Literature

Speed read

In this age of mass media, mass movement, and globalization it is likely that we will confront different cultures and different races as we go about our daily business. But Turkey, which straddles the intersection of East and West, has always had to deal with the problems and pleasures of diversity. The best-selling Turkish novelist…

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Poetry

Swedish Har ni sett en koltramp … Har ni sett en koltramp komma ur en orkan – med bräckta bommar, sönderslitna relingar, bucklig, stånkande, förfelad – och med en skeppare som är alldeles hes? Fnysande lägger den till vid den soliga kajen, utmattad slickande sina sår, medan ångan tynar i pannorna. Av Harry Martinson Ur…

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Facts

On 27 November 1895, Alfred Nobel signed his last will and testament, giving the largest share of his fortune to a series of prizes, the Nobel Prizes. As described in Nobel’s will one part was dedicated to “the person who shall have produced in the field of literature the most outstanding work in an ideal…

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Award ceremony speech

Swedish Presentationstal av professor Sara Danius, Ständige Sekreterare, ledamot i Nobelkommittén för litteratur, 10 december 2017. Eders Majestäter, Eders Kungliga Högheter, excellenser, mina damer och herrar! Några sidor in i romanen When We Were Orphans (2000) får huvudpersonen en present.…

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Award ceremony speech

English Presentation Speech by Professor Sara Danius, Permanent Secretary of the , Member of the Nobel Committee for Literature, 10 December 2017. Your Majesties, Your Royal Highnesses, Your Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen,…

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Banquet speech

Kazuo Ishiguro’s speech at the Nobel Banquet, 10 December 2017. Your Majesties, your Royal Highnesses, ladies and gentlemen. I remember vividly the large face of a foreigner, a Western man, illustrated in rich colours, dominating the whole page of my book. Behind this looming face, to one side, was smoke and dust from an…

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Nobel Prize lecture

German 7. Dezember 2017 Mein napoleonischer Abend – und andere kleine Offenbarungen Wären Sie mir im Herbst 1979 begegnet, hätten Sie vielleicht Mühe gehabt, mich einzuordnen, gesellschaftlich oder sogar ethnisch. Damals war ich 24. Meine Gesichtszüge wirkten wohl japanisch, doch im Unterschied zu den meisten Japanern, die man damals in Großbritannien zu sehen bekam, hatte…

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Prose

Excerpt from Never Let Me Go We were fifteen by then, already into our last year at Hailsham. We’d been in the pavilion getting ready for a game of rounders. The boys were going through a phase of “enjoying” rounders in order to flirt with us, so there were over thirty of us that afternoon.…

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