Why literary prizes should not be awarded to musicians

Bob Dylan won the 2016 Nobel Prize for Literature, ending the usual games of speculation and betting that happen around this time. PHOTO | AFP

What you need to know:

  • Since no shortlist was provided, the winner must have been decided on reasons other than literary prowess.
  • Essentially, I think the Nobel Prize is also about a fair distribution of the Prize across Europe and North America, with a token nod at Asia.
  • Could it also be a question of what the world perceives to be literature? Can the committee ever contemplate awarding a chemistry prize to a biologist who discovers a new name for a chemical substance?

So musician Bob Dylan won the 2016 Nobel Prize for Literature, ending the usual games of speculation and betting that happen around this time. This was the first time that an American artist has won this prize since 1993, when Toni Morrison won the same. For the committee, Dylan was notable “for having created new poetic expressions within the great American song tradition.”

And as usual, many people are furiously googling to find out who Bob Dylan is and what he has done. For those of us in literature, it is also time to continue the same conversation of the suitability of Dylan to win the prize.

I have heard a number of questions of whether a musician should be awarded such a prize.

I think that a musician may be a creative artist using words and speaking to problems facing humanity, but the musician is not a literary figure in the same way as Nuruddin Farah or Ngugi wa Thiong’o are and, for that reason, a musician is not a worthy recipient of the Nobel or any other literary prize.

To lump a guitarist with a novelist in the same cluster as literary artists is to miss or ignore that generic nuances that the two vocations are known for.

But even after the Nobel Committee settled on a guitarist over a literary writer, the reasons that the Prize Committee advanced for the award are not particular to Bob Dylan. To say that his lyrics “created new poetic expressions” is to say what is true generally of all good vocal or choral music; it is something that was neither invented by nor unique to Bob, even within America.

The poetic aura is a common matter in music generally, and should not be the basis for awarding any prize to such a musician. One cannot say that because a cock crows, then it is a better cock than all the others!

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For me, the choice of Bob Dylan, therefore, pushes us to revisit old debates about the politics of literary prizes and of language. The “poetic expressions” that the committee spoke of only caught their attention because they were rendered in English, thereby reaffirming the old fears that the English language occupies a position of prestige above all other languages, even when such languages relay many substantive concerns beyond “poetic expressions.” The “poetic expressions” in Salif Keita’s music may never be understood or rewarded by the Committee, for the reason that the artist does not use the English language.

The supremacy of the English language, though challenged in many ways, still means that artists in other languages are not readily considered for the Nobel. And this makes me wonder how “global” the Nobel Prize for Literature is, whose prestige is partly pegged on the illusion that all writers in the world have a fair chance of winning it.

Essentially, I think the Nobel Prize is also about a fair distribution of the Prize across Europe and North America, with a token nod at Asia. Consider this, since 2010, the Nobel Prize has been won in Sweden (2011), China (2012), Canada (2013), France (2014), Russia (2015) and, perhaps to ensure political balance, in America (2016). One can see a clear pattern where the Nobel Committee somewhat takes a tour of the world every year and, in a true reflection of the marginal place of Africa, the Caribbean Islands, and Asia, only attract brief nods from the Committee.

For me, therefore, the 2016 Nobel Prize for Literature award does not necessarily affirm the prize as the highest accolade that a literary artist can earn; it only confirms that the Nobel is “their” prize to dish it out to whoever it deems fit.

With no clear cut considerations made public even after the award, with no list of runners up, with no list of the panellists, the mystery that shrouds the whole thing only invites us to accept that Nobel Committee is propelled by considerations that are not necessarily literary.

Could it also be a question of what the world perceives to be literature? Can the committee ever contemplate awarding a chemistry prize to a biologist who discovers a new name for a chemical substance?

From a basic position, the choice of a musician over creative writers — poets, playwrights or novelists — may be read as a cruel suggestion that none of these artists of the written word was worthy of the highest recognition this year.

It is a curious way to appreciate literature, but one that does more to intensify the mystery surrounding the Nobel Committee and its operations. For me, 2016 is the year that Nobel Prize for Literature was not awarded.