John Steinbeck's Nobel Prize Win created quite a controversy and now the issue is being reopened by The Swedish Academy, reports The Guardian.
When American author John Steinbeck went to win the Noble Prize in 1962 beating contenders like British authors like Robert Graves and Lawrence Durrell, it created quite a stir as it was a well known fact that Steinbeck was not the most popular choice.
While details of the winning have been kept confidential for 50 years now, the academy released a list of all the nominees that were shortlisted for the 1962 prize January 3. Some of the names in the list included Steinbeck, Graves, Durrell, Danish author Karen Blixen and French dramatist Jean Anouilh. It was found that Steinbeck was not the best in the entire list but the best among the bad lot of the 66 names in the list.
"There aren't any obvious candidates for the Nobel prize and the prize committee is in an unenviable situation," wrote committee member Henry Olsson, according to a piece today by Swedish journalist Kaj Schueler in Svenska Dagbladet.
According to a report by The Guardian, Olsson revealed that Graves was not given the award as he was seen to be more of a poet than a novelist. Also, according to Olsson, it wouldn't be fair if the award was given to any other Anglo-Saxon poet other than Ezra Pound who he considered boasted a volume of work that couldn't be matched by any other poet.
Author Karen Blixen passed away that September, making her ineligible to receive the award. On the other hand the committee felt that "Durrell was not to be given preference this year" because "they did not think that The Alexandria Quartet was enough, so they decided to keep him under observation for the future". According to Olsson, Durell who was also nominated for the award in 1961 was ruled out then because he"gives a dubious aftertaste ... because of [his] monomaniacal preoccupation with erotic complications".
The reason behind Steinbeck winning the award is said to be becasue the Academy's permanent secretary, Anders Österling, believed the release of his new novel The Winter of Our Discontent in 1961 showed that "after some signs of slowing down in recent years, [Steinbeck has] regained his position as a social truth-teller [and is an] authentic realist fully equal to his predecessors Sinclair Lewis and Ernest Hemingway", revealed Svenska Dagbladet.
"Between Graves and Steinbeck, I find the choice very difficult - Graves is the older, and at the same time less high profile, while Steinbeck's reputation is of course more popular," wrote Österling. "Since Steinbeck's candidacy nevertheless appears to me to have a larger chance of gathering unqualified support, I consider myself free to give it precedence."