Russianist from India predicted the award of the Nobel Prize in Literature to Salman Rushdie

“It’s such a way for them to apologize.”

Trying to guess the name of the winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature for several years has become a futile exercise. However, on the eve of the solemn ceremony (which will take place today, October 6, at 14.00 Moscow time), the so-called “list of favorites”, determined by betting companies, wanders from edition to edition.

It looks like – if you remove the numbers of quotes, as follows:

Michel Houellebecq (France)

Salman Rushdie (UK)

Ngugi Wa Thiongo (Kenya)

Stephen King (USA)

Annie Erno (France)

Gariel Lutz (USA)

Pierre Michon (France)

Robert Coover (USA)

Haruki Murakami (Japan)

Ann Carson (Canada)

If we recall that Abdulrazak Gurna, a native of Tanzania, who writes about the problems of the post-colonial world order, became the 2021 Nobel laureate, then two names in the list are worth paying attention to. This is a native of Mumbai, Salman Rushdie and a Kenyan writer who creates works in English and Kikuyu Ngugi Wa Thiongo. Let us assume that the lightning of the attention of the Nobel Committee does not strike twice in the same place, that is, in Africa, and we apologize to Mr. Ngugi for not believing in his victory.

Russianist from India Sonu Saini, a lecturer at the Center for Russian Studies at Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi, believes that his former compatriot can become the owner of the most prestigious award in the world:

– He has very good chances. He has been writing for a long time, and has written a number of popular works awarded with prestigious awards. In India, it is included in the curriculum of several universities, of course, it is read. If everything goes well, he will win.

– For Europe, India is also one of the countries that suffered in the era of colonialism. So the Western world has the opportunity to apologize to the Indians by awarding the Nobel Prize to Rushdie?

– Europeans need to apologize not only to India, but to all countries where they violated human rights. And now, by the way, they are also suffering – in Britain today there are fewer Britons themselves than migrants from India, Africa and other countries. They themselves were in the minority, and realized what they were doing, it all came back to them! As for the Nobel to Salman Rushdie, I think yes, for them it can be such a way to apologize.

It is noteworthy that, bypassing the “top ten” voiced from each iron, Mikhail Wiesel, an expert on modern literature, named two seemingly completely unexpected likely winners of the gold medal with the profile of the inventor of dynamite. And both of them are Ukrainian-speaking poets.

“This year there is a non-zero probability that the prize will be awarded to Sergei Zhadan or Yuri Andrukhovych,” the expert suggests on his pages on social networks. Considering how often politics invades literature, a sharp tilt towards Ukraine really cannot be ruled out.