Nobel Prize

Swedish 7 December 2007 Om att inte få Nobelpriset Jag står i dörren och ser genom yrande dammoln åt det håll där det ska finnas skog som fortfarande står orörd. I går körde jag kilometer efter kilometer genom kalhyggen och förkolnade brandrester efter en skog som 1956 var den vackraste jag någonsin sett men nu…

English December 7, 2007 On not winning the Nobel Prize I am standing in a doorway looking through clouds of blowing dust to where I am told there is still uncut forest. Yesterday I drove through miles of stumps, and charred remains of fires where, in ’56, there was…

Nobel Lecture, December 7, 1991 Writing and Being In the beginning was the Word. The Word was with God, signified God’s Word, the word that was Creation. But over the centuries of human culture the word has taken on other meanings, secular as well as religious. To have the word has come to be synonymous…

French À l’écart Ecrire est-ce la faculté de se plier à la réalité, de se blottir contre? On aimerait bien se blottir, mais que marrive-t-il alors? Qu’arrive-t-il à ceux qui ne connaissent pas réellement la réalité? Elle est tellement décoiffée. Pas de peigne qui pourrait la lisser. Les poètes passent à travers et rassemblent désespérément…

German Im Abseits Ist Schreiben die Gabe der Schmiegsamkeit, der Anschmiegsamkeit an die Wirklichkeit? Man möchte sich ja gern anschmiegen, aber was geschieht da mit mir? Was geschieht mit denen, die die Wirklichkeit gar nicht wirklich kennen? Die ist ja sowas von zerzaust. Kein Kamm, der sie glätten könnte. Die Dichter fahren hindurch und versammeln…

Swedish Avsides Är skrivande gåvan att smyga sig på, att anpassa sig till verkligheten? Man skulle ju gärna vilja anpassa sig, men vad sker då med mig? Vad sker med dem som verkligen inte känner verkligheten? Den är till den grad hoptovad. Ingen kam som kunde reda ut den. Författarna kammar igenom och samlar förtvivlat…

English Sidelined Is writing the gift of curling up, of curling up with reality? One would so love to curl up, of course, but what happens to me then? What happens to those, who don’t really know reality at all? It’s so very dishevelled. No comb, that could smooth it down. The…

English Nobel Lecture, December 8, 1989 (Translation) Eulogy to the Fable Distinguished Academicians, My old friend and mentor Pío Baroja – who did not receive the Nobel Prize because the bright light of success does not always fall on the righteous – had a clock on his wall. Around the face of that clock there…

English Nobel Lecture, 8 December 1988 Read at the Swedish Academy by Mr. Mohamed Salmawy(first in Arabic, then in English) (Translation) Ladies and Gentlemen, To begin with I would like to thank the and its Nobel committee for taking notice of my long and perseverant endeavours, and I would like you to accept my talk…

Nobel Lecture, December 8, 1986 This Past Must Address Its Present A rather curious scene, unscripted, once took place in the wings of a London theatre at the same time as the scheduled performance was being presented on the actual stage, before an audience. What happened was this: an actor refused to come on stage…