A Tale of Two Laureates

Abstract

Abstract Focusing on the reception of the two Nobel laureates Nadine Gordimer and J.M. Coetzee, this article investigates the literature prize as a national, and indeed Stockholm-based, phenomenon in Sweden. It makes two general claims. The first is that the press exercises a co-consecrating authority that both rivals and depends on the authority of the Swedish Academy. This becomes evident not least in occasional attempts by critics to deconsecrate a laureate. The second claim is that the dramaturgy of the literature prize, beginning with the announcement in October and ending with the award ceremony in December, culminates shortly before the ceremony with the Nobel lecture, when the laureate is heard in their own voice. In an analysis of Gordimer’s and Coetzee’s lectures, the article concludes that they present sharply different attempts at performatively resolving the tension between literary autonomy and heteronomy.