This is a great article about the prizes we award literature (and how silly some of them are). It really fits with one of the main questions about our course - that is, who gets to pick what is "great" literature.
Here is a quotation from the article:
"[W]e Americans respond to prizes. In the best cases, as when the Nobel alerts us to a Herta Müeller or an Imre Kertész, a worthy author immediately finds a broader audience. In other cases – the Pulitzer, most years – an author of whom people were already aware gets a dispensation to stop worrying about whether her next book will sell. It will."
Feel free to comment and let me know what you think!
From: http://www.themillions.com/2010/01/the-problem-with-prizes-or-who-cares-about-the-international-booker.html (accessed 01.19.2010)
Tuesday, January 19, 2010
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I found the article enlightening about a topic and a subculture that I'm not very familiar with. I would like to say that there are definitely books that sell without having won a prize and it may not even be the best literature so I do appreciate the Nobel and Pulitzer for sort of giving me a hand at sorting through a lot of the garbage and saying "Here's a book that we thought was satisfactory-enjoy!"
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