On Thursday the Swedish Academy will determine its newest Nobel Laureate in Literature. Until today, that precise conversation — had several years ago — was probably the last time anyone was comparing Joan Didion and Philip Roth’s literary legacies. Enter a new, viral TikTok where a young woman has claimed, “Philip Roth is Joan Didion…
With the announcement of the Nobel Prize for Literature just two days away, observers are busy speculating on potential winners. Among the favorites for the prize is Black Jewish author Jamaica Kincaid. Bjorn Wiman, culture editor of the Swedish newspaper Dagens Nyheter, predicted to the Guardian that either Kincaid or the poet Anne Carson would…
(JTA) — The Nobel Prize in medicine was awarded to three scientists who identified the hepatitis C virus. The prize was awarded Monday to Harvey Alter of the National Institutes of Health, Michael Houghton of the University of Alberta, and Charles Rice of Rockefeller University. “The Nobel Laureates’ discovery of Hepatitis C virus is a…
Shai Agnon was born on this day in 1888. To commemorate that auspicious day, we return to this story, originally published in 2013, about Israel’s only Nobel laureate for literature. Sitting in a lecture hall in the Talpiot section of Jerusalem, a group of 25 immigrants is discussing “A City and Its Fullness” (“Ir U’meloah”…
The October announcement of Austrian novelist Peter Handke as the winner of the 2019 Nobel Prize in Literature was greeted, by many, with confusion. Handke, apologist for Slobodan Milosevic, the Serbian president who oversaw the Bosnian genocide? Handke, who spoke at Milosevic’s funeral and told critics of his decision to do so to “go to…
Doris Lessing, who died on November 17, 2013 at age 94, won the 2007 Nobel Prize in Literature for her prolific writings ranging from autobiography to what she called “space fiction.” Sometimes overlooked was the lasting inspiration which Lessing, born Doris May Tayler in 1919 in Persia, drew from Jews and Jewish heritage. In 1925,…
If you are one of the 3.5 billion people who use Google.com today, you’ll see a somewhat cryptic Google Doodle of a typewriter in front of two cityscapes. That’s because December 10 marks the 127th birthday of Nelly Sachs, a German-born Jewish poet and refugee to Sweden who was honored by her adoptive country with…
(JTA) — William Nordhaus, a Yale University professor with Jewish roots, will share the 2018 Nobel Prize for Economics. Paul Romer, a former World Bank chief economist who is now at New York University’s Stern School of Business, also won the prize. The winners, who will split the $1.1 million award equally, were recognized for…
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