Nobel controversy: Are writers hurt by financial support?
Nobel judge Horace Engdahl lamented that today's writers, who often participate in writers programs and sometimes receive grants, are 'cut off from society'. He praised an era when 'writers would work as taxi drivers, clerks, secretaries and waiters to make a living,' saying that in this way writers 'fed themselves, from a literary perspective'.
Nobel judge Horace Engdahl lamented that today's writers, who often participate in writers programs and sometimes receive grants, are 'cut off from society'. He praised an era when 'writers would work as taxi drivers, clerks, secretaries and waiters to make a living,' saying that in this way writers 'fed themselves, from a literary perspective'.
French writer Patrick Modiano may have won this year鈥檚 Nobel Prize for literature, but Nobel judge Horace Engdahl has thrown himself in the spotlight due to controversial comments suggesting financial support for writers is harming literature.
Speaking about the proliferation of writing programs and grants, he told French paper La Croix, 鈥淓ven though I understand the temptation, I think it cuts writers off from society, and creates an unhealthy link with institutions. Previously, writers would work as taxi drivers, clerks, secretaries and waiters to make a living. Samuel Beckett and many others lived like this. It was hard 鈥� but they fed themselves, from a literary perspective.鈥�
Engdahl lamented the 鈥減rofessionalization鈥� of writers, which he said isolated writers from the world they write about and the people for whom they write.聽
A member of the Swedish Academy, Engdahl is one of 18 judges who chose Modiano as this year鈥檚 winner for the Nobel Prize for literature.
As some pieces have pointed out, the literary figure who has criticized the 鈥減rofessionalization鈥� of writers is himself an editor and critic as well as a professor at Denmark鈥檚 University of Aarhus in addition to his duties at the Swedish Academy.
Engdahl had more to say about the problems he sees in modern literature.
He slammed novels that 鈥減retend to be 鈥渢ransgressive,鈥� but are not. 鈥淥ne senses that the transgression is fake, strategic,鈥� he said. 鈥淭hese novelists, who are often educated in European or American universities, don鈥檛 transgress anything because the limits which they have determined as being necessary to cross don鈥檛 exist."聽
He praised Asian and African writers but warned that assimilation and Westernization may taint their work.
It is on 鈥渙ur western side that there is a problem, because when reading many writers from Asia and Africa, one finds a certain liberty again,鈥� he told the French paper. 鈥淚 hope the literary riches which we are seeing arise in Asia and Africa will not be lessened by the assimilation and the westernization of these authors,鈥� he added later.
Engdahl, not surprisingly, is no stranger to controversy.聽
In 2008, he derided American writers and readers聽as 鈥渢oo isolated, too insular. They don鈥檛 translate enough and don鈥檛 really participate in the big dialogue of literature.... That ignorance is restraining.鈥�
He was lambasted聽for his remarks then and reaction has been swift this time as well.
鈥淓ngdahl鈥檚 bracing remarks reflect quite a lot of informal comment within some senior parts of the literary community, especially those grey cadres that are anti-American,鈥� Observer critic Robert McCrum told the UK鈥檚 Guardian. 鈥淎t face value, these comments are an odd mixture of grumpy old man and Nordic romantic. I鈥檓 not sure that the author鈥檚 garret is the guarantor of excellence.鈥�
The LA Times鈥� book critic David Ulin also responded to Engdahl in a piece for the LA Times, refuting his criticism.
Grants and institutions don鈥檛 cut writers off from society, as Engdahl claimed, but rather connect them, Ulin argued.
鈥淸I]nstitutions put us in touch with a community of readers and writers, many of whom think differently than we do,鈥� he wrote. 鈥淟iterature does not, cannot, exist in a vacuum, and one of the benefits of having to work for a living is that it gets writers in the mix.
鈥淭his is where Engdahl reveals his biases, by suggesting that there is only one way for writers to engage. It鈥檚 backwards, ignorant, a perspective defined by the romantic notion of the garret, of the starving artist, the idea that literature, that creativity, might somehow remain pure.鈥�
Writers need not be waiters, taxi drivers, or secretaries to remain authentic, he added.
鈥淎rtists are not ennobled by poverty any more than they are ennobled by money. They are ennobled by art.
鈥淏ut more to the point,鈥� he added, 鈥渋t鈥檚 time to move beyond these antiquated attitudes and recognize that what makes writing authentic is not the writer's circumstances but rather what he or she has to say.鈥�
Husna Haq is a Monitor correspondent.