 Thomas Mann, Germany
1930 Sinclair Lewis, USA
1936 Eugene O'Neill, USA
1938 Peral Buck, USA
1946, Herman Hesse, Germany/Switzerland
1948 T.S. Eliot, USA/Great Britain
1949 William Faulkner, USA
1954 Ernest Hemingway, USA
1957 Albert Camus, France
1959 Salvatore Quasimodo, Italy
1962 John Steinbeck, USA
1965 Michail Sjolochov, Soviet Union
1969 Samuel Beckett Ireland
1970 Alexandr Solzjenitsyn, Soviet Union
1971 Pablo Neruda, Chile
1973 Patrick White, Australia
1975 Eugenio Montale, Italy
1978 Isaac Bashevis Singer, Poland/USA
1982 Gabriel García Márquez
1983 William Goldiong, Great Britain
1990 Octavio Paz, Mexico
1991 Nadime Gordimer, South Africa
1998 José Saramago, Spain
1999 Gunther Grass, Germany
2001 V.S. Naipaul, Trinidad and Tobago/Great Britain
2005 Harold Pinter, Great Britain

I have read many books from the pen of these authors.

However, personally, I don't think that this is the right forum to discuss if the Nobel Price Commity, rightly or wrongly, chose the right candidates for this prize or not. It's also a bit insulting. :evil:

Why not write them personally to complain?
I think many awards have gone to USA already, as it is.
Toni Morrison recieved the prize, not so very long ago.
Yes, I have read her novels. :wink:

I had to edit this text a little afterwards because of spelling mistakes. (writing too quickly - lack of time.)
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