After a five-hour silence, the French novelist Patrick Modiano wondered aloud why he had won the Nobel Prize in Literature. This was not self-disparagement, of course, or an attempt to assume a modest pose in the flush of a great victory. The man who admitted to having “written versions of a single book” throughout his 45-year career was earnestly eager to understand. Modiano's question is not new. It has often accompanied the announcement of winners of the Nobel Prize in Literature. In fact, about 60 years ago the famous Egyptian thinker Abbas Mahmoud El-Aqqad wrote a book titled Global Prizes in Literature: An Example from the Nobel Prize. In it, he discussed the annual din among novelists and literary critics over the Nobel laureate, in the course of which one frequently hears: “There are more deserving candidates” or, more candidly — and perhaps cruelly — that the winner “did not merit the prize at all.” Alongside such remarks there were also grumblings over the political, ethnic or linguistic biases that informed the selection. However, in the midst of such a stir some voices sought to insert an objective note, saying, “There are Nobel Prize winners who added to its value and elevated its prestige while there are others who have degraded it and reduced its prestige.” In the week before the Nobel Committee announced its results, Modiano was ranked sixth in the international betting surrounding this event. In other words, his prospects had not been very strong, at least according to Western critics, some of whom openly scoffed at the notion of a Modiano win given his relative unknown in the Anglophone world. One joke went: “Literary critics switched off their mobile phones for fear that cultural reporters would call them to solicit their opinion about Modiano, as they would not have the courage to admit that they knew nothing about him!” Naturally, the Modiano win prompted some to wonder why the prize did not go to Milan Kundera, the Czech novelist who writes in French, or to Italy's Italo Calvino, or to the American Phillip Roth, or to the Arab poet Adonis. Likewise, in the past, voices could be heard in the East and West asking why the Nobel Committee had passed over Argentina's Jorge Borges, or James Joyce of Ireland, or the Brazilian Jorge Amado, while we Arabs wonder why a writer as ingenious and prolific as Taha Hussein was overlooked. Meanwhile, all laugh when they recall that famous British politician who was awarded the Nobel in Literature for a book that had more in common with an autobiography. In general, there are three rules that should give some comfort to all Nobel aspirants, or even to those who are not interested in the prize but merit it even though they will never win it. The first is that not all Nobel Prize winners are the best and not all losers are necessarily worse. Ultimately, the prize is affected by all the possible human flaws that might accompany the selection process of literary works, the very least being differences in taste among the judges and critics and considerations of geographical representation, genre (novel, short story, play or poetry) and language. Perhaps the most harmful or pernicious influences would include ideological or political pressures, the prevalence of popularity and dissemination over literary value and depth, or being misled by the unconventional, used as a way for a writer to make a name for himself. The second rule is that winning a Nobel Prize is no guarantee for wider dissemination, greater influence or immortal fame. In the 113 years of its history, there are Nobel laureates who even the most important literary critics do not remember and whose works have gone out of print or are no longer the subject of critical study. Conversely, there are writers who have not won the Nobel but who have widespread influence and repute and whose works are capable of inspiring and amazing one generation after another. This is only natural. It is unreasonable to think that the world in the whole of the 20th century knew only 100 good writers, which is to say the number of Nobel Prize winners in that century. Bear in mind, too, that the prize is awarded to only one person among creative writers of all genres, whether poetry, fiction or drama. Nor can it possibly go to all who merit it, or be awarded retroactively to writers who lived and worked before the Nobel was introduced, such as Balzac or Pushkin, to name only two. Perhaps Naguib Mahfouz, the only Arab writer to have received the Nobel in Literature, was right when he said that Taha Hussein, Tawfiq El-Hakim and Yahya Haqqi merited the prize before him. Others added Yusef Idris to the list, as well as a good number of names of other Arab novelists, short story writers, playwrights and poets. On the other hand, there are writers who realise that they do not need a Nobel Prize for the value and public reception of their work to increase. Some even had the courage to turn down the award. An example is the Ireland's George Bernard Shaw who described it as a lifesaver thrown to a man who has already reached land and is out of danger. Another is Jean Paul Sartre who refused it because it contradicted his principles. As the famous French writer said, “How others judge us is an attempt to reify us rather than to see us as human entities.” The Russian poet and novelist Boris Pasternak initially rejected the prize due to pressures from authorities in Moscow but later accepted it, in 1958, for his only novel, Dr Zhivago. It is said that Leo Tolstoy also turned down the prize when it was granted to him in its first year in 1901 saying, “Give the money from the prize to the starving people in the Caucasus.” The third rule might be termed the “Nobel curse”. Some laureates complain of not being able to write anything of worth after having received the prize, either because they are constantly hounded by the press or because they feel that they now deserve to stop writing and live off the award money for the rest of their lives. Some writers have produced works considerably inferior to the ones they had written before winning the prize, believing that their post-prize reputations will ensure a continued widespread following for their work. Other prize winners have plunged into depression, thinking that they no longer had a purpose now that they had won the cherished prize that had kept them working and struggling for perfection. Awareness of these rules might have tempered the anger of Malcolm Jones who, in a column in The Daily Beast, an online news site, wrote: “Who the hell is Patrick Modiano?” They might have also taken some of the sting out of Forrest Wickman's jibe on the Slate magazine website regarding the sudden spike in pressure on Wikipedia on the part of journalists on the hunt for any information they could find on Modiano so that could submit their news reports on time. The knowledge might have also taken some of the air out of all those tweets on Twitter that quipped about how the unknown Modiano was a real person rather than a character in his novel, Des Inconnues. It has always been this way, ever since the Nobel Prize was first launched. If the Americans react this way, in spite of the fact that they took 323 out of the 900 prizes awarded in various fields, how should others in East Asia, Africa or the Arab world react? This is especially so given that every passing day claims another of their many writers who truly deserve a Nobel but will never get one. This prize is not awarded to deceased persons, even if their works live on and continue to inspire people forever. The writer is a novelist and socio-political researcher.
