Comments on the Nobel Prize for Literature

The Nobel Prize for Literature is out and given to a Canadian short story author Alice Munro at the age of eighty two. Well, the discussion point is not to count on her achievements and books. My point centres around the Indian literature which remained unsuccessful in getting the Nobel jury's attention after Rabindranath Tagore. Or perhaps we should say that none of our vernacular authors are connected globally so that their works come into limelight and become contenders for the coveted honour. 

Tagore was engaged globally with author community unlike anyone after him. Today we have the stalwarts like Vikram Seth, Salman Rushdie, Amitabh Ghosh, etc. but their magic restricts since they have preferred to write in English. And at the Nobel level, there is little recognition to Indian English literature. If you have noticed the authors writing in English either belong to countries where the native or main language of communication is English--Britian, the USA, Canada, Australia, etc. For other countries the emphasis is given on the literature written in the vernacular or that country's language.

Since there are a number of authors writing in Hindi, Bengali, Oria, Malayalam, Gujarati, etc, our authors and publishers are not able to promote their works on the global stage. Many of authors writing in vernacular are great enough and have a calibre no less than any of the greats who have won Nobels. 

I think it is point of great deliberation for all of us, particularly authors and publishers in India.