Bringing together scholars, writers, and public figures from across the world, this conference explored the ever-unfolding legacy of a prize that has dominated the world literary scene for over 120 years. Yet, as the conference’s convenors, Carlos Spoerhase and Jørgen Sneis (Bielefeld), remarked, citing Tim Parks’s polemical New York Times article from 2018 (“The Nobel Prize for Literature Is a Scandal All by Itself”), “literature is not tennis”: Olympic internationalism in the field of literature seemingly runs counter to artistic expression. Given the attention the Nobel receives annually in the global press, however, its cultural reach seems a fait accompli, though its inner workings remain relatively opaque. How, then, has this prize influenced the ways we engage with certain authors and their works? To what extent does it shape global discourses, informing the behaviour of authors, agents, booksellers, journalists, publishers, scholars, and translators?

The opening keynote lecture from GISÈLE SAPIRO (Paris) critiqued the “symbolic economy” of the Nobel Prize in literature, demonstrating how despite growing inclusion of non-Western authors in the past three decades, dominant Western intermediaries – such as Anglophone literary agents – remain those who benefit most from the prize’s cultural and economic capital.

During the panel following Sapiro’s analysis, FABIEN ACCOMINOTTI (Madison, WI) problematized the Bourdieusian term “consecration”, considering it less a means of singling out an author for greatness and more a ritualized belief that some authors and works will always be greater than others. JACOB HABINEK (Linköping) then explored the “disembodied autonomy” of the Nobel, examining how the most nominated nations between 1901 and 1969 received the most awards, although this is not the case for individual authors. In the panel’s final paper, VAUGHN SCHMUTZ (Charlotte, NC) considered the censorship of the Prize. Focusing on American media, Schmutz delineated various categories of Nobel winners including “the disreputable”, “the disputed”, and “the obscure”.

The day closed with a public event: the author Herta Müller in conversation with Jan Bürger. After her 2009 Nobel laureateship, Müller claimed it no longer played a significant role in her life. Reading from her newest work “Der Beamte sagte”, an impressionistic, translation-resistant collage of encounters with officials at the transit camp she came to after leaving Romania, she appeared to have left the Nobel far behind.

The second day began with a paper from ALEXANDER BAREIS (Lund) discussing broader implications concerning the standards guiding the selection of Nobel laureates and diagnosing some key criteria (witness literature, for example, plus a global perspective and political integrity) shared by many Nobel winners and their work. Drawing on the work of Herta Müller, and recalling the author’s live deconstruction of the visual framing of Nobel laureates from the previous evening when she remarked that in winning the Nobel “eine Aura wird einem aufgesetzt”, REBECCA BRAUN (Galway) then presented a typology of fundamental “modes of authorship” that underpin how literature in the West is created, re-produced, and valued. In this panel’s final paper, TIM SOMMER (Heidelberg) considered how the Nobel prize has influenced and has been influenced by literary archives and their acquisition policies through the form of patronage that is archiving writers’ works while they still live.

The following panel opened with DANIELA LINK and NILS HANNSSON (Düsseldorf) examining the relevance of the field to the numerous “physician authors” who received nominations for the Nobel Prize in Literature over the decades, none of whom, however, won the award. STEVIE MARSDEN (Edinburgh) then outlined the complexities in cultural prize hierarchies, highlighting extensive media use and the top-down nature of a literary culture conditioned by a few major awards at the expense of lesser known, less well-endowed awards. Furthering comparisons of the Nobel with other prizes, JOHN RAIMO (New York) analyzed in detail how between 1960 and 1968 the Prix International des éditeurs and the Prix Formentor contested the Nobel’s international reach, rewarding unpublished manuscripts of new authors, yet ultimately proving unable to control the global flow of translated literature.

In the next panel STEFANIE LEUENBERGER (Zürich) examined the case of the 1919 Nobel laureate Carl Spitteler, asking whether there exists a particular way of writing that increases an author’s chances of winning, while drawing out the reverential, mythological, and religious language used to describe Spitteler. URS BÜTTNER (Düsseldorf) then examined authors’ international distribution in translation, suggesting that in the early 20th century the prize was awarded based on academic criticism of authors, whereas after World War Two translation and the world book market was more decisive. JANA RÜEGG (Uppsala) rounded off this panel with a discussion of the “attention economy” of Swedish publishers in the case of Nobel laureates between 1970 and 2016, and how this constructed a hyper canon of prize-winners, most of whom had experienced their “publishing peak” prior to winning the Nobel.

In a keynote lecture on the economics of literary prestige in the twenty-first century, JAMES ENGLISH (Philadelphia, PA) considered the extent to which after over a century the Nobel’s star has begun to dim. Given the rise of private fortunes and family foundations, English posited the emergence in the not-too-distant future of alternative – and potentially more lucrative, more inclusive, more socially responsible, if compromized – literary prizes funded by today’s mega-rich moguls and social media barons. Despite scandals that appear to question the very existence of prizes as such, their value is still asserted with the proviso that more authors from diverse backgrounds be included. While structural overhaul is necessary, the question of whether the Nobel will sustain its role in the face of serious competitors remains unanswered.

In the first panel of the final day, MICHAEL KA-CHI CHEUK (Hong Kong) returned to the matter of the Nobel Prize as a form of censorship and its questionable international competitiveness by considering the 1995 Atlanta Cultural Olympia, which encapsulated the promotion of global harmony and mutual understanding, while obscuring discrepancies between laureates’ views and uneasy comparisons with Olympic internationalism. TAKASHI INOUE (Tokyo) then gave a detailed account of Japan’s history with the Nobel Prize in Literature, considering the dynamics of Cold War international politics, the interests of publishing houses and the Nobel Prize committee, as well as the influence of the seniority rule in Japan.

The next panel began with a paper from PABLO FAÚNDEZ MORÁN (Valparaíso) on the Chilean poet Gabriela Mistral, the first Latin American and fifth woman to win the Nobel. From a local perspective, Faúndez Morán demonstrated how Chilean society incorporated Mistral’s Nobel Prize, the interest it stimulated in her private life, and the instrumentalization of her image as an indigenous female social worker given Chile’s recent social unrest. Following this, HÜLYA YILDIZ (Ankara) examined the backlash in provoked Turkey by Orhan Pamuk’s winning the Nobel in 2006, since many considered Yaşar Kemal more deserving. Yildiz exposed tensions between the local and global appeal of two Turkish writers whose personal backgrounds, authorial positions, and literary styles varied, leading only one to receive a Nobel laureateship. Continuing in this comparative vein, COLETTA KANDEMIRI (Windhoek) provided what she termed a “pragmatic autopsy” of the African Nobel Prize winners, highlighting the disparities between the lives, works, and public personae of Wole Soyinka, Naguib Mahfouz, Nadine Gordimer, and J. M. Coetzee.

In the last panel KERSTIN BOHNE (Oldenburg) re-invoked the role of translation in awarding the Nobel, paying particular attention to the fact that no Dutch or Flemish writer has ever won it. For Bohne, symbolic capital accrued by many translations is a secondary argument for candidates from smaller language areas, especially when these are often translated into German instead of English or French. DÎLAN ÇAKIR (Stuttgart) then presented a project undertaken by her and her fellow doctoral candidates ASTGHIK ANTONYAN, GIOVANNA CARLESSO, JIE HAN, MARIA KRAXENBERGER, KATHARINA REEB, ACHIM SCHMID, MERISA TARANIS, and XIAOCUI QUI under the supervision of Sandra Richter. Offering quantitative analysis alongside qualitative evaluations of translations of Nobel laureates’ works before and after winning the prize, Çakir et al interrogated the “Nobel effect” on authors’ public perception and the role of branding in their success. This final panel ended with an analysis by KATHRIN YACAVONE (Cologne) of Nobel laureates’ staging of authorship through close examination of literary Nobel laureates’ author portraits. Despite the predominance of well-lit authors in a thinker pose, there exist revealing exceptions, such as Jean-Paul Sartre who was photographed writing at his desk, having received the 1964 prize after attempting to reject it.

In his closing lecture PIETER VERMEULEN (Leuven) charted the geography of value between Stockholm and New York, the epicentre of global publishing. Comparing the power of the biggest publishing houses and the growing role of independent publishers, not least since seven of the last nine non-Anglophone winners of the Nobel Prize in literature were mainly published in the UK and the US by independents, Vermeulen brought the conference’s discussions to bear on ideas initially raised by Gisèle Sapiro regarding the warping of the literary field by various actors, the ways formal and stylistic matters are interwoven with moral and political judgements, and the need for vigilance in critiquing the face-value assertions of all players in the Nobel Prize panorama.

In their prospective outlook at the future of Nobel Prize scholarship – until recently a curious lacuna in literary studies – Carlos Spoerhase and Jørgen Sneis looked forward to further collaborations and publications stemming from this conference, returning to reflections in particular on the scope and purpose of the Nobel and its purported worldliness. If the public event which closed the conference – a conversation between Jan Bürger, Michael Krüger, and Anders Olsson – is anything to go by, much more remains to be discussed.

Conference overview:

Mats Malm (Stockholm) and Sandra Richter (Marbach): Welcome

Carlos Spoerhase and Jørgen Sneis (Bielefeld): Introduction. Literature in the Nobel Era

Keynote lecture

Gisèle Sapiro (Paris): The Symbolic Economy of the Nobel Prize and its Role in the Making of World Literature

Panel 1

Fabien Accominotti (Madison): Consecration as a Population-level Phenomenon

Vaughn Schmutz (Charlotte): (Nobel) Winner Takes All? The Nobel Effect on Literary Reputation and Reviews

Jacob Habinek (Linköping): Disembedded Autonomy. The Social Structure of the Nobel Prize in Literature

Public Evening Program with Nobel laureate Herta Müller

Panel 2

Alexander Bareis (Lund): Most Ideal. The Aesthetic Standards of the Nobel Prize in Literature. Methodological and Theoretical Perspectives

Rebecca Braun (Galway) Celebrating Literature? What Modes of Authorship Do to Literary Prizes

Tim Sommer (Heidelberg): Archival Economies: Valuing the Papers of Twenty-First-Century Nobel Laureates

Panel 3

Nils Hansson, Daniela Link (Düsseldorf): The Enactment of Physician-Authors in Nobel Nominations

Stevie Marsden (Edinburgh): If They Gave the Oscar to Books: Understanding Literary Prize Hierarchies

John Raimo (New York): Anti-Nobels: The Prix International des éditeurs and the Prix Formentor, 1960–1968

Panel 4

Stefanie Leuenberger (Zürich): Awarding the Nobel Prize in 1919. The Case of Carl Spitteler

Urs Büttner (Düsseldorf): Nobel Prizes for Literature and the International Book Market

Jana Rüegg (Uppsala) Prestigious Publishing. The Swedish Publishing of Nobel Prize Laureates in Literature 1970–2016

Keynote lecture

James English (Philadelphia): The Nobel and the Economics of Literary Prestige in the 21st Century

Panel 5

Michael Ka-Chi Cheuk (Hong Kong): The Nobel Prize as Censorship

Takashi Inoue (Tokyo): Japan and the Nobel Prize in Literature

Panel 6

Pablo Faúndez Morán (Valparaíso): Transformations Surrounding the Nobel Prize: The Case of Gabriela Mistral

Hülya Yildiz (Ankara): The Road to Nobel: A Comparative Study of Two Nobel Contenders

Coletta Kandemiri (Windhoek): Of “Greatest Benefit on Humankind”. The Pragmatic Autopsy of African Nobel Prize Winners in Literature

Panel 7

Kerstin Bohne (Oldenburg): The Relevance of Translations in the Awarding of the Nobel Prize in Literature

Sandra Richter, Astghik Antonyan, Dîlan Çakir, Giovanna Carlesso, Jie Han, Maria Kraxenberger, Katharina Reeb, Achim Schmid, Merisa Taranis, Xiaocui Qiu (Stuttgart): Is there a Nobel Effect? Translations after the Nobel Prize

Kathrin Yacavone (Cologne): Photographic Author Portraits: A Visual Pantheon of Literary Nobel Prize Laureates

Closing lecture

Pieter Vermeulen, (Leuven): The Indie Nobel? Stockholm, New York, and the Geography of Value

Carlos Spoerhase, Jørgen Sneis (Bielefeld): Outlook: Nobel Prize Scholarship

Public evening programme: Michael Krüger, Anders Olsson and Jan Bürger