Google translated this for me, so my understanding of what you said is a little incoherent.

1. You have earned still more of the Wrath of Roh, but that is okay, right? I'll send it over in a shoe box.

2. "He belongs to at least the same gang as Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Julio Cortázar and Carlos Fuentes, who came after Jorge Luis Borges and a few others and really put South America on the literary map. And Garcia Marquez was the last Latin-American who received the literature prize (in 1982). I do not know if it's a good or a bad sign that there is still the same team that ranks highest."
I know what the first sentence says, and I'm going to wave Octavio Paz around as semi-refutation to the second, however weirdly Indian he was. But the third sentence is a little confusing, I cannot parse it no matter how I look at it. What?

3.I very highly recommend Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter. If you have not read this, you should. As for the rest... I'd say he deserves a Nobel more than, say, Elfriede Jelinek. (This is based on readings of translations. Maybe Jelinek is ULTRA AWESOME in the original German or whatever Austrian regional tongue she writes in.

4. I decided, a while ago, that it is okay to receive a Nobel for writing that is political in nature, or that is written by a politician, so long as that writing is ULTRA AWESOME. I subscribe in great part to that "personal = political" formula, which might help blur the lines for me, personally.

:P

In fact I approve of it, wholeheartedly. I was very happy with Pinter and Lessing and Pamuk.

And I think you are construing more hostility towards Vargas Llosa than I intended. I don't disapprove. Quite the contrary. I just find it somewhat odd that in the 30 years since García Marquez there has not come a new and exciting group of Latin American writers, blowing the old guys out of the water. I suppose my point is that they should have given the prize to Vargas Llosa before now if they were going to. Perhaps I am being silly.

The stuff Google couldn't translate makes precisely that point, and it roughly translates as "I don't know whether it is a good sign or a bad one that it is still the same group at the top. I confess Octavio Paz fell completely outside my field of vision. I have no idea how that happened and humbly beg myriad apologies.

I have read no Elfriede Jelinek whatsoever, and cannot possibly comment.

I am picking a lot of fights these days. I'm sorry - I think I need to go back to therapy. Or have a pillow fight! A proper one where we only give up when someone is beaten.

Anyway.

I do agree with you - the Latin American names we here are all OLD. Partially I think it's a translation thing - we hear about the ones who get translated, and I'm guessing within Europe it's easier to find translators for European stuff?

And things that get translated are the the things that do well within the domestic market. I don't know how that works in Latin America, but in India we're sort of in the beginning stages of re-learning that our non-English writers are pretty fucking awesome. So they get translated, but again, a lot of the time, the people getting translated (every time I say translated, I mean "translted from x vernacular into English") are established writers who wrote decades ago.


I recently went to the launch of a translation of a novel originally written in Tamil - Manasarovar was originally written back in the 70s or 80s. The Tamil author, Ashokamitran, was there, and his translator too. Ashokamitran was a lovely old man. LOVELY. He must be 80, maybe even more. He was so... steady, and he refused to give in to sensationalism. He was funny, and steady, and sensible... he made me wish my maternal grandfather was still alive. That sort of old man.

But, you know. Ancient. His hands trembled when he held the mike. This guy is one of the giants of Tamil literature, and I only heard of him when he was translated into English, and if happened any later he'd've been too dead for me to meet.

I don't know how market forces skew things for books in Latin American nations, but there might be something analogous to this going on. Their translated internationally famous authors are still writing - the competition for recognition must be fierce.

I guess newer writers will still have their few decades to earn their own Nobels, once they have a larger body of work built up. You and I will be alive to see it, and when we do I will point back to this post and say "HAH I knew it I was a genius!"

Da jeg oppholdt meg et semester på den både ekle og flotte skolen (som kaller seg, og forsåvidt ER et universitet) American University of Paris, hadde jeg en lynkjapp karriere som "Comparative literature"-student. Jeg tok kurset "The Discovery and Conquest of the New World", et slags kombinert historie/komp.litt.-kurs som trakk søkte paralleller mellom nedtegnelser gjort på midten av 1500-tallet og nyere, meksikansk litteratur. (Kort og flåsete oppsummert: I Mexico er det slik at har du lidd én gang (på 1500-tallet), så har du alltid lidd og kommer alltid til å lide. Ferdig med den saken.) Gjennom dette kurset kom jeg borti Carlos Fuentes ganske mye mer enn jeg i ettertid skulle ønske at jeg hadde.

I alle fall: professoren min; Margery Arent Safir, en hypereksentrisk, semi-aristokratisk, men lett-likandes amerikanerinne, hadde angivelig et relativt nært forhold til nevnte Fuentes. Blant de tingene hun sa om Fuentes var at det ikke var noe i hele verden Fuentes ønsket seg mer og var mer opptatt av enn å få nobelprisen i litteratur. Likedan var det ingenting i verden han fryktet mer enn at erkerivalen Vargas Llosa skulle få den, da dette ville bety at Fuentes aldri ville få den i sin levetid (etter resonnementet "nobelkomiteen velger ikke en latinamerikansk forfatter i halvveis samme gate to ganger på få år"). Såvidt jeg forstod var det en ikke ubetydelig rivalisering mellom de to.

Mine tanker går til stakkars, eksentriske og prestisjehungrige Fuentes som:
1. -legger altfor mye i hva en egenrådig røvergjeng i Sverige finner på fra år til år.
2. -nå er skrekkelig deppa for at Vargas Llosa vant, og sikkert selv kommer til å dø snart.

Livet er hardt for fremstående eksentrikere med stort ego.

Stakkars Fuentes. Det høres skrekkelig ut, ja.