Blindness, José Saramago
Blindness by José Saramago is the subject of the first reflection in my Nobel literature project. Saramago, a Portuguese author, was the Nobel laureate in literature in 1998. Blindness was published in...
View ArticleSiddhartha, Herman Hesse
I read Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse as part of my Nobel literature project. Hesse received the Nobel in 1946. Siddhartha was published in 1922. I was glad to read a German author in Germany. I...
View ArticleLord of the Flies, William Golding
I read Lord of the Flies as part of my Nobel literature project. I checked out the e-book from my local library and read it at the end of my travel in Europe this summer. I finished it in CDG waiting...
View ArticleMy Name Is Red, Orhan Pamuk
I checked out an e-book of My Name Is Red from the public library and finished it in September, I believe. The author Orhan Pamuk received the Nobel Prize in literature in 2006. Coincidentally, shortly...
View ArticleHateship, Friendship, Courtship, Loveship, Marriage, Alice Munro
I like short stories. That could be my whole review of this collection of short stories by Alice Munro, but I’ll say more. Munro received the 2013 Nobel Prize in literature, and I’m so glad my Nobel...
View ArticleThe Good Earth, Pearl Buck
I remember reading The Good Earth in middle school or so, but all I remember is that it was a very hard book for me. I think I read all the words, but I didn’t really get any meaning from the text. So...
View ArticleThe Garlic Ballads, Mo Yan
I finished The Garlic Ballads a few months ago as part of my Nobel literature project, but it’s been hard for me to write about it because it was so draining. The book is dark, full of random violence,...
View ArticleView with a Grain of Sand, Wisława Szymborska
I first encountered Wisława Szymborska’s poetry on JoAnne Growney’s mathematical poetry blog. That poem, “A Contribution to Statistics,” hit me hard. Out of every hundred people those who always know...
View ArticleTeach Us to Outgrow Our Madness, Kenzaburō Ōe
I finished this book last February, but it was so disturbing I couldn’t bring myself to write about it at the time. This is a collection of four short stories/novellas by Kenzaburō Ōe, who got the...
View ArticleSula, Toni Morrison
I read Sula by Toni Morrison last December as part of my Nobel literature project. I read The Bluest Eye and Beloved in college. All three books have unsettled me and left me feeling like I...
View ArticleA Moveable Feast, Ernest Hemingway
I read A Moveable Feast earlier this year as part of my Nobel literature project. (I read Old Man and the Sea in high school and A Farewell to Arms in college, but I’d want to revisit them before...
View ArticleNocturnes, Kazuo Ishiguro
Kazuo Ishiguro was the most recent Nobel laureate in literature. I read Remains of the Day in graduate school, and I’m left with memories of restraint and quiet regret but not a lot of more distinct...
View ArticleProse and Prose-Poems of Gabriela Mistral
In 1945, Gabriela Mistral became the first Latin American to be awarded the Nobel Prize in literature. I recently picked up Selected Prose and Prose-Poems, a collection of her work published in 2002....
View ArticleBabbitt, Sinclair Lewis
I took Babbitt with me on a trip earlier this summer because my copy is quite small and lightweight and Sinclair Lewis won the 1930 Nobel Prize for literature, and though it is going slowly, I’m still...
View ArticleSecondhand Time, Svetlana Alexievich
I recently read Secondhand Time by Svetlana Alexievich as part of by Nobel laureate reading project, which is still slowly chugging along. She won the Nobel Prize in literature in 2015. This book took...
View ArticleThe Transposed Heads, Thomas Mann
I was skeptical about this book, and that skepticism was not unwarranted. I don’t remember when I picked this book up, but it has the look of something I got from a free table at an old apartment or at...
View ArticleThe Wild Iris, Louise Glück
I’ve been trying to read more poetry, and I happened to read Louise Glück’s collection The Wild Iris shortly before she won the Nobel Prize in literature this year. I don’t feel qualified to write...
View ArticleKim, Rudyard Kipling
I recently listened to the audiobook of Kim by Rudyard Kipling as part of my Nobel literature project. Kipling won the prize in 1907, so he is currently the earliest Nobel laureate I have read. I think...
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