Sola Osofisan
01-22-2009, 04:59 PM
A Tale of Four Speeches
By Teju Cole
At the beginning of December last year, the newly named Nobel Laureate in Literature, J.M.G. Le Clézio, addressed the Swedish Academy. The Nobel Lecture is typically an opportunity to say thank you and to declare the writer's essential loyalties. Both tasks are often accomplished as one: to indicate indebtedness can itself be a form of gratitude.
For the literature Laureates, this indebtedness is often narrated around personal origins and writerly influences. We see the writer, sometimes for the first time, emerge from the shadow of his or her books. It is interesting to look at Le Clézio's speech in the context of three other Nobel Lectures from the past decade.
Read more (http://234next.com/csp/cms/sites/Next/Home/1018028-146/story.csp)
By Teju Cole
At the beginning of December last year, the newly named Nobel Laureate in Literature, J.M.G. Le Clézio, addressed the Swedish Academy. The Nobel Lecture is typically an opportunity to say thank you and to declare the writer's essential loyalties. Both tasks are often accomplished as one: to indicate indebtedness can itself be a form of gratitude.
For the literature Laureates, this indebtedness is often narrated around personal origins and writerly influences. We see the writer, sometimes for the first time, emerge from the shadow of his or her books. It is interesting to look at Le Clézio's speech in the context of three other Nobel Lectures from the past decade.
Read more (http://234next.com/csp/cms/sites/Next/Home/1018028-146/story.csp)