Nobel Prize

Interview transcript Professor Wole Soyinka, Nobel Literature Laureate 1986, welcome to our interview. Wole Soyinka: Thank you. Let’s start right at the very beginning. What were the circumstances of your birth, your early upbringing? Wole Soyinka: I was born into a Christian household, in a parsonage in fact, so I grew up…

Transcript of the interview [Doris Lessing] – Hello. [Adam Smith] – Good morning, may I speak to Doris Lessing please? [DL] – Who is that? [AS] – This is Adam Smith from the Nobel Foundation’s website. We have a tradition of recording very short interviews on the telephone with…

Transcript from an interview with Doris Lessing on 14 April 2008. The interviewer is Professor John Mullan. Hello, I’m John Mullan, I’m Professor of English at University College London and I’m here to talk to Doris Lessing, the winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature for…

Transcript from an interview with Jean-Marie Gustave Le Clézio on 6 December 2008. Interviewer is Horace Engdahl, Permanent Secretary of the Swedish Academy. My name is Horace Engdahl, I’m the Permanent Secretary of the Swedish Academy and I have here beside me the Laureate…

Interview transcript Nadine Gordimer, Nobel Literature Laureate 1991, welcome to our interview. Nadine Gordimer: Thank you. From what origins did Nadine Gordimer come to be born in a gold mining town in South Africa? Nadine Gordimer: The usual sort of background for whites in South Africa. My mother came from England and…

Interview transcript (in French) Bonjour, je m’appelle Horace Engdahl et j’exercise la fonction de secrétaire perpétuel à l’Académie Suédoise, et je souhaite le bienvenu au Lauréat du Prix Nobel de Littérature de l’année 2000, Monsieur Gao Xingjian. Gao Xingjian: Bonjour. Gao Xingjian … Quand on a commencé de vous lire à l’Occident…

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Autobiography Sometimes when she would talk about herself my mother would say: My life was sad and quiet, I always walked on tip-toe. But if I got a little angry and stamped my foot the cups, which had been my mother’s, would tinkle on the dresser and make me laugh. At the moment of my…