1962 Nobel Prize in Literature

{{main article|John Steinbeck}}

Social conditions of migrants and seasonal workers became a recurring theme in Steinbeck's writings and were particularly evident in Of Mice and Men (1937) and The Grapes of Wrath (1939). The latter relates how unemployment and abuse of power forced farmers to migrate from Oklahoma to California. Sympathy with the downtrodden and the poor characterizes his writing. It is expressed with a compassionate sense of humor and a sharp eye for social and economic injustices. His other outstanding works include East of Eden (1952), Tortilla Flat (1935) and The Pearl (1947).

[https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/literature/1962/steinbeck/biographical/ John Steinbeck] nobelprize.org

Steinbeck was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature on 11 occasions, the first time in 1943. In 1962, the Nobel committee received two nominations for him.[https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/literature/1962/steinbeck/nominations/ Nomination archive – John Steinbeck] nobelprize.org Included in the shortlisted nominees were Steinbeck, Robert Graves, Lawrence Durrell, Jean Anouilh, and Karen Blixen. Steinbeck was awarded eventually, but the four never received the prize.

In total, the Swedish Academy received 86 nominations for 66 writers. Fifteen of the nominees were nominated first-time among them William Heinesen, Pietro Ubaldi, Ronald Syme, Carl Zuckmayer, André Schwarz-Bart, Josep Carner and Eyvind Johnson (awarded in 1974). British novelist E. M. Forster earned the highest number of nominations (4 nominations) followed by Jean-Paul Sartre and Friedrich Dürrenmatt (3 nominations each). Three of the nominees were women namely Karen Blixen, Gertrud von le Fort and Giulia Scappino Murena.[https://www.nobelprize.org/nomination/archive/list.php?prize=4&year=1962 Nomination archive – 1962] nobelprize.org

The authors Antonio Acevedo Hernández, Gerrit Achterberg, Richard Aldington, Jean Amrouche, Georges Bataille, Pierre Benoit, E. E. Cummings, Maria Dermoût, Jean Devanny, Mouloud Feraoun, Wilfrid Wilson Gibson, Mary Gilmore, Patrick Hamilton, Pierre Hamp, Agnes Henningsen, Robinson Jeffers, Helge Krog, Alda Lara, María Rosa Lida de Malkiel, Arthur Oncken Lovejoy, Francisco Méndez, Patrícia Rehder Galvão (known as Pagu), Vita Sackville-West, Hajime Tanabe, Ahmet Hamdi Tanpınar, Sandu Tudor, Mohammad Yamin, and Ouyang Yuqian died in 1962 without having been nominated for the prize. Danish author Karen Blixen and German translator Rudolf Alexander Schröder died weeks before the announcement.

In 2012 (50 years later), the Nobel Prize opened its archives and it was revealed that Steinbeck was a "compromise choice" among a shortlist consisting of Steinbeck, British authors Robert Graves and Lawrence Durrell, French dramatist Jean Anouilh and Danish author Karen Blixen. The declassified documents showed that he was chosen as the best of a not so noteworthy group: "There aren't any obvious candidates for the Nobel prize and the prize committee is in an unenviable situation," wrote committee member Henry Olsson. Blixen died in September making her ineligible for the prize, Durrell's The Alexandria Quartet was not considered enough for a Nobel prize and Anouilh was also passed over, which left Robert Graves and John Steinbeck as the main contenders for the prize. "Between Graves and Steinbeck, I find the choice very difficult – Graves is the older, and at the same time less high profile, while Steinbeck's reputation is of course more popular," wrote committee member Anders Österling. "Since Steinbeck's candidacy nevertheless appears to me to have a larger chance of gathering unqualified support, I consider myself free to give it precedence."

Although the committee believed Steinbeck's best work was behind him by 1962, Österling believed the release of his novel The Winter of Our Discontent showed that "after some signs of slowing down in recent years, [Steinbeck has] regained his position as a social truth-teller [and is an] authentic realist fully equal to his predecessors Sinclair Lewis and Ernest Hemingway."

In 2010, Swedish Academy's archives later revealed that Danish writer Karen Blixen was a favorite candidate since 1959 but was missed out because the committee were concerned about showing favoritism to Scandinavian writers. "The Nobel academy was probably afraid to appear provincial," Johannes Riis, literary director at Gyldendals publishing house told Politiken. "And so a mistake was made, because obviously Karen Blixen ought to have received the Nobel prize. Instead, it was a kind of reverse provincialism."{{cite web|url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/2010/feb/01/karen-blixen-nobel-prize#:~:text=Blixen%20never%20won%20a%20Nobel,in%20the%20service%20of%20freedom%22.|title='Reverse provincialism' denied Karen Blixen Nobel prize|date=1 February 2010|access-date=21 May 2022|author=Alison Flood|website=The Guardian}}

The selection of Steinbeck was heavily criticized, and described as "one of the Academy's biggest mistakes" in one Swedish newspaper.{{cite web |url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/2013/jan/03/swedish-academy-controversy-steinbeck-nobel |title=Swedish Academy reopens controversy surrounding Steinbeck's Nobel prize |work=The Guardian |author=Alison Flood |date=3 January 2013 |access-date=3 January 2013}} While there were some positive reactions in America,Helmer Lång 100 nobelpris i litteratur Symposion 2001, ISBN 91-7139-537-7 p. 224 (in Swedish) The New York Times asked why the Nobel committee gave the award to an author whose "limited talent is, in his best books, watered down by tenth-rate philosophising", adding, "we think it interesting that the laurel was not awarded to a writer ... whose significance, influence and sheer body of work had already made a more profound impression on the literature of our age". Steinbeck himself, when asked if he deserved the Nobel on the day of the announcement, replied: "Frankly, no." Today, however, many of Steinbecks works are widely read and considered classics of Western literature.{{cite news|title=Who, what, why: Why do children study Of Mice and Men?|url=https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-12829392|publisher=BBC|access-date=December 6, 2014|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150107080104/http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-12829392|archive-date=January 7, 2015|work=BBC News|date=March 25, 2011}}

At the award ceremony in Stockholm on 10 December 1962, Anders Österling, permanent secretary of the Swedish Academy, said:

{{Quote|Among the masters of modern American literature who have already been awarded this Prize – from Sinclair Lewis to Ernest Hemingway – Steinbeck more than holds his own, independent in position and achievement. There is in him a strain of grim humour which, to some extent, redeems his often cruel and crude motif. His sympathies always go out to the oppressed, to the misfits and the distressed; he likes to contrast the simple joy of life with the brutal and cynical craving for money. But in him we find the American temperament also in his great feeling for nature, for the tilled soil, the wasteland, the mountains, and the ocean coasts, all an inexhaustible source of inspiration to Steinbeck in the midst of, and beyond, the world of human beings.{{cite web|url=https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/literature/1962/ceremony-speech/ |title=Award ceremony speech |publisher=nobelprize.org }} }}

{{Reflist}}

• [https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/literature/1962/steinbeck/prize-presentation/ Prize presentation] nobelprize.org
• [https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/literature/1962/ceremony-speech/ Award ceremony speech] nobelprize.org
• [https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/literature/1962/award-video/ The Nobel Prize Award Ceremony 1962] - NobelPrize.org
• [https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/literature/1962/steinbeck/speech/ John Steinbeck Banquet speech] nobelprize.org

{{Nobel Prize in Literature}}

1962

Category:John Steinbeck

Nobel