Sorry, You Did Not Win the Nobel Again This Year

The august members of the Swedish Academy have announced the winner of the 2009 Nobel Prize for Literature:  the 150,782 kronor ($1.4 million) goes to Romanian-German writer Herta Muller.  And that doesn't herta bit, ha ha.

Over the years, a number of persons have been nominated for this award, one of them being Bob Dylan, who once again has to say "It Ain't Me, Babe."  It is said that Graham Greene's name came up year after year, but one member of the academy declared Greene would never get the prize, so long as he could wield a veto.  I suppose Greene had once declined to sign an autograph or been unpleasant to the man in an elevator.  A European critic, Helmut Karasek, has said "My mantra is always that Philip Roth should get the prize." 

Nobel Prize acceptance speeches are often memorable, and it's to be expected that one would spend a little time preparing a nice thank you before setting off for Stockholm to pick up the big bucks (or kronor).  Perhaps the best thing said in one of these speeches was this, from Ernest Hemingway, winner in 1954:  "No writer who knows the great writers who did not receive the prize can accept it with other than humility."

Hemingway did not go to Stockholm; he was still recuperating from an airplane crash, and the speech he wrote was delivered by the US ambassador to Sweden.  

But Hem did get off a line in an informal speech carried  by Havana radio.  He said "I want to let my friends know it's no good coming down to bum off me, because the money hasn't arrived yet."