The ignoble strife

The Nobel Prize for literature, like the Nobel Prize for peace, has been a lightning rod for controversy for a very long time

While the award of the Nobel Prize for economics to someone from Kolkata, among others, elicited an outpouring of emotion throughout the country, especially in his hometown, the award of the Nobel Prize for literature, a week or so earlier, only managed to provoke bitter worldwide controversy.

To begin with, the world was witness this year to the literally unprecedented spectacle of two awards being made in the same category. This not entirely desirable precedent was occasioned by the failure of the Swedish Academy to make the award for literature last year. It was thus that the Nobel Prize for literature