Should A Children's Author Win a Nobel-Prize in Literature?

[Inderjit Sanghe]

Do you think a children's author should be put forward for a Nobel prize in Literature? I mean, in many ways, authors who write for children inspire 99% of us to read and write when we are adults. After all, not even the judges of the Nobel Prize first took up reading by reading Sartre or any of the other (numerous) mediocrities who have graced the Nobel Prize stage over the years, though it would certainly explain their rather interesting literary proclivities life if they began life by watching endless reams of Huis-Clos.

Or should they again plump for a serious (ahem), political choice and banally state that he/she "delves into the sinister depths of humanity", "very paradoxical works delve into the death of humanity", "discusses the human predicament" "so boring he made me fall asleep-give him the prize!" or "left-wing anti-establishment-you are a contender!"

[Niamh]

Of course. It is after all a part of literature, and there are many childrens writers that deserve to be put along side some of the great dramatists, poets and novelist that have won the award.

[Whifflingpin]

"because writers for children are, by necessity, constrained in what they write. They can't delve into emotions in such depth or create such complex characters. If they did, the material wouldn't be able to be understood by the child."

I do not think there is any such constraint. The best children's writers produce multi-layered books that can be read with benefit by children and adults. That is a skill which those aiming for a narrow audience do not need to acquire.

Even if that were not the case, as Niamh has said, it is all part of literature - no author covers the whole range, and each should be judged in his own chosen sphere.

[JBI]

Even so, name one worthy.

[NickAdams]

Even so, name one worthy.

Antoine de Saint Exupéry for Le Petit Prince. It's one book, but others have won based on one book.

[LadyW]

Oh yes, definitely... the books we read as children helped mould our imaginations and thirst for literature today. The things a child reads in a book is just as "into the sinister depths of humanity" as any other book.

[JBI]

Antoine de Saint Exupéry for Le Petit Prince. It's one book, but others have one based on one book.

I don't think he was prolific enough to have won it in his lifetime. Perhaps if he was writing now he could win, but back then, the standards were a little different. We may assume also that all the pre-world-war-one awards are a little shifty.

[johann cruyff]

First of all,Sartre is hardly a mediocre writer/philosopher...But I do agree that there has been a fair share of writers who were/are very questionable choices.

Anyway,as for a children's author winning the Nobel Prize...I say no.Obviously,those who excel at such writing should be awarded,and as far as I know,there are specialized prizes for that.

"Adult" literature,however,serves a much higher purpose than putting children to sleep or fulfilling spare time.There are some exceptions,such as The Little Prince or even Alice in Wonderland,which are great examples of everlasting all-ages literature,but still...Nobel Prize?

Analogous to that,I don't think fantasy or horror writers deserve a Nobel Prize either.Would you award it to Stephen King,J.K. Rowling or George R.R. Martin?They just don't fall into that category of writers,so I think every Nobel laureate should be respected,even if some are a great deal better than the others.

[ClickForth]

okokok

[SirRaustusBear]

I think they should be eligible, but like JBI said, I can't think of one who would deserve it over Phillip Roth or Salman Rushdie. If Saint-Exupery had continued to write books on the same level as The Little Prince, than I would not have complained if he had won a Nobel, but his literature is enjoyable for people of all ages, whereas an author like Doctor Seuss, who writes pretty much exclusively for children, is not in the same league and is clearly not deserving.

As for genre writers winning the prize, it all depends on how deep their themes extend and how well written their works are. You're average genre literature tends to be repetitive and rehashes themes that have been done again and again, but if an author were to use fantasy elements to say something new and importrant, then I would be all for them winning.

[mortalterror]

The Little Prince, The Secret Garden, The Wind in the Willows, Peter Pan, The Jungle Books, The Chronicles of Narnia, The Cat in the Hat, Treasure Island, Charlotte's Web, The Velveteen Rabbit, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass, A Wrinkle in Time, If You Give a Mouse a Cookie, Where the Wild Things Are, Little House on the Prairie, Little Women, Hatchet.

I'd have no problem with a writer of children's books winning the Nobel Prize. There are so many great works of literature for young people, it's a shame when their parents choose to read them something else. Young is not the same thing as dumb.

[Homyrrh]

Or should they again plump for a serious (ahem), political choice and banally state that he/she "delves into the sinister depths of humanity", "very paradoxical works delve into the death of humanity", "discusses the human predicament" "so boring he made me fall asleep-give him the prize!" or "left-wing anti-establishment-you are a contender!"

;)

Peace through superior firepower...

[SirRaustusBear]

A nobel prize for If You Give Mouse a Cookie? It's a twenty page book about how cookie's make mice thirsty and so on. Literature, at least Nobel quality literature, is supposed to have some depth to it.

When you read The Stranger, the last chapter is an enlightening experience. The narrator's life says something huge and tragic about the lives of everyone on earth. To a lesser extent The Little Prince makes philosophical statements about life through this fantasy story about a boy and his flower, that is why it is on or near the same level as Nobel Prize winners, not because it is a quant little relic we all remember from our childhoods.

They only give out one prize a year, and it is the most prestigious award in all of literature. People like James Joyce and Marcel Proust have missed out on getting one in the past, and people complain because their prizes went instead to people like Pearl Buck, who really only wrote one great novel. Now imagine instead that Joyce didn't get a prize because it went to Laura Numeroff, author of such masterpieces as If You Give a Moose a Muffin, as well as the aforementioned Mouse and Cookie epic. I would immediately stop paying attention to the Nobel Prize because it would no longer be about rewarding true greatness in literature.

[kelby_lake]

Do you think a children's author should be put forward for a Nobel prize in Literature? I mean, in many ways, authors who write for children inspire 99% of us to read and write when we are adults. After all, not even the judges of the Nobel Prize first took up reading by reading Sartre or any of the other (numerous) mediocrities who have graced the Nobel Prize stage

Sartre is hardly mediocre:flare: In Camera is a brilliant play and he deserved awards.
Hmm...no. Unless there is a cross-over appeal between children and adults (for example Phillip Pullman) then I don't think you could say it's as big an achievement. Children's expectations from books are lower to an adults.

[JBI]

The Little Prince, The Secret Garden, The Wind in the Willows, Peter Pan, The Jungle Books, The Chronicles of Narnia, The Cat in the Hat, Treasure Island, Charlotte's Web, The Velveteen Rabbit, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass, A Wrinkle in Time, If You Give a Mouse a Cookie, Where the Wild Things Are, Little House on the Prairie, Little Women, Hatchet.

I'd have no problem with a writer of children's books winning the Nobel Prize. There are so many great works of literature for young people, it's a shame when their parents choose to read them something else. Young is not the same thing as dumb.
Kippling won a Nobel (the first English author to do so), the Secret Garden is probably the only enduring Burnett work, and she died 15 years later. The Wind in the Willows is a good children's book, but Grahame barely published any other books, and none of the others even close to measures up. Dr. Seuss is one of the greats of children's lit, but he isn't, in my opinion, Nobel worthy, simply because he relies on the visual too much for his works. Stevenson could not have won it, simply because he died before they existed. E. B. White wasn't bad, but still not Nobel worthy, especially living in the time he did. The rest down the list seem to me to be minor works at best.

The criteria as stated by Alfred Nobel is: to be awarded to the author who has "the most outstanding work of an idealistic tendency", where work he refers to the complete work of the author (rough translation from Swedish). None of those authors seem to meet that.

[amalia1985]

Of course they should! They inspire and cultivate children's love for reading, this is the most important contribution, in my opinion.

[mortalterror]

A nobel prize for If You Give Mouse a Cookie? It's a twenty page book about how cookie's make mice thirsty and so on. Literature, at least Nobel quality literature, is supposed to have some depth to it.

Belling the Cat
Long ago, the mice had a general council to consider what measures they could take to outwit their common enemy, the Cat. Some said this, and some said that; but at last a young mouse got up and said he had a proposal to make, which he thought would meet the case. “You will all agree,” said he, “that our chief danger consists in the sly and treacherous manner in which the enemy approaches us. Now, if we could receive some signal of her approach, we could easily escape from her. I venture, therefore, to propose that a small bell be procured, and attached by a ribbon round the neck of the Cat. By this means we should always know when she was about, and could easily retire while she was in the neighbourhood.”
This proposal met with general applause, until an old mouse got up and said: “That is all very well, but who is to bell the Cat?” The mice looked at one another and nobody spoke. Then the old mouse said:"It is easy to propose impossible remedies.”

Aesop wrote that short, quaint, simple, little allegory twenty six hundred years ago. The length of a work, or it's complexity, has nothing to do with it's artistic merit.

[mortalterror]

I don't like it when a writer of books for adults wins for seemingly one book, as, at least to me, Orhan Pamuk did.

While I agree that the Pulitzer Prize is awarded for a single piece and the Nobel is supposed to be for a body of work, as you have already pointed out there are winning authors who do not meet that criteria. Wisława Szymborska won in 1996 for publishing less than 250 poems. T.S. Eliot is another case of quality over quantity. Cervantes is probably the best author who's reputation rests upon a solitary book. If you want to quibble and say that at least Don Quixote is long and complex, I might offer La Rochefoucauld and his Maxims as another example. Taken together, the Maxims do not span a hundred pages, and are rarely longer than a sentence; but they are some of the finest writings in all of French literature and deserve their place alongside Montaigne's Essays and the plays of Jean Racine.

[mortalterror]

Two hundred fifty poems seems like a vast amount of poems to me, but then, I'm not a poetry writer. LOL Nor am I familiar with that author's poetry.

250 poems is more than I've done, but I'm 25 and writing is not my profession. When you consider that the Nobel prize is awarded for a body of work, and this woman's career stretches over several decades, the total comes out to about five poems a year. Gosh. I mean, where did she find the time? Who does she think she is, Lope de Vega? Slow down, you're gonna' hurt yourself you workaholic.

[SirRaustusBear]

I didn't mean to suggest that length determines the worth of a work. Samuel Beckett's play Krapp's Last Tape for instance, is brilliant despite being about five pages long. This is because this play makes a statement about the human condition and the audience can fell for Krapp despite only seeing him for a few minutes.

If Aesop's fables were written today I don't think they would win a prize, because they are didactic, and teach simple life lessons that are appropriate for children but offer little in terms of new understanding to adults. I'm not saying the fables are bad, simply that they lack the complexity demonstrated by your average Nobel Prize winner.

[Aiculík]

Hm... yes, the children have lower expectations than the adults...
but does that mean that the children literature cannot be art?
Or that the author doesn't have to work as hard as if he was writing for adults?

Children literature can have "depth" as well. I recently read poems one Slovak author has written for children, and I like them much more than other his work, aimed at adults.

Same with the horror or sci-fi. That King or George R. R. Martin don't have necessary level (though I can't really say for Martin, I've never read anything by him and in fact I only heard about him in this forum), doesn't mean that it's true for all writers writing sci-fi and horrors. Or is Slaugherhouse 5 trash because it is sci-fi?

I think it should be quality, not genre that should be main criterium...

[RJbibliophil]

Of course. It is after all a part of literature, and there are many childrens writers that deserve to be put along side some of the great dramatists, poets and novelist that have won the award.

I second that. Some children's literature is extremely well written.

[Morten]

Do you think a children's author should be put forward for a Nobel prize in Literature? I mean, in many ways, authors who write for children inspire 99% of us to read and write when we are adults. After all, not even the judges of the Nobel Prize first took up reading by reading Sartre or any of the other (numerous) mediocrities who have graced the Nobel Prize stage over the years, though it would certainly explain their rather interesting literary proclivities life if they began life by watching endless reams of Huis-Clos.

Or should they again plump for a serious (ahem), political choice and banally state that he/she "delves into the sinister depths of humanity", "very paradoxical works delve into the death of humanity", "discusses the human predicament" "so boring he made me fall asleep-give him the prize!" or "left-wing anti-establishment-you are a contender!"

Excuse me! Sartre mediocre? Please enlighten me as to how you arrived at that conclusion. And fyi, he never "graced" the stage. Sartre declined the award.

[JBI]

Eliot was quite prolific, don't kid yourself. He wrote enough essays and plays, in addition to his poetry, to make him a very prolific writer.

As for Szymborska, she had 13 publications before winning the award, and I'm not sure if the 250 poems is true, though I know one of her publications has 101 alone, so I cannot verify. She also writes essays by the way, which count.

1 book is too few, 13 is clearly enough, 8 is more than enough, but they all must be good.

[mortalterror]

Eliot was quite prolific, don't kid yourself. He wrote enough essays and plays, in addition to his poetry, to make him a very prolific writer.

As for Szymborska, she had 13 publications before winning the award, and I'm not sure if the 250 poems is true, though I know one of her publications has 101 alone, so I cannot verify. She also writes essays by the way, which count.

1 book is too few, 13 is clearly enough, 8 is more than enough, but they all must be good.

Your use of the word prolific may be stretching the term a bit. Eliot's poetry runs a little more than 200 pages and can be read in a long afternoon. All of it, with the possible exception of Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats runs the gamut from great to excellent. Then you have the five or six plays he wrote, which I don't believe are very good plays. He was after all, first and foremost a poet, and the verse of his plays would probably make fine poetry if they could be separated from the drama. Eliot did put out a few books of criticism, and I like those very well. Yet we don't say that Lovecraft is a prolific writer just because his collected personal correspondence could fill a full sized bookshelf of it's own. When I say that Eliot did not write that much it is as a poet which I am assessing him, which is how he characterized himself, and how posterity tends to judge him. As fine as his criticism was, I do not believe that it is up to the level of say Bloom or Saint-Beuve, and would not have made his reputation on it's own. His poetry is the thing that will endure through generations, and what there is of it is not much.

You say that Szymborska published 13 times, but you do not know how big any of her publications were. I think the evidence suggests that they were either scanty or collections of previous work, the way Hemingway's first book was just three stories and ten poems, with blank pages of filler.

[Inderjit Sanghe]

I am not to sure about whether works of 'depth' should always be given precedence; I think that it would be nice to award the authors who originally sparked most peoples interest, and love for, literature.

Yes, in many ways children's literature is a reflection of its audience; it tends to be simplistic in terms of themes, ideas and language and does tend to moralise or to 'teach lessons', though many Nobel laureates have been guilty of the latter. Somewhat paradoxically, the most highly regarded pieces of children's literature do tend to appeal to adults as well-I mean Alice in Wonderland is probably regarded as being the greatest children's book of all time primarily because it deals with 'adult themes' such as semantics, linguistics and 'great ideas'. I think that the Nobel committee did miss out on a great opportunity in not awarding the prize to Roald Dahl-a supreme children's author, and my favourite along with C.S Lewis. Despite all the negative hype that surrounds children’s literature-its moral and linguistic simplicity, its lack of adult themes etc., I still think that there is a touching beauty in all children's literature, a kind of quaint irreverence, in which sometimes the 'good guy' manages to triumph against adversity and in which love conquers all-plus children's book can also be very funny. My statement is, of course, a generalisation, and as others posters have mentioned, there is a degree of what you would call 'depth' to many children's books.

However, I can't help but feel that the 'depth' which is often associated with 'great literature' is often bunkum, tendentious nonsense, epic tales of hungry tramps or maniacal nauseatics trotting out sentence upon sentence, each as banal as the other.


Excuse me! Sartre mediocre? Please enlighten me as to how you arrived at that conclusion.

I arrived at that conclusion via my eyes and brain, the instruments with which I read his 'masterpiece', Nauseau, and about 25 pages of another rather boring novel about some guy trying to get an abortion for his girlfriend. I have no doubt that Sartre is a 'giant' in the philosophical field, but in terms of literature his novels, or the ones which I have read, are rather tepid.

I am aware that Sarte refused the award-good for him I say!


Personally, I really want William Trevor to win, but his books don't promote human rights enough, which is one of the new criteria of the Swedish Academy.

Is it? Oh dear....should it not therefore be renamed as the political literature award? How on earth you are supposed to 'promote' human rights, whatever they are, via a novel I don't know. (And I studied human rights at university and my future career is a 'human rights' based one.) I guess literary mediocrity with flashes of political hyperbole will continue to be the order of the day. I mean some of the Nobel omissions are unforgivable-Tolstoi (the most unforgivable one, given his socio-political proclivities), Nabokov, Queneau, Robbe-Grillet, Graham Greene, Burgess, Tolkien, Borges, Joyce, Calvino. Other great novelists, such as Kafka, Lampedusa and Proust only became truly famous posthumously and so could not really be considered for the Nobel Prize.

Some of Burgess's reflections of the Nobel Prize and committee in his novel Earthly Powersare hilarious-as well as his account of the fictitious winner of the prize, Jakob Strehler.

[kelby_lake]

I think Sartre is best liked for his plays. I haven't read any of the novels but I fail to see how you can condemn In Camera or Crime Passionnel as being mediocre.

[JBI]

Eliot's plays and criticism are hardly minor works. Read them, and maybe you can talk. As for Szymborska, her anthologies seem all to be between 75 and 100 pages, giving, lets say, 1000 pages of poetry before winning the Nobel, which is more than enough, assuming the quality remains constant. And yes, as a writer, Eliot was prolific.

[mortalterror]

Eliot's plays and criticism are hardly minor works. Read them, and maybe you can talk. And yes, as a writer, Eliot was prolific.

I have read them. I've read his books The Sacred Wood, On Poetry and Poets, as well as assorted other essays. I liked the fragment Sweeney Agonistes, but that's all it is, a fragment. Eliot's Murder in the Cathedral and The Cocktail Party do not measure up to the work of major dramatists like O'Neill, Williams, Miller, and Shaw writing around the same time. Eliot's total output may not be scant. Taken all together, he might even be considered nearly average in output. But the word prolific does not apply in this case. An average writer can produce about twenty books in his lifetime. The word prolific applies to men like Stephen King (60 books), Honore Balzac(100 novels), Isaac Asimov(500 books), and Lope de Vega(2500 plays).

[SirRaustusBear]

Inderjit I don't think sparking one's interest in literature is enough to earn a nobel prize. The first adult author I really got into was Stephen King. I read a bunch of his stuff in middle school, then gradually began reading more classic lit. I know quite a few people for whom Stephen King was a gateway to greater things, but that doesn't mean he deserves a nobel prize.

It is supposed to go to the best writer, and 99% of the time that is a writer for adults. Occasionally there is a children's writer whose writing is good both for children and adults, Saint-Exupery is an example, and they shouldn't be disqualified, but they have to meet the criterea everyone else does, namely, being the best writer.

If a movie like Shrek won best picture, the oscars would lose the little credibility that they currently hold, because no one could objectively stand up and say it is the best movie of whatever year it came out. It was enteraining and funny, and it may have opened up children's eyes everywhere to the art of cinema, but next to movies like 2001: A Space Odyssey or Trainspotting it is obviously inferior.

[mortalterror]

Even though I hate how pseudo-intellectuals and polemical pundits tend to dominate these kinds of awards, I think it would be awesome if Katharine DeBrecht won a Nobel prize for "Help! Mom! There Are Liberals Under My Bed!" I mean, c'mon she's got Brecht right in her name and her books are all political issue rags. She's trying to raise us all to a higher consciousness of "the issues."

[Inderjit Sanghe]

I think Sartre is best liked for his plays. I haven't read any of the novels but I fail to see how you can condemn In Camera or Crime Passionnel as being mediocre.

To be honest I find a lot of Sartre's philosophy, his insipid mixture of existentialism and Marxism silly and his myopic and Manichean political views (circa 1950's) idiotic. His (and his groups) harassment of the far superior writer and critic, Albert Camus, for simply (heaven forbid!) voicing an opinion also gets up my nerves and his support for the Soviet regime ranks alongside Celine's and Hamsun's support for the Nazi regime. I understand I am contradicting myself in listing Sartre's political opinions, but I really do find most of his philosophical opinion bland and banal, if other people think he is a genius then fair play to them, he probably was one, I still think he a mediocrity, especially as a writer.


Human rights can be promoted in many ways. The pen truly is mightier than the sword.

Indeed it is-and there have been many great politically involved writers, but I wish that they judged the most prestigious prize in the literary world on things other than politics.

[mortalterror]

How about a Nobel prize for Bill O'Reilly for his wonderful children's book Kids Are American's Too?

Doris Lessing herself may not be political, but that doesn't mean that the decision to give her the prize wasn't.

[mortalterror]

Let me see. How could a communist born in Iran who writes feminist novels while campaigning against nuclear arms and apartheid be political?

[gruntingslime]

Didn't Salma Lagerlöff win? She might have written more mature things as well, but she is most famous in her country Sweden for The Adventure of Nils books... Also the Finnish writer Tove Jansson could have possibly fit the category. The last two books in her Moomin series are beautiful and haunting, she did move on to write more mature works...

[the facade]

I must admit I did not read the previous posts and have no clue if this has been mentioned but Selma Lagerlof most certainly wrote many children's books.

Cheers

[Drkshadow03]

Anyway,as for a children's author winning the Nobel Prize...I say no.Obviously,those who excel at such writing should be awarded,and as far as I know,there are specialized prizes for that.

"Adult" literature,however,serves a much higher purpose than putting children to sleep or fulfilling spare time.There are some exceptions,such as The Little Prince or even Alice in Wonderland,which are great examples of everlasting all-ages literature,but still...Nobel Prize?


They do have an award. It's called the Newbury Award (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newbery_Medal).

Regardless of whether one thinks a children's book should or shouldn't win the nobel prize, you are greatly underestimating both the depth of issues some children's literature tackles and the emotional life/issues/problems that actual kids living today (and yesterday for that matter) have.


Belling the Cat
Long ago, the mice had a general council to consider what measures they could take to outwit their common enemy, the Cat. Some said this, and some said that; but at last a young mouse got up and said he had a proposal to make, which he thought would meet the case. “You will all agree,” said he, “that our chief danger consists in the sly and treacherous manner in which the enemy approaches us. Now, if we could receive some signal of her approach, we could easily escape from her. I venture, therefore, to propose that a small bell be procured, and attached by a ribbon round the neck of the Cat. By this means we should always know when she was about, and could easily retire while she was in the neighbourhood.”
This proposal met with general applause, until an old mouse got up and said: “That is all very well, but who is to bell the Cat?” The mice looked at one another and nobody spoke. Then the old mouse said:"It is easy to propose impossible remedies.”

Aesop wrote that short, quaint, simple, little allegory twenty six hundred years ago. The length of a work, or it's complexity, has nothing to do with it's artistic merit.

I read that to my library class this year!




If a movie like Shrek won best picture, the oscars would lose the little credibility that they currently hold, because no one could objectively stand up and say it is the best movie of whatever year it came out. It was enteraining and funny, and it may have opened up children's eyes everywhere to the art of cinema, but next to movies like 2001: A Space Odyssey or Trainspotting it is obviously inferior.

Of course, that year Shrek did win Best Animated Picture.

[m.a.l.b.]

Boy in the Stripped Pajamas.

Unless we don't consider it a children's book? But to me, it's a book that could easily be read by a younger audience while still be worthy of a Nobel.

[hazelk]

I know that the author of Stripped Pyjamas classed it as a book for young readers. I am in no way a young reader and I thought the book was excellent. As an adult I can picture the events of the novel and never forget the horror that went with it. The closing with the boy's holding hands was just so moving. As for the "outwith" and the "fury", I will never forget.

This wonderful little book deserves a Nobel.

[hazelk]

I know that the author of Stripped Pyjamas classed it as a book for young readers. I am in no way a young reader and I thought the book was excellent. As an adult I can picture the events of the novel and never forget the horror that went with it. The closing with the boys' holding hands was just so moving. As for the "outwith" and the "fury", I will never forget.

This wonderful little book deserves a Nobel.

[Taliesin]

They do have an award. It's called the Newbury Award (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newbery_Medal).



You're mistaken here. The Newbury Medal is given to "the author of the most distinguished contribution to American literature for children." The Nobel prizes, on the other hand, are international.


Hans Christian Andersen Award (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hans_Christian_Andersen_Award
Hans Christian Andersen Award) would perhaps be more fitting here.

And I do agree about Tove Jansson.

[Drkshadow03]

You're mistaken here. The Newbury Medal is given to "the author of the most distinguished contribution to American literature for children." The Nobel prizes, on the other hand, are international.


Hans Christian Andersen Award (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hans_Christian_Andersen_Award
Hans Christian Andersen Award) would perhaps be more fitting here.

And I do agree about Tove Jansson.

I'm not mistaken at all. I never said anything about the Newbery Medal being international. I merely pointed out its an award given for high-quality children's/YA lit (in this case strictly American), which you confirmed with your own quote about the award. It's a specialized award reserved specifically for Children's lit. That was the only point I was making. I wasn't putting forth any claim that the Newbery award is the children's lit equivalent of the Nobel Prize. I realize this can be confusing given the context of the conversation.

Anyway, thanks for mentioning the Hans Christian Anderson award; I had never heard of it before.

[mortalterror]

Hans Christian Andersen ought to be the posterchild for this thread. If any author of children's literature ever deserved a Nobel it would have to be him. He wrote The Little Mermaid, The Ugly Duckling, the Steadfast Tin Soldier, The Emperor's New Clothes, The Princess and the Pea, The Red Shoes, and The Mother.

If you ever want to read a short story that will break your heart, read The Mother. It's about a young mother who's chasing after death to get her child back and it is epic! Here's a guy who doesn't cash in on happy endings. His little Mermaid is no Disney Fairy Tale. When the little mermaid walks on land, he describes the sensation as there being knives in her feet, and when the prince chooses another woman, the mermaid throws herself into the sea becoming foam.

On a side note, it looks like the guy who I was debating three years ago's posts are missing, and it looks like I'm just talking to myself. What I was responding to further up the page was somebody said that Doris Lessing wasn't political.