What has Sally Prudhomme, Rabindranath Tagore, T. S. Eliot, John Steinbeck, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Pearl Buck and Elfriede Jolinek all have in common? They are all Nobel Prize laureates in Literature.
The Nobel Prize or the Alfred B. Nobel Prizes are widely regarded as the world’s most prestigious awards for intellectual achievement. They are awarded annually from a fund bequeathed for that purpose by the Swedish inventor and industrialist Alfred Bernhard Nobel and administered by the Nobel Foundation. Nobel’s 1895 will established prizes not only in literature but also, in physics, chemistry, physiology or medicine , peace and in 1969, added the prize for economic science Nominations are held before February and Prizes are announced in October and awarded in December in Stockholm or Oslo. In literature, recognition is granted for an author’s entire body of work and hence usually goes to a well-established writer. The past ten years winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature are: - 2006 - Orhan Pamuk. Turkish novelist “who in the quest foe the melancholic soul of his native city has discovered new symbols for the clash and interlacing of cultures.”
- 2005- Harold Pinter. British playwright “who in his plays uncovers the precipice under everyday prattle and forces entry into oppression’s closed rooms.”
- 2004 –Elfriede Jelinek. Austrian novelist and playwright awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature “for her musical flow of voices and counter-voices in novels and plays that with extraordinary linguistic zeal reveal the absurdity of society’s clichés and their subjugating power.”
4. 2003 – John Maxwell Coetzee. South American novelist awarded the Nobel Prize for being one “who in innumerable guises portrays the surprising involvement of the outsider.”
5. 2002 –Imre Kertesz. Hungarian novelist and essayist awarded “for writing that upholds the fragile experience of the individual against the barbaric arbitrariness of history.”
6. 2001 – V. S. Nipaul. Trinidadian novelist awarded “for having united perceptive narrative and incorruptible scrutiny in works that compel us to see the presence of suppressed histories.”
7. 2000 – Gao Xingjian. French national awarded “for an ouvre of universal validity, bitter insights and linguistic ingenuity, which has opened new paths for the Chinese novel and drama”.
8. 1999 –Gunter Grass . German poet, novelist, and playwright “whose frolicsome black fables portray the forgotten face of history.”
- 1998 – Jose Saramago. Portuguese writer “who with parables sustained by imagination, compassion and irony continually enables us once again to apprehend an elusory reality.”
10. 1997 – Dario Fo. Italian playwright “who emulates the jesters of the Middle Ages in scourging
authority and upholding the dignity of the downtrodden.”
The Nobel Prize in literature was first awarded in 1901 to the French poet and philosopher Sully Prudhomme “who in his poetry showed the “rare combination of the qualities of both heart and intellect. Over the years. the Nobel Prize in Literature has distinguished the works of authors from many different languages and cultural backgrounds. The prize has been awarded to unknown masters as well as authors acclaimed worldwide. However, the Nobel Prize is not the sole measure of literary excellence and lasting worth. Critics point out that many prominent writers have not been awarded the prize or ever been nominated.
The Top ten best selling books of all time which are:
1. The Bible. No one really knows how many copies of the Bible have been printed, sold or distributes the Bible Society’s attempt to calculate the number printed between 11816 and 19175 produced the figure of 2,458,000,000. A more recent survey , for the years up to 1992, put it closer to 6,000,000,000 in more than 2,000 languages and dialects. Whatever the precise figure, the Bible is by far the bestselling book of all time.”
2. Quotations from Chairman Mao Tse-Tung (Little Red Book).“Chairman Mao’s Little Red Book could scarcely fail to become a best seller: between the years 1966 1and 1971, it was compulsory for every Chinese adult to own a copy.”
3.American Spelling Book by Noah Webster. Firstt published in 1783, this reference book by the American man of lettes Noah Webster (1758-1843) remained a bestseller in the US throughout the 19th century.”
4. The Guiness Book of Records.“First published in 1955,The Guinness Book of records stands out as the greatest contemporary publishing achievement> There have now been 37 editions in the UK alone (it was not published annually until 1964), as well as numerous foreign-language editions.”
5. The McGuffey Readers by William Holmes McGuffey. “Published in numerous editions from 1853, some authorities have put the total sales of hese educational textbooks originally compiled by American anthologist William Holmes McGuffey (1800-73) as high as 122,000,000. It has also been claimed that 60,000,000 copies of the 1879 edition were printe, but since this is some 10,000,000 more than the entire population of the U. S. at that time – the publisher must have been extremely optimistic about its success.”
6. A Message to Garcia by Elbert Hubbard. “Now forgotten, Hubbard’d polemic on the subject of labor relations was published in 1899 and within a few years had achieved these phenomenal sales, largely because many American employers puhased bulk supplies to distribute to their employees.
7. The Common Sense Book of Baby and Child Care by Dr. Spock. Dr. Spock’s 1946 manual became the bible of infant car for subsequent generations of parents. Moat of the sales have been of the paperback edition of the book.”
8. World Almanac. Having been published annually since 1868 (with a break from 1876 to 1886), this wide ranging reference has remained a constant bestseller ever since.”
9. The Valley of the Dolls by Jacqueline Susann. This tale of sex, violence, and drugs by Jacqueline Susann (1921-74), first published in 1966, is perhaps surprisingly the world’s best-selling novel. Margaret Mitchell’s Gone with the Wind, wwhich has achieved sales approaching 28,000,000, is its closest rival.”
10. In His Steps: :What Would Jesus Do?” by Rev. Charles Monroe Sheldon. “Although virtually unknown today, American clergyman Charles Sheldon (1857-1946) achieved fame and fortune with this 1896 instructive religious treatise on moral dilemmas.”
Top Ten Fiction
Besides the fiction , The Valley of the Dolls by Susann, Here are other fiction titles that have sold in excess of 10,000,000 copies in the hardbacks and the paperbacks worldwide:
Jonathan Livingstone Seagull by Richard Bach
The Exorcist by William Blatty
Jaws by Peter Benchley
God’s Little Acre, by Erskine Caldwell
Catch-22 Joseph Heller
To Kill a Mockingbird by Lee Harper
The Thorn Birds by Colleen McCullough
Peyton Place by Grace Metalious
1984, Animal Farm by George Orwell
The Godfather by Mario Puzo
The Carpetbaggers by Harold Robbins
Catcher in the Rye by J. D. Salinger
End.
References:
http//contemporary lit about.com/od/literry awards and prizes/tp/past Nobel Winner.htm
http//www.ipl.org/div/farq/bestsellerFARQ.html
www.nobel.Se
Encyclopedia Britannica: Almanac 2006
Encyclopedia Britannica, Inc: Chicago USA
