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1961 Nobel Prize in Literature
Award From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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The 1961 Nobel Prize in Literature was awarded to the Yugoslav[a] writer Ivo Andrić (1892–1975) "for the epic force with which he has traced themes and depicted human destinies drawn from the history of his country."[5][6] He is the first and only Serbian-speaking recipient of the literature prize.[6]
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Laureate
Ivo Andrić began by writing poetry, and philosophers like Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Kafka and Goethe had an impact on his philosophical views. But his preferred literary form would be the historical epic. The fates of people are illuminated against a historical, cultural, and religious backdrop in Andrić's writings, such as his monumental novel Na Drini ćuprija ("The Bridge on the Drina", 1945). His stories show both immense love for individuals and brutality and violence. His writing is clear and full of information, and his stories are filled with insightful psychological observations. His other well-known literary oeuvres include Travnička hronika ("Travnika Chronicle", 1945) and Prokleta avlija ("The Damned Yard", 1954).[7][8]
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Deliberations
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Nominations
Andrić earned ten nominations on four occasions. He was first nominated in 1958 by The Yugoslavian Author's Society. On 1961, he was recommended by four nominators from Elizabeth Hill, Lennart Breitholtz, Johannes Edfelt and the aforementioned society which led to his awarding.[9]
In total, the Swedish Academy's Nobel Committee received 93 nominations for 56 authors such as Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan, John Steinbeck (awarded in 1962), André Malraux, Graham Greene, Georges Simenon, Ramón Menéndez Pidal, Robert Frost and Rómulo Gallegos. Fifteen of the nominees were nominated for the first time, among them Yasunari Kawabata (awarded in 1968), Gaston Bachelard, Cora Sandel, Jean Anouilh, Simone de Beauvoir, J. R. R. Tolkien, Lawrence Durrell, W. H. Auden and Friedrich Dürrenmatt. There were five female nominees namely Giulia Scappino Murena, Gertrud von le Fort, Karen Blixen, Cora Sandel and Simone de Beauvoir.[10]
The authors Jacques Stephen Alexis, Lucian Blaga, Joanna Cannan, Louis-Ferdinand Céline, Mazo de la Roche, Louis de Wohl, Hilda Doolittle, Frantz Fanon, Olga Forsh, Leonhard Frank, Simon Gantillon, Dashiell Hammett, Émile Henriot, George S. Kaufman, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Oliver Onions, Jessie Redmon Fauset, Mihail Sadoveanu, Peyami Safa, Frédéric-Louis Sauser (known as Blaise Cendrars), Clark Ashton Smith, Antanas Škėma, Dorothy Thompson and Maria Valtorta died in 1961 without having been nominated for the prize.
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Prize decision
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For the 1961 Nobel Prize in Literature, the Nobel committee of the Swedish Academy proposed Ivo Andrić, Graham Greene and the Danish author Karen Blixen, with Andrić receiving the majority of the votes. Committee chairman Anders Österling had the previous year pushed for a prize to Andrić, noting the Yugoslav author's "mastered style" that would open "a previously unknown page in the world chronicle and appeals to us from the depths of the tormented national soul", adding that a prize to Andrić would also have the advantage of correcting "the justified criticism of the geographical distribution of the Nobel Prize in Literature.”[11] Österling stated in the protocol that Graham Greene "appears as a fully worthy candidate", but neither Greene nor Blixen, who was also an annual contender at the time, was awarded the prize.[12]
Other contenders for the 1961 prize included the American poet Robert Frost and novelist E. M. Forster, who were both passed over by the Nobel committee because of their advanced age. Anders Österling said that Frost's age, 86, was "a fundamental obstacle, which the committee regretfully found it necessary to state". Other contenders such as Lawrence Durrell and the Italian novelist Alberto Moravia were ruled out for literary reasons, as were J.R.R. Tolkien whose prose Österling found "has not in any way measured up to storytelling of the highest quality".[13]
Award ceremony speech
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At the award ceremony in Stockholm on 10 December 1961, Anders Österling, permanent secretary of the Swedish Academy, said:
Generally speaking, Andric combines modern psychological insight with the fatalism of the Arabian Nights. He feels a great tenderness for mankind, but he does not shrink from horror and violence, the most visible proof to him of the real presence of evil in the world. As a writer he possesses a whole network of original themes that belong only to him; he opens the chronicle of the world, so to speak, at an unknown page, and from the depth of the suffering souls of the Balkan slaves he appeals to our sensibility.(...) The study of history and philosophy has inevitably led him to ask what forces, in the blows and bitterness of antagonisms and conflicts, act to fashion a people and a nation. His own spiritual attitude is crucial in that respect. Considering these antagonisms with a deliberate and acquired serenity, he endeavours to see them all in the light of reason and with a profoundly human spirit. Herein lies, in the last analysis, the major theme of all his work; from the Balkans it brings to the entire world a stoic message, as our generation has experienced it.[14]
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Prize money
Andric donated the entire amount of the prize money, 250 232 Swedish crowns, to a fund for building a library in Bosnia-Herzegovina.[15]
Notes
- Though of Croat origin, Andrić came to identify as a Serb upon moving to Belgrade.[1] Above all, he is renowned for his contributions to Serbian literature. As a youth, he wrote in his native Ijekavian dialect, but switched to Serbia's Ekavian dialect while living in the Yugoslav capital.[2][3] The Nobel Committee lists him as a Yugoslav and identifies the language he used as Serbo-Croatian.[4]
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References
External links
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