Sunday Times 2
Japan author, “spooky” science up for cut-price Nobels
View(s):STOCKHOLM (Reuters) – A Japanese author who writes of love and isolation, researchers into “spooky” quantum physics and experts on economic inequality have all been tipped as possible Nobel Prize-winners ahead of the start to the annual awards on Monday.
Medicine, physics and chemistry laureates will receive their Nobels first in Stockholm next week, followed later by economics. But for many outside the world of science, the literature and peace prizes are the most widely discussed at the dinner table.
Odds at British bookmaker Ladbrokes and Sweden’s Unibet put Japanese author Haruki Murakami and Chinese writer Mo Yan in the top two places for the literature prize. An American advocate of non-violent struggle and a Coptic Christian who runs a children’s mission in Egypt are favored for the peace prize.
Murakami is very popular in Japan, but has also become well known abroad for his works which deal with isolation and love and bring the surreal into everyday life. Mo’s works are rooted in his native China, its history and people.
Other literary names bandied about include Ireland’s William Trevor, Syrian poet Adonis, South Korean poet Ko Un, U.S. novelist Philip Roth and singer/songwriter Bob Dylan.
Culture columnist Maria Schottenius of Swedish newspaper Dagens Nyheter said that despite the odds, the choice of the Nobel committee was always unpredictable. “Last year we had a poet, now it could be a storyteller like Philip Roth,” Schottenius said. Swedish poet Thomas Transtromer won the prize in 2011.
For the peace prize, betting agencies favour Gene Sharp, an American advocate of non-violent struggle and Maggie Gobran, a Coptic Christian who runs a children’s mission in Egypt, but there is no clear candidate.
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