Zahlen, bitte! 154 nominations and still no Nobel Prize in Literature
Ramón Menéndez Pidal was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature a total of 154 times. This set a remarkable and little-known record.
If you believe the Guinness Book of Records, it is the book that is stolen most from public libraries. The universal chronicle of records also lists many facts about books. The smallest book, the largest book, the heaviest, and the most expensive – all can be found in the book.
The quirky record for the highest number of signed books is also noted: Spaniard Eloy Moreno, a former computer scientist, managed to sign 11,088 books with his name in 12 hours.
0 Nobel Prizes from 154 Nominations
However, Ramón Menéndez Pidal, his compatriot, not only lacks the Nobel Prize in Literature despite 154 nominations but also an entry for it in the record almanac. Negative records are simply not the forte of fact-checkers.
Yet, Pidal's record of 154 nominations may already have been broken. To preserve peace in the world of literature and science, archives are only opened after 50 years.
(Image:Â Ibera Airlines, CC BY 2.0)
Therefore, we do not know how nominations and votes were cast in 2016 when Bob Dylan received the Nobel Prize in Literature. This caused considerable discussion. However, we do know which author nominated himself. In 1903, the writer Godfrey Sweven was nominated for his science fiction epic “Limanora: The Island of Progress.” On the island of Limanora, people can fly, sleep on electric beds that implant knowledge during dreams (the science is called somnology), and generally improve themselves eugenically. Research revealed that the nomination came from New Zealand literary professor John Macmillan Brown, who published his books under the pseudonym Godfrey Sweven.
For the Nobel Prize in Literature, previous laureates, chairpersons of national and international writers' associations, and members of the Nobel Committee are eligible to nominate. Thus, Gerhart Hauptmann nominated Thomas Mann, and Mann nominated Hermann Hesse. When Sinclair Lewis became the first American to surprisingly receive the Nobel Prize in 1930, he was nominated by committee member Henrick Schück because he writes in a new language, “American.” Before this, Lewis should have received the Pulitzer Prize, but he rejected it with a sweeping critique of belletristic literature and the portrayal of a perfect America. Two years later, the international left tried to help his spiritual cousin, Upton Sinclair, win the Nobel Prize with 800 votes. That did not work out.
Nobel Prize in Literature for a Modern Epic of Gods
The Swiss Carl Spitteler fared better with his epic “Olympic Spring,” written in 1905, which updated Greek mythology in 20,000 verses. The gods deploy automatons to fight against humans. What the humans had to endure was recorded by a type of data processing system with hammers on metal rollers. For his verse epic, Spitteler, nominated since 1915, finally received the literature prize for 1919 (awarded in 1920), likely also because he advocated for reconciliation in 1914.
Sometimes there were actual campaigns for the nomination of candidates. Thus, 412 German professors petitioned for the writer Arno Holz in 1929.
While a division of the Nobel Prize is common in scientific categories like medicine and physics, it is a very rare exception for the Nobel Prize in literature. This happened for the second time in 1974, when Swedes Eyvind Johnson and Harry Martinson shared the prize. Martinson was explicitly honored for his verse epic Aniara. Aniara is a spaceship on its way to Mars because Earth is destroyed by pollution and wars. During an evasive maneuver with an asteroid, Aniara becomes disabled. The 8,000 Earth migrants drifting into space are cared for and comforted by a computer named Mima. In the end, the artificial intelligence succumbs to the passengers' grief, and the computer crashes.
(Image:Â ArtemisiaGentileschiFan, CC0)
Who doesn't feel reminded of Physics Nobel laureate Geoffrey Hinton, who suggested that when training AI systems, particular attention should be paid to the maternal instincts that must be instilled in the machines?
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Before Martinson, his compatriot Hannes Alfvén received a Nobel Prize in 1970, also for physics. He is considered the founder of magnetohydrodynamics. Under the pseudonym Olof Johannesson, Alfvén had “The Saga of the Great Computer: A Retrospective from the Future,” published in 1966. “The narrative depicts the path to world domination by thinking machines and the internet in three stages: teletotal (computer network), minitotal (network with mobile devices), and neurototal (chips in the brain).” In this futuristic book, people live in the “Perfect People's Democracy,” where computers make all decisions, and people are “free” because they can turn off their devices at any time. Until someone discovers that the chips are secretly turning them back on.
Briton Kazuo Ishiguro received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2017 for the bleak work “Never Let Me Go.” In it, human clones serve as organ replacement depots. After winning the prize, Ishiguro decided to write an optimistic children's book. The result was “Klara and the Sun,” in which Klara, an artificial intelligence powered by solar energy, becomes a friend to the growing, often ill Josie and helps her. Josie recovers and goes to college, while Klara ends up in the junkyard.
Even machines are ephemeral – like unheard Nobel Prize nominations.
(mho)
