1996 Nobel Prize in Literature

{{main|Wisława Szymborska}}

Wisława Szymborska's poetry addressed existential questions. In her poems, she employs literary devices such as ironic precision, paradox, contradiction, and understatement to illuminate philosophical themes and obsessions.{{cite web|url=https://www.france24.com/en/20120201-nobel-prize-polish-poet-wislawa-szymborska-dead|title=Nobel Prize-winning poet Szymborska dies aged 88|website=France24|date=1 February 2021|access-date=1 February 2012}} She weaves in the machinery of eternity in a momentary experience of the here and now. Her poetry is characterized by a simplified, "personal" language that is unlike contemporary language, often with a little twist at the end, with a striking combination of spirituality, ingenuity, and empathy. Many of her poems feature war and terrorism.{{cite news|first=Alex|last=Duval Smith|url=http://news.independent.co.uk/europe/article319509.ece|title=A Nobel Calling: 100 Years of Controversy|work=The Independent|location=UK|publisher=Independent Print Limited|date=14 October 2005|access-date=26 April 2008|quote=1996: Her poem, "The End and the Beginning", reads: "No sound bites, no photo opportunities And it takes years All the cameras have gone To other wars." Szymborska was born in Kórnik, in western Poland, in 1923.|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071224170132/http://news.independent.co.uk/europe/article319509.ece|archive-date=24 December 2007}} Among her well-known collections include Dlatego żyjemy ("That's Why We Are All Alive", 1952), Pytania zadawane sobie ("Questioning Yourself", 1954), Ludzie na moście ("People on the Bridge", 1986), Koniec i początek ("The End and the Beginning", 1993), and Widok z ziarnkiem piasku ("View with a Grain of Sand", 1996).[https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/literature/1996/szymborska/facts/ Wisława Szymborska – Facts] nobelprize.org[https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/wisaawa-szymborska Wisława Szymborska – Poetry Foundation] poetryfoundation.org[https://www.britannica.com/biography/Wislawa-Szymborska Wisława Szymborska] britannica.com

The choice of Szymborska was seen as a surprise by many observers who had expected a novelist to win the prize as the previous years prize had been awarded to the Irish poet Seamus Heaney.{{cite web|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1996/10/04/books/polish-poet-observer-of-daily-life-wins-nobel.html |title=Polish Poet, Observer of Daily Life, Wins Nobel |work=New York Times |date=4 October 1996 }}{{cite web|url=https://www.irishtimes.com/news/nobel-prize-won-by-shy-polish-poet-1.92351 |title=Nobel Prize won by shy Polish Poet |publisher=Irish Times |date=4 October 1996 }} The exiled Chinese poet Bei Dao was also a favourite to win the prize.{{cite web|url=http://edition.cnn.com/EVENTS/1996/nobel.prize/literature.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20021130212500/http://edition.cnn.com/EVENTS/1996/nobel.prize/literature.html |url-status=dead |archive-date=November 30, 2002 |title=Polish poet awarded Nobel Prize in Literature |publisher=CNN }} The prize decision provoked mixed reactions in the Swedish press. Mats Gellerfelt, a literature critic in Svenska Dagbladet, was critical about the choice of Szymborska, calling her "a mediocre poet customized for girl rooms, as there are thousands of", while Tommy Olofsson in the same publication hailed Szymborska as "without doubt one of the most qualified poets of our century, and also loved by the people who have the privilige to read her in the original language".{{cite book|title=Hundra nobelpris i litteratur |author=Lång, Helmer |publisher=Symposion |year=2001 |page=366 |lang=Swedish}}

“She has gone through a long evolution and has reached maturity,” said the Polish poet Czeslaw Milosz, who was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1980. “Polish poetry in the 20th century has reached a strong international position on the European continent. Szymborska represents it well.”{{cite web|url=https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1996-10-04-mn-50258-story.html |title=Reclusive Polish Poet Awarded Nobel Prize |work =Los Angeles Times |date=4 October 1996 }}

At the award ceremony in Stockholm on 10 December 1996, Birgitta Trotzig of the Swedish Academy said: {{quote|In Wislawa Szymborska the Swedish Academy wants to honour a representative – and a representative of unusual and unyielding purity and strength – of a poetic outlook. Of poetry as a response to life, a way of life, of the word-work as thought and responsibility.

Wislawa Szymborska’s making of poems is the perfection of the word-object, of the exquisitely chiseled thought-image – allegro ma non troppo, as one of her poems is called. But a darkness that is never directly touched is perceptible, just as the movement of blood under the skin. (...)

In Szymborska surface is depth, the path of negation has the effect of a quiet but tremendous explosion of being. “My identifying features / are rapture and despair”. The farther in one travels among the clear mirrors of her language pictures – crystalline clarity that in some way exists to lead one to a final enigma – the more one feels the world’s obtrusive unambiguousness being transformed.{{cite web|url=https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/literature/1996/ceremony-speech/ |title=Award ceremony speech |publisher=nobelprize.org}} }}

Szymborska delivered her Nobel lecture entitled The Poet and the World in the Polish language on December 7, 1996 at the Swedish Academy.[https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/literature/1996/szymborska/lecture/ Wisława Szymborska – Nobel Lecture] nobelprize.org During the Nobel banquet, on December 20, she expressed a short speech of gratitude, saying: {{quote|"No one is accustomed to receiving a Nobel Prize. Therefore no one is accustomed to expressing gratitude for it. In my native tongue, as well as in every other tongue, there are many beautiful words from which to choose. But I think that on this occasion the simplest word is the most serious and the most meaningful: Merci, dziękuję, tack."[https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/literature/1996/szymborska/speech/ Wisława Szymborska – Banquet speech] nobelprize.org[https://www.encyclopedia.com/arts/culture-magazines/szymborska-banquet-speech Szymborska: Banquet Speech] encyclopedia.com}}

{{Reflist}}

• [https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/literature/1996/press-release/ 1996 Press release] nobelprize.org
• [https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/literature/1996/ceremony-speech/ Award ceremony speech] nobelprize.org

{{Nobel Prize in Literature}}

{{1996 Nobel Prize winners}}

1996

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