Nobel prize

The Nobel Prize for Literature has always been politicized. Think Pearl S. Buck. Better yet, think Boris Pasternak who was given the award for no other reason than to tweak the noses of the powers that were in the Kremlin at the time. Not politicized? Gimme a break. Winston Churchill's books were written largely by a committee of underpaid secretaries; he was awarded the Nobel simply for having been the British P.M. during WW II. They couldn't very well give him the Peace Prize but they wanted to give him something.

Pasternak's Doctor Zhivago has about as much literary value as Margaret Mitchell's Gone With the Wind.

Hmmm... Never read either of them but it seems to me you would have to read Pasternak in Russian to truly ascertain his literary worth. Translation can be a bitch. Russian friends says he's a renown poet...

Anyway, it is indeed possible that the price was politicized during the cold war... and everything is political of course on one level or another, yet I have yet to read a Nobel price winner who did not have any literary value. Even Sartre could write pretty well.

As an odd number I was thinking about Elfriede Jelinek whom noone really had heard about before and who was not read afterwards.
The author who are suggested are being read not only translated but also by experts in the language they are written in.
I think there were 295 suggestions and Munro was choosen.
Here you can read more about the critics of different authors.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nobel_Prize_in_Literature

From Jenilek's wikipedia article:

Awards and honors

1998: Georg Büchner Prize
2002: Mülheimer Dramatikerpreis
2004: Hörspielpreis der Kriegsblinden for Jackie
2004: Franz Kafka Prize
2004: Nobel Prize in Literature
2004: Stig Dagerman Prize
2004: Mülheimer Dramatikerpreis
2009: Mülheimer Dramatikerpreis
2011: Mülheimer Dramatikerpreis

Maybe she's not widely read but it doesn't mean she can't write well or her nomination was politically motivated...