AP Tips Oksanen For Surprise Nobel Prize Win
With the Swedish Academy expected to announce the winner of this year's Nobel Prize in literature on Thursday, speculation is rife that Estonian may finally have cause for celebration.
It has been rumored that among the 210 nominees is Sofi Oksanen, a renown Finnish author of Estonian descent. The winner will be announced on Thursday afternoon. The names of the 209 other nominees will not be released for another 50 years.
Associated Press has tipped Sofi Oksanen, alongside Norwegian Jon Fosse, Belarusian Svetlana Alexievich and Croation Dubravka Ugresic and a few others, as a potential surprise winner.
The more established among the alleged candidates are Milan Kundera, Amos Oz, Adonis, Philip Roth, Haruki Murakami, Salman Rushdie, John Le Carré, Javier Marías, Don de Lille, Tom Stoppard and many others.
On top of the bettor's lists are Kenyan writer Ngugi wa Thiong'o, Japanese author Haruki Murakami, Belorussian investigative journalist and author Svetlana Alexievich and French novelist Patrick Modiano.
Were the 1977-born Oksanen to win the much coveted prize, she would be the youngest ever to do so, taking the title from Rudyard Kipling, who was 42 when he was awarded the prize in 1907. The average age of a Nobel Prize winners in literature is 65 years, although Doris Lessing was 88 when she won in 2007.
The Nobel Prize in literature has been won by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Rabindranath Tagore, Toni Morrison, Ernest Hemingway, Albert Camus, William Faulkner, Selma Lagerlöf, and Pablo Neruda, among many others.
Oksanen's mother was born in Estonia, but emigrated to Finland in the 70s.