Nobel Prize Committee Throws Rocks, Call Most Continents Stupid

The Nobel Prize for Literature is the highest honor for a writer. (Unless you're me and would rather have a Newbery.) But apparently only European writers should get that honor, according to the selection committee:

"As the Swedish Academy enters final deliberations for this year's award, permanent secretary Horace Engdahl said it's no coincidence that most winners are European.

"Of course there is powerful literature in all big cultures, but you can't get away from the fact that Europe still is the center of the literary world ... not the United States," he told The Associated Press in an exclusive interview Tuesday...

The academy often picks obscure writers and hardly ever selects best-selling authors. It regularly faces accusations of snobbery, political bias and even poor taste."

It's ridiculous to claim that European authors are simply better than US authors. Are the judges looking at the New York Times Bestseller List? Shouldn't they be looking at our own obscure, poorly-selling authors? The article mentions some names the Nobel selection committee should take note of--Oates, Roth, Delillo, etc. And what about authors writing in South America? Australia? Asia? The article mentions how Europe is a refuge for writers from politically tumultuous countries, but isn't that because of European ties (ahem, former colonies) to these countries? And how scary is Japan? Can't we get some other voices in this mix?

I would also remind the committee of previous American winners: John Steinbeck, Ernest Hemingway, William Faulkner, Toni Morrison. Hell, even T.S. Eliot was born and raised in the United States.

They could even make the same argument against female authors: "Historically, men have been more prominent writers, so we're just going to focus our search on male authors." Jackasses.

It feels like the committee wants to be a group of hipsters--too cool for anything even remotely mainstream, aka American. Stop acting like a twentysomething, Nobel people. Get your act together and choose the best author, no matter where he/she is from.