A new novel by Frenchwoman Annie Arnault (Nobel Prize 2022) entitled “The Young Man” has been published. Like all of her works, it does not exceed 77 pages, which is closer to a short story. Does the short story deserve this international honor? In the past two decades, the award committee has deviated from its traditions more than once. In 2015, it was awarded to the Belarusian writer Svetlana Alexievich, even though her works are merely recording testimonies and scenes, especially with survivors of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster. The following year, it was given to American singer Bob Dylan, and he apologized for not accepting it.
In 2003, Canadian Alice Mathro won it for a collection of short stories. So where is Albert Camus and “The Plague,” Ernest Hemingway and “The Old Man and the Sea,” Boris Pasternak and “Doctor Zhivago”?
The average reader around the world remained implicitly rebellious against this trend in the committee’s choices. He paid little attention to the new winners. I do not think that anyone outside of Canada knows Alice Munro, and interest in Annie Arnault’s works lasted only as short as others, and interest in her was limited to the Francophone world. Since 2000, many have won, and their fame has not exceeded the borders of their country. The Nobel Prize did not help in increasing their global rank or wealth. The “Nobel” was still remembered with its “classical” giants, George Bernard Shaw, Bertrand Russell, Pablo Neruda, and Gabriel García Márquez.
Among these people was undoubtedly Naguib Mahfouz. The warm welcome extended to him, sparking global interest in the Arabic novel everywhere. The short story did not benefit its creator, Youssef Idris. Her time had not begun among the Nobel people, as happened later.
Any personal opinion? Okay. Whenever I heard the name of a new winner, I read it like someone else. I no longer feel the desire to know. Madame Arnault is, I think, just a familiar French writer. You always feel like you’ve read this before, somewhere. This is a huge mistake in the world of writing, Nobel or no Nobel. The Canadian woman turns home kitchens into a sweet narrative, a departure from the norm, and a beautiful literary work.
Svetlana Alexievich is still writing, narrating, and arousing the admiration of those around her. One style and dramatic narrative texts from every human depth. Of course, it is more important and greater than its narrators. The Italian Oriana Gallacci turned the political “interview” into an event, Alexievich turned it into a Greek theatre, and the Canadian woman turned home kitchens into a sweet narrative, a departure from the norm, and a beautiful literary work.
The first interrogated “heroes” and big names. The second sat down and wrote down the story of a Chernobyl firefighter whose flesh began to decompose as he tried to save his comrade from nuclear radiation. Another novelist who came from the world of journalism. In journalism, its first inspiration was the Polish Rozyard Kapuscinski, who died in Berlin at the age of 72, leaving a journalism school. Many said that it was a major novel, not a political event.
