You will by now be aware that the Peruvian writer, Mario Vargas Llosa, has been awarded the 2010 Nobel Prize for Literature. Heard of the award and also heard of the recipient, which is probably a change for the past couple of years: Herta Müller in 2009 and J.M.G Le Clézio were not the most well-known names going around.
Llosa becomes the first writer in Spanish to win the award since Octavio Paz in 1990, and becomes the eleventh writer in that language to do so, following José Echegaray in 1904, Jacinto Benavente in 1922, Gabriela Mistral in 1945, Juan Ramón Jiménez in 1956, Miguel Ángel Asturias in 1967, Pablo Neruda in 1971, Vicente Aleixandre in 1977, Gabriel García Márquez in 1982, Carmin José Cela in 1989 and Paz in 1990.
And a lot of them I haven't heard of either.
I used to worry about that once. But, now as I'm getting older, I've just come to the realisation that there's only so much time available for reading amongst the rest of life's demands, and we do the best we can with the time we are allotted.
Should I be doing more? Probably.
Will I? Probably not.
I'm just happy I sort of know who Llosa is. Makes me feel I've achieved at least something.
Wikipedia List of Nobel laureates in Literature page.
Llosa becomes the first writer in Spanish to win the award since Octavio Paz in 1990, and becomes the eleventh writer in that language to do so, following José Echegaray in 1904, Jacinto Benavente in 1922, Gabriela Mistral in 1945, Juan Ramón Jiménez in 1956, Miguel Ángel Asturias in 1967, Pablo Neruda in 1971, Vicente Aleixandre in 1977, Gabriel García Márquez in 1982, Carmin José Cela in 1989 and Paz in 1990.
And a lot of them I haven't heard of either.
I used to worry about that once. But, now as I'm getting older, I've just come to the realisation that there's only so much time available for reading amongst the rest of life's demands, and we do the best we can with the time we are allotted.
Should I be doing more? Probably.
Will I? Probably not.
I'm just happy I sort of know who Llosa is. Makes me feel I've achieved at least something.
Wikipedia List of Nobel laureates in Literature page.