The Associated Press recently ran
a story that featured Horace Engdahl of the Swedish Academy, who select the Nobel Prize in Literature, explaining why no American has won the prize in years, nor will be likely to win one for years. His comments are similar to those I made a few years back when I wrote
an article for the Underground Literary Alliance, explaining why American authors shouldn't expect to win a Nobel. I wrote a
follow-up article a year later. I was going to make it an annual tradition, but frankly it was too depressing, because nothing changed in the literary world. Maybe now that a member of the Swedish Academy is also pointing such things out, literati will take notice. I'm not optimistic about that though because so far they all appear to be complaining about Engdahl's comments, and claiming he doesn't know enough about American literature. No, my fellow Americans, it's you who don't know enough about American literature. That's the problem. Good books go unnoticed while bad books get awards here. No wonder the Swedes think we're nuts.
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