The 2011 Nobel Prize for literature

[Peder]

Yay for fiction of the highest order! But I guess there is something wrong with my brow, because it doesn't always appeal to me so much.

 

[beer good]

Apparently he was nominated by CS Lewis. No news on whether Tolkien returned the favour (if indeed he could), but nice to see that writers nominating their buddies isn't a new thing.

A few other quotes about the people who didn't get it that year. Robert Frost was just too old.

 

[beer good]

And speaking of nominations, for those interested:

At his weblog, the Swedish Academy's Nobel point man, Peter Englund, reports Långa listan klar: nominations were due for the 2012 Nobel Prize on 31 January, and he now shares the numbers.
Only 210 authors were (properly) nominated -- but an apparently inordinate number -- 46 -- were first-timers. The Swedish Academy reports that: "There are usually about 350 proposals each year", and Englund reports that this year there were only 288 -- way below usual. (The discrepancy in numbers is explained in a comment: there were 201 "korrekta nomineringar" (i.e. 'correct' ones) -- proposed by those authorized to do so; there were also quite a few "ej godkända nomineringarna" -- not acceptable ones, such as self-nominations, or those by lesser academics, etc. (love that Swedish term: okynnesnomineringarna*).)
Among the other titbits of interest: they requested nominations from a much larger than usual pool of people affiliated with American universities (though the response-rate was apparently somewhat disappointing); on the other hand, an unusually large number of former Nobel laureates, who are automatically eligible to propose names, did throw names into the mix.

Well, if not even the Americans themselves consider their writers worthy...

* Literally "mischief nominations"