Review Rafael Narbona in cultural of The World 
article Javier Rodríguez Marcos in El Pais on Nobel Prize for Literature Kjell Espmark. The 10 million kronor (one million) Nobel Prize for Literature this year have, now, five possible recipients. This afternoon, at one, Horace Engdahl, secretary of the Swedish Academy, will bring the world of doubt. Mario Vargas Llosa, Milan Kundera, Philip Roth? "The Swede Per Olof Enquist, as one German survey, or neither? No more than five and, in any case. Are those who have passed a screen that began a year ago.
As a winner is known, the Academy calls for new candidates for about 700 people and institutions worldwide. Thus, 200 names will be studied by the Nobel Committee, a group of five members charged to reduce the list to as many authors. Are before the summer are in the hands of the 18 academics (17 this year, there is one vacancy), who decide who swelled a record that in 1901 inaugurated the French Sully Prudhomme.
Last week, in addition, Engdahl himself warmed the atmosphere with a statement in which he stated that Europe, not America, "remains at the center of the literary world." A chapter in a history of daring, suspicions and mistakes which has devoted Kjell Epsmark Nobel Prize for Literature. One hundred years ago with the mission without wasting a book the Nordic editorial published in Spain in next few days. Epsmark knows what he speaks: it's academic for over 20 years in the eighties was chairman of the Nobel Committee. Of course, the hundreds of documents, reports, Shadow Report, lists, letters, which produces the award a secret weighs half a century. So it was informed two years ago how was baked in 1956 the award to Juan Ramón Jiménez. Alfonso Alegre has told Chronicle in Nobel Prize (students').
The Nobel Prize in Literature , Espmark summed over a century in nearly 400 pages full of big gestures and small miseries.
- A Will. Epsmark insists that the literary history of the most important distinction of the world is almost that of "an attempt at interpretation of a will is unclear." The Alfred Nobel's own, that before his death in 1896 gave a specific clause for the award of letters: to be granted to those who had produced "the best in the ideal sense." The headaches always came word ideal.
- The perfect candidate . The Swedish Academy had a long century when given the task of administering the award. He was a conservative stronghold, which is why some members voted against accepting the donation of Nobel. This is also why the translation for more than a decade were used in ideal out God. Thus, Tolstoy and Zola were discarded as heretical and pessimistic. The "almost perfect candidate," says Epsmark, Rudyard Kipling was British. Champion of the faith, law and discipline, won in 1907.
- The global Nobel. Aware that the literature was on one side (rupture) and the other Nobel (tradition), the Academy was renewed after the uncertainties of the First World War in the thirties, as interpreted ideal popular. was a moment of American hits such as Sinclair Lewis and Pearl S. Buck. War stopped the award for four years but it marked the time to compensate innovators (Gide, Eliot, Faulkner.) The seventy, meanwhile, settled useful criteria that last until today. Apart from quality, it is assumed, the award should be noted literary genres, languages \u200b\u200bor cultural areas traditionally neglected. Nobel came the global and opened the door to Asia and Africa. And women, only 11 in 106 years of history. Five in the last two decades. The most recent, Doris Lessing, in 2007.
- The writer of the year. Although now the Nobel awards a career, their statutes call for value the work done "during the year above. "Also the idea of \u200b\u200bliterature is elastic. They have won historians (Theodor Mommsen), philosophers (Bertrand Russell) and even politicians (Churchill). Of course, Freud was rejected by science. In the seventies, the Academy stopped by writing that their prize was not the best writer in the world - "something there" - but "a very good one."
- English. The fourth story was Nobel, in 1904, José Echegaray. Then come Benavente, Juan Ramón Jiménez Aleixandre and Camilo Jose Cela. In Vicente Aleixandre was awarded the generation of 27 at the time, 1977, the arrival of democracy to Spain. It was felt that Alberti share it with care into exile, but weighed more than the role of the first as a teacher of youth. Candidates
there were more English. The strongest of them all, Benito Perez Galdos. Also, Ortega y Menéndez Pidal. Angel Catalan Guimerà candidate in 1919, was rejected for not offend to English speakers.
- Appropriate disclaimers. Joyce and Ibsen paid for their protests before a traditionalist Academy, and Paul Valéry was the perennial runner-up in the thirties. In 1945 they would give but he died. Unamuno was a strong candidate in 1935 and this year there were no Nobel. Sartre played in 1964, the opposite role: he rejected the award. Then demanded money.
- Politicians. World War I filled the track record of Scandinavia. Thus, a Franco-German Prize avoided sharply aligned. Minority languages \u200b\u200bhave always been a tricky issue, but remember that sometimes Espmark were instrumental translation in the edition of 18 copies. Like Pasternak (1958), Solzhenitsyn (1970) and Brodsky (1987) raised blisters on the USSR, Gao Xingjian them up in China in 2000. The Academy does not respond to formal complaints. In the words of his secretary: "With the decisions of the prize as kissing goes, do not ask permission before or apologize later."
