Over at The Millions, C. Max Magee has written an article about what being awarded the Nobel Prize does for a book and its publisher from an American perspective.
Being that American literature is rarely rewarded the prestigious prize, Magee writes, “Sometimes the Nobel plays this role – a validator of critical opinion – but, for the American audience, it often does something different. And this is where the grumbling comes in. We don’t like to be told that an author we’ve never heard of is one of the greatest ever. But in cases like Müller and Kertész and Le Clézio, the Nobel serves as a reminder that in certain corners of the publishing industry, there are presses shepherding the work of these writers into print and keeping it available until such time as the rest of us are able to take notice.”
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