American poet Louise Glück wins Nobel Prize in Literature – Observer

The American poet Louise Glück is the winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2020. The prize was awarded to her for her “unmistakable poetic voice that, with austere beauty, universalizes individual existence,” justifies the Swedish Academy.

The announcement was made on Thursday morning in Stockholm by the permanent secretary of the Academy. Mats Malm revealed to have spoken moments before with the laureate: “The message was received with surprise but, from what it seemed to me, it was welcome,” said the secretary. In a short interview broadcast during the afternoon, Glück was speechless, admitting that it was all “too new” and that he could not say what it meant to be awarded the Nobel Prize.

The chairman of the Committee for the Nobel Prize in Literature, Anders Olsson, who was in charge of introducing the author, highlighted his “unmistakable” voice, both “frank and uncompromising”. “It indicates that this poet wants to be understood, but that she is also a voice full of humor and scathing wit. This is a great resource when Glück addresses one of his great themes, that of radical change, in which he takes a step forward from a deep sense of loss, “he said.

[O vídeo do anúncio do vencedor do Prémio Nobel da Literatura de 2020:]

Louise Glück is the sixteenth woman to win the Nobel Prize for Literature since its inception in 1901, and one of the few Americans to receive it. Although the United States of America is the second country with the largest number of laureates, with 14 winners, Glück is only the third woman to be awarded and the first American poet. Before her, Toni Morrison, in 1993, and Pearl S. Buck, in 1938, were novelists.

The scenario remains bleak, but perhaps Glück’s election is a sign that the Swedish Academy is finally ready to embrace change and end the turbulent years, marked by a series of scandals that have shaken the name of the body: the Nobel. of the American poet occurs two years after the award of the same award to the Polish Olga Tokarczuk (tainted by the election of the highly controversial Peter Handke, in 2019), who won three years after the Belarusian Svetlana Alexievich. This means that in five years, three women have won.

It was also the name of a woman that readers and critics wanted to see announced this Thursday (the betting lists included mainly female writers). But the choice of the former poet laureate from the United States, and truth be told, is nonetheless a surprise. In the days before the announcement, the most repeated names were those of Guadalupine Maryse Condé and the former Jamaica Kincaid, a clear sign of a more or less generalized desire to see the Nobel in the hands of a black writer. Also Canadian Anne Carson, who in 2019 had been identified as a possible winner, was mentioned by some critics as the eventual winner this year, but the Nobel Prize ended up going to another American poet.

BREAKING NEWS:
The 2020 Nobel Prize in Literature is awarded to the American poet Louise Glück “for her unmistakable poetic voice that with austere beauty makes individual existence universal.”#Nobel Prize pic.twitter.com/Wbgz5Gkv8C

– The Nobel Prize (@NobelPrize) October 8, 2020

Upon learning of Glück’s award, former poet laureate Robert Pinsky said: “Sometimes the world does these things well. And, I think it is not an indiscretion to say, he will soon publish a magnificent new book of poems, “The Washington Post quoted. Glück has not published a new book of poetry since 2014.

The poet responded to the Nobel laureate during a short interview, broadcast Thursday afternoon. When asked what receiving the literary award meant to her, Louise Glück admitted that it was too recent and that she hadn’t had time to process what happened yet. “He’s too young, I really don’t know what it means,” he said, revealing that he was going to use the money to buy a home in Vermont.

“I mean, it’s a great honor. There are some laureates that I don’t admire, but then I think about those that I admire, some of them very recent. In practical terms, I want to buy a home in Vermont. I have an apartment in Cambridge [em Massachusetts] and I thought, well, now I can buy a house. “

“Above all,” the writer said she was concerned about the impact the award will have on her daily life and the lives of her loved ones. Despite being one of the best-known American poets, Glück has always stayed away from public life. “It can upset things,” he said.

Louise Glück, 77, is one of America’s most famous poets. The writer was born on April 22, 1943, in New York, and made his debut in the world of literature in 1968, with the collection of poems Firstborn, being immediately identified as one of the strongest voices of the new generation of poets in the United States of America. Topics such as childhood and family life or the close relationships between parents and siblings highlighted her from other authors, and remained present in her work, which today consists of 12 volumes of poetry and some essays.

But if “the autobiographical context is important”, the writer “should not be seen as a confessional poet”, because “she seeks universality and is also inspired by myths and classical themes”, stressed the president of the Committee of the Nobel Prize for Literature, Anders Olsson, a feature that brings her closer to one of this year’s favorites, Canadian Anna Carson, a classicist known for her translation of Sappho’s fragments. In his work it is also possible to find “almost brutal direct images of hard and painful family relationships”.

Books like Achilles triumph, originally published in 1985, and AraratIn 1990, Glück found “a growing audience” inside and outside the United States. The author’s works are not published in Portugal, but some of her poems have been published in magazines and poetry collections. One of them, “O Poder de Circe”, translated by José Alberto Oliveira, was included in the anthology Rose of the World. 2001 poems for the future, published in 2001 by Assírio & Alvim and currently out of print.

Read here the poem “The power of Circe”, by Louise Glück, Nobel Prize in Literature 2020

In 1993, he won the Pulitzer Prize, with The Wild Iris, a collection of poems that puts the flowers of a garden in conversation with a gardener. One of them is “Snowdrops”, quoted by Anders Olsson during this Thursday’s announcement. The Wild Iris He is one of the most popular in Glück and built his fame with one of the most relevant American poets of the time. Another famous work is Hell, an interpretation of the myth of Persephone.

In 2014, he was awarded the National Book Prize, also a major American literary award, for Faithful and virtuous night, which addresses issues such as grief and mortality. “The reader is once again surprised by the presence of the voice and Glück approaches the subject of death with remarkable grace and lightness”, Anders Olsson also points out about the poet’s latest collection. “He writes narrative and dream poetry, recalling memories and travels and simply stopping and hesitating to present new perspectives. The world is disenchanted, only to be magically present again. “

[Louise Glück lê um poema de Faithful and Virtuous Night, o seu último livro de poesia:]

Among the awards she has received throughout her career, there is also the Bollingen Award from the National Circle of Book Critics, awarded by Yale University, where she is a professor of English. He was Poet Laureate of the United States between 2003 and 2004, a nomination that he did not expect to influence the number of readers who accompanied his work: “I am not worried about increasing my audience,” he said at the time, according to The Guardian, admitting that he preferred it to be ” small, intense, passionate ”.

In 2015, then-US President Barack Obama awarded him the National Humanities Medal, which is awarded annually to a dozen artists and historians for their contribution to the humanities.

Last year, the award was awarded to Austrian writer Peter Handke, “for the influential work that, through the use of naive linguistics, explored the periphery and specificity of the human experience.” The choice of the Swedish Academy was controversial and generated controversy inside and outside the literary universe due to the serious accusations that weigh on the author, namely that of collusion with the Slobodan Milošević regime. Handke attended the funeral of the former Serbian president and spoke during the ceremony.

The awarding of the award to the Austrian author was announced at the same time as the election of the Polish Olga Tokarczuk for the 2018 Nobel Prize due to a one-year hiatus following the sex scandal involving French playwright Jean-Claude Arnauld, husband of a former Swedish Academy member and owner of a literary club partially funded by her. It was the first time that the Academy announced two Nobel prizes at the same time.

The Nobel Prize for Literature has a monetary value of around 1 million euros. Unlike in previous years, the winner will not meet in Stockholm with the other winners due to the “pandemic situation”. Instead, the awards ceremony and speeches will be broadcast online, with individual sessions for each category, was announced this Thursday. “The awardees will be invited to next year’s ceremony in Stockholm.”