The Ladbrokes gambling website, which each year announces its calculated odds for various events, has long-listed celebrated African-American author Maya Angelou with a 100 to 1 chance of winning the 2009 Nobel Prize in Literature. The official date of the forthcoming prize announcement has not yet been released but it is generally made on the second or third Thursday of October.
This news might come as a shock to some not only because of the long-shot odds but because a number of writers across the Internet have fallen into the practice of referring to Angelou as a Nobel Laureate when in fact she has never won the prize. To date, the only African American able to claim that distinction is Toni Morrison, whose novels have also been regular selections for the Oprah Winfrey Book Club and are taught in high schools and universities around the world.
Although Angelou has never received a Nobel, a Pulitzer Prize, or American Book Award, she is nevertheless: an acknowledged presidential inauguration poet (for William Clinton, 1993); the acclaimed author of I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings in addition to other noted memoirs; an honored actress; a celebrated television literary personality; a life-time appointed Reynolds Professor of American Studies at Wake Forest University; and an all-around icon of letters in her own right. In addition, like Morrison, Angelou’s work has been frequently celebrated by Winfrey and the media tycoon has referred to the author as one of her mentors.
The Nobel Prize Guessing Game
Ladbrokes PLC, of which Ladbrokes.com is a part, is based in the United Kingdom and is one of the Internet’s leading betting and gaming companies. It specializes in online casinos, financial betting, football betting and other traditional games of chance; however, in recent years it has gotten into the guessing game of who will win the various Nobel Prizes. That point is important because––just to be clear––Ladbrokes is not part of the SwedishAcademy that actually selects the Nobel Laureates. They gave last year’s winner of the prize for literature, French novelist JMG Le Clezio, a 14 to 1 chance of winning but have scored a degree of success in other Nobel categories.
On this year’s list of some 61 names, Angelou occupies position number 56 and is the only African-American on it that this writer recognized. American authors in general were described last year as unlikely contenders for the prize when jury member Horace Engdhal voiced the opinion that their perspectives were too restricted and they did not “really participate in the big dialogue of literature” on a global scale.
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by Aberjhani
