1. Who of the following were awarded the Nobel prize for literature?
W.H. Auden
Jorge Luis Borges
Anton Chekhov
F. Scott Fitzgerald
Robert Frost
Henrik Ibsen
Henry James
Leo Tolstoy
James Joyce
Ursula K. Le Guin
Stanislaw Lem
Vladimir Nabokov
Flannery O’Connor
George Orwell
Terry Pratchett
Mark Twain
John Updike
Gene Wolfe
Virgina Woolf
Robert Allen Zimmerman (a.k.a. “Elston Gunn”)
2. What does the Nobel prize for literature signify?
Update: I’ve mentioned my high regard for the songs of Elston Gunn before (scroll down a bit).
Without looking it up, I would guess that none of the authors on your list have won the prize.
One, and only one, did. Robert Zimmerman has more than one alias.
This has done as much for the Nobel Prize for Literature as Carter did for the Peace Prize. When I was told about it, my laughing was rather disconcerting for my thrilled co-worker.
For some reason I was thinking Borges had won. Then I went and re-acquainted myself with Borges, and realized that would have been impossible.
My first reaction to Dylan’s prize was “Jim Croce was robbed”.
-j
Genuine LOL at that, J Greely.