The Nobel Mirage:

 

Literary prizes have long held the rapt attention of critics, intellectuals, and readers in the Arab world, as evidenced by the dozens of prizes awarded each year for novels, short story collections, and poetry anthologies. Occasionally, Arab writers have been awarded the International Booker Prize or the Prix Goncourt for translated editions of their works. Yet the Nobel Prize, whose last Arab winner was Naguib Mahfouz in 1988, has eluded them for nearly 40 years. Amir Taj al-Sir writes in “The Annual Nobel Fever,” published in Al-Quds Al-Arabi, that Arab readers and intellectuals follow developments surrounding the Nobel Prize “as if stricken with fever — even though it is not an Arab prize, and it is doubtful that it will ever again be awarded to an Arab after Naguib Mahfouz, given the humiliation and marginalization that Arabs and their ancient civilization face across the world.”* Year after year, anticipation over the year’s winner leaves many in the Arab world asking questions similar to those of Brewin Habib in Al-Quds Al-Arabi: “Will the Nobel remember us after 37 years of absence? And will the eternal nominee, Adonis, finally receive it?”**

 

The Arab world boasts a rich history of writers and intellectuals, countless of whom were legendary in the Arab cultural scene long before Mahfouz’s Nobel victory. Names like Taha Hussein, Tawfiq al-Hakim, Mikhail Naimy, and Badr Shakr al-Sayyab are practically household names when it comes to influential Arab writers of the time. Yet Naguib Mahfouz’s historic win of the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1988 seemed to dispel the illusion that global recognition was something beyond reach; in the words of Hashem al-Jahdali in Al Majalla, Mahfouz made “the dream seem possible and attainable.”***

 

Mahfouz’s artistic merit cannot be discredited, but it can be argued that he also benefited from fortuitous conditions. English translations by highly skilled and prominent translators Trevor LeGassick and Denys Johnson-Davies “introduced Western readers to Cairo’s popular life and to Mahfouz’s realist and symbolic narrative art,” states Habib. On top of this, the political situation at the time also leaned in the author’s favor; the “timing was perfect,” according to Habib, because Western media’s perception of Egypt had recently shifted due to Sadat’s 1974 open-door policy. The prize, in her words, was “politically convenient…The victory relieved the Nobel of Arab pressure, perhaps for another century.”

 

The Arab world has witnessed the rise of numerous hopefuls since 1988, yet none have successfully claimed the prize. Many writers have been deemed more than deserving, including Yusuf Idris, Abdul Rahman Munif, Mahmoud Darwish, Tayeb Salih, Nawal El Saadawi, Saadallah Wannous, Alfred Farag, Tawfiq al-Hakim, Mikhail Naimy, Saeed Aql, Tahar Ben Jelloun, Assia Djebar, and Taha Hussein. Although the prize should primarily be concerned with the literary merit of the works, the political climate diminished the prospects of many Arab writers.

 

Egyptian writer Taha Hussein was nominated 21 times between 1949 and 1973. Brewin Habib suggests that his nomination, which coincided with the onset of the Arab-Israeli conflict, affected his chances of winning. She states, “Awarding him the prize would have alienated the side that controlled much of Western media.”

 

Aside from this, the content of Hussein’s works may also have factored into the prize decisions. The Nobel Prize favors fiction works, and Hussein’s writings were more critical than creative, according to Habib. She adds that only a handful of his writings were translated into Western languages, and because of their limited circulation, many Western readers were unfamiliar with his thought.

 

While the gap between Mahfouz’s award in 1988 and the continued lack of Arab winners persists, concerns have arisen about whether the Arab world is experiencing a decline in creativity despite the vast number of works produced by Arab creatives. Hashem al-Jahdali notes that nowadays, a small number of Arab writers are recognized as potential winners of prominent literary awards, such as the Nobel Prize. In contrast, in the past, the Arab world had several names worthy of consideration. He asks, “Why, today, have our options diminished, our names grown scarce, and our hopes narrowed to a single card — Adonis?... Is it truly the case that no major Arab names remain in the cultural landscape? Or have they simply not been translated or reached the global audience? If the latter is true — and it does appear so — then what is the real value of all these works we hear about being translated if they never actually reach readers?”

 

In this vein, Brewin Habib questions whether the fact that so few Arab writers have been considered is a problem with Arab writers themselves or a matter of Western bias. Translation undoubtedly plays a vital role in the selection of works, for the obvious reason that they are in an accessible language for awarding committees. Habib emphasizes a correlation between Arab works that have been translated into Western languages (specifically English, French, and Swedish) as “the primary gateway to Nobel consideration.” She comments sardonically, “The five elderly Swedes who determine the prize have no connection to the Arabic language or literature. Naguib Mahfouz’s works reached them only through early English translations produced by literary translators, not academics.”

 

At the same time, translation isn’t a one-way ticket to fame and success. Amir Taj al-Sir stresses that translations of Arabic literature into other languages (primarily English) should not be the primary goal, as they do not necessarily ensure a work's fame. Numerous Arab authors have works translated into English on Amazon, he explains, yet they remain unknown even in the Arab world. Rather, the production of compelling literature — writing that Western readers “cannot help but be moved by” — is the actual requirement for an award-winning book. In these cases, translation simply bolsters the book’s prospects, which already had a solid foundation from the beginning.

 

Among the several obstacles facing Arab writers, the lack of institutional support sits near the top of the list. “There is no genuine translation movement for Arabic literature into foreign languages,” writes Habib, adding, “Most translations originate from writers’ personal ambitions for global fame or from academic institutions with limited commercial reach, often carried out by Orientalists or scholars rather than professional literary translators. Many of these translations betray the spirit of the original, especially in poetry.”

 

Even when translated, Arab works are handled carelessly, and their success ultimately comes down to a “matter of connections — who is promoted and who is passed over,” suggests Taj al-Sir. In his words, “The result is that neither the good nor the bad finds a meaningful place in the vast sea of world literature.” The attention that works receive is limited and fizzles out quickly; invitations to authors to speak at universities or institutions, for example, serve as single-instanced events rather than ladders for advancement — “The author travels, smiles for photos, signs a few copies of their book, and the matter ends there.”

 

No coordinated cultural effort, public or private, exists to advocate for Arab candidates, states Habib. Taj al-Sir affirms that literary agents rarely accept Arab authors, regardless of whether they are famous or have won many prizes. Even when accepted, “they make little effort to present them to the world.” In other words, Arab authors are neglected, left to their own devices to find credible or established publishing houses that will pay proper royalties and genuinely take an interest in and promote their works.

 

Geography and power, rather than literary quality, determine ‘universal’ recognition. The Nobel thus becomes a mirror of cultural hegemony rather than meritocracy. In the words of Brewin Habib: “Despite its global claims, the Nobel Prize remains Western in origin, course, and outcome.”

 

Arbitrary selection standards are a common point of controversy directed at any literary prize, not just the Nobel. Yet statistics paint a more honest picture of a judging committee’s criteria than any public statement can deny. Citing the prize’s 16 French, 13 British, 9 German, and 8 Swedish laureates, Habib points out the Nobel’s Eurocentric bias and adds that it also reflects gender and ideological biases, favoring Western views on politics, gender, and conflict. 

 

She writes, “It would be naïve…to assume that aesthetic merit alone determines the award, ignoring the weight of history, geography, and politics. How else could the Nobel overlook literary giants like Tolstoy (nominated 10 times), Proust, Borges, and Henry James, yet honor Winston Churchill, a politician whose only “literary” works were his memoirs, or Bob Dylan, a singer-songwriter? The novelist Mario Vargas Llosa once joked that after honoring a singer, the committee might next award a football player. Add to this the scandals of some Nobel jurors secretly nominating themselves, and the statement once made by the committee’s secretary rings true: Europe is still the center of the literary world.”

 

Moreover, biases have outright excluded countless commendable writers from eligibility before they even have a chance to present their works. Habib explains that charges of anti-Semitism have “effectively barred politically engaged Arab writers from consideration,” all the while the Nobel Committee has honored lesser-known Zionist authors such as Shmuel Agnon — reinforcing claims that “the Nobel, like many other prizes, can be said to be ‘tailored to fit the laureate.’ Its justifications for awarding the prize have never been purely artistic; some winning works read more like political documents — one need only recall the case of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, author of The Gulag Archipelago.”

 

It appears the Arab world’s one and only hope rests on the Syrian poet Adonis, whose name has surfaced nearly every year for the past 37 years as a potential Nobel winner. The poet’s works and critical thought have garnered global interest, leading many to believe him as one of the few creators “truly embodying the spirit of such rewards,” as described by Amir Taj al-Sir, who says of Adonis: “I suspect he has long been among the perennial candidates for the prize. For decades, the award has hovered around him — as other writers have received it while it continually eludes him. Even just days before this year’s announcement, his name resurfaced with force; so intense was the fever that many followers were sure he would win at last. Yet once again, the prize passed him by — this time in favor of a Hungarian writer the committee deemed more deserving.”

 

However, Habib, echoing a sentiment shared by many others, believes the chances of Adonis ever winning the Nobel Prize are now impossible. Adonis’ political and literary controversies “make him too polarizing,” she states. This, along with accusations from his rivals of plagiarism and literary theft, and the fact that “his highly abstract, elitist poetry — already marginalized by the Nobel’s bias toward prose — is inaccessible even to native Arabic readers for its experimentalism and density. His poetic presence, too, has waned with age and the scarcity of new translations in the past two decades, distancing him further from a dream he has long claimed to disdain, though it has defined his literary afterlife.”

 

Though news of an Arab writer’s victory may be a long time coming, the likelihood of it occurring remains unclear. Such is the situation that other non-Western countries, not just the Arab world, also face, sidelined by the Nobel’s unspoken bias towards Europe and the West. Is the problem truly a lack of creative production, and by extension, a lack of creativity? This conclusion falls flat when considering that China, for example, won the prize in 2000 — only once in the entire century since the prize’s inception — despite its population of 3 billion; meanwhile, the three-time winner Denmark has a population of 6 million. Similarly, the most populous country, India, has yet to win another Nobel since Rabindranath Tagore won the prize in 1913. While concerns over the creative quality in Arab literature may hold some weight among critics and intellectuals within the industry, there is likely more than meets the eye when it comes to their consideration for prizes, hidden from all those except the very judges conferring over the year’s Nobel pick.