Amidst the furor that's likely to develop over the announcement that the Nobel Peace Prize goes to Obama this year, it's worth noticing also some of the other Nobels, as well as other internationally recognized awards.
Literature Prizes
If the Nobel Peace Prize is subjective (as it certainly is), then the Nobel Prize in Literature is übersubjective. Though occasionally coming up with a winner who has an established readership beyond specialists in his/her own country, the Nobel has more often gone to a hitherto unnoticed writer. This year's winner, Herta Mueller, is a case in point, described as "little-read" outside her native Germany.
The Nobel has been criticized in the U.S. (and sometimes elsewhere in the world) as too Europe-centered, but the truth of that is self-evident. Individuals like Nobel, or corporations like Booker (now, apparently, Man Booker), by virtue of providing prize money, get to decide, if they wish, the qualities they want to see in a winner. Even if they don't, the committees and organizations that award these prizes will, over time, develop a certain bias toward certains kinds of works.
The bias of the Nobels seems to have drifted toward the cleverly written novel of endless obscure literary references and vapid story lines (A.S. Byatt comes to mind), the kind of thing that in the U.S., engages the interest only of professors of English. (I haven't read Ms. Mueller's work - does she qualify?) Anyway, with that sort of focus, it's little wonder that the Committee's choices seem Europe-centered; that's where that sort of writing is concentrated. Today's Washington Post has a very useful cheat sheet about these various literary prizes, with capsule descriptions of their typical focuses.
Science Prizes
Leading up to the literature and peace prizes, there is usually a string of announcements of Nobel prizes in science. I think it's a shame that these don't get more attention. Perhaps they get more in other countries, but here in the U.S., the single, quick announcement is about the extent of the coverage. No analyses, or long articles attempting to ascertain what the judges may have seen in the work of the awardees.
That's natural to some extent; science is specialized, it doesn't have a large following (doesn't draw those valuable eyeballs and clicks!); and it's hard, in the since that most journalists are liberal-arts types who can't grasp or describe the concepts. Still, they're worth our attention. While there are many prestigious, internationally recognized awards in literature, in science, the Nobels are really the only game on the globe.
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