Today’s poetry news roundup takes a look at what might be for this year’s Nobel Prize for Literature and the celebrations for the 250th anniversary of the birth of Samuel Coleridge.
Will the 2022 Nobel Literature Prize Winner be Another Poet?
Speculation is growing in the literary world as the Swedish Academy gear up to make the big announcement on Thursday this week, just who will be the winner of this year’s Noble Prize for Literature. In recent years, the committee have become well known for its preference for lesser-known writers.
The last two winners that they have named were Louise Gluck the US poet, and the Tanzanian author Abdulrazak Gurnah – neither of whom have been widely translated or had a particularly wide public reach.
The society will be anxious to continue to distance itself from scandals and unpopular decisions following the #MeToo scandal that rocked their numbers in 2018 and led to the postponement of the prize in the same year and then the decision to honour Peter Handke, the Austrian author as the winner in 2019 despite his controversial views regarding Slobodan Milosevic, the former president of Serbia.
The talk in the industry is, however, increasingly turning to the thought that this year’s winner may very well be a more well-known name. and those making the speculations have put forward names like Margaret Atwood, Salman Rushdie and Lyudmila Ulitskaya, the outspoken Russian author who has been very vocal against the actions of the Kremlin against Ukraine.
The controversy that a win for Ulitskaya would spark all over the world may be seen as a political move, however. It might be something that the Nobel Prize Committee may prefer to avoid. The same could be said about the possibility of Salman Rushdie being named the winner; whilst his name has been in the papers recently as a result of the attempt on his life that was made in August, it actually took the Academy a staggering 27 years to denounce the fatwa that was placed on the author by Iran – something that they said at the time was as a result of the necessity for them to remain independent and neutral.
One thing is certain, with their promise a few years ago to ensure that they are more inclusive and more diverse in their distribution of this prestigious prize, this year’s announcement could very well prove to be an interesting one.
Birth of Samuel Coleridge Honoured in Ottery
A statue in honour of the Romantic poet Samuel Coleridge is to be unveiled on 22nd October in Ottery just outside the church of St Marys in the village. The event has been timed to coincide with the time and date of the poet’s birth, and Ottley has been chosen as it was his birthplace.
A modern reenactment of The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, Coleridge’s most famous poem, will also take place on the same day in London, very close to where the poet and his entire family are buried. The event will mark the 250thanniversary of the birth of the poet.
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