Dispatches from the Republic of Letters

Starred review from May 4, 2020
This inspiring anthology assembled by Simon, editor of World Literature Today magazine, collects acceptance speeches for the Neustadt literary prize, awarded every two years at the University of Oklahoma. Created as a more globally inclusive alternative to the Nobel, the prize has been given both to internationally lauded writers, such as Gabriel García Márquez and Octavio Paz, and to writers better known in their home countries, such as New Zealand’s Patricia Grace and Mozambique’s Mia Couto. The speeches themselves range from personal recollections to meditations on literature. Somali novelist Nuruddin Farah recalls a multilingual and culturally tolerant childhood, “reading books in foreign tongues and listening to the oral wisdom transmitted in Somali”; Swedish poet Tomas Tranströmer affirms that “love... is the only realistic basis for poetry translation.” The anthology also tracks changing political concerns since the award’s 1969 founding. The 1986 winner, Max Frisch, donated his prize money to a Nicaraguan nonprofit to protest Reagan administration policies; the 1996 winner, Assia Djebar, having fled religious fundamentalism in her native Algeria, emphasized that the jurors had given the “power of solidarity to the solitude of my exile.” Like the prize itself, this volume is a tribute and a testament to literature, and a reward for readers.

August 15, 2020
Speeches and writings by the winners of a literary prize that should be more widely known. Norman, Oklahoma, though the site of the state's premier university, is an unlikely center for writing from around the globe. In the words of the executive editor of World Literature Today, it "does not obviously have a cosmopolitan culture that can sponsor the celebration of world literature and internationalism." Nonetheless, for 50 years, the journal has been a primary vehicle for delivering works by international authors to American readers as well as the awarding of the annual Neustadt Prize, named for a family of donors. The first honoree was the Italian poet Giuseppe Ungaretti, who accepted with gracious words: "I am very moved by this ceremony in this distant land. It was exhausting to get here: it was far away, it was farther than I ever would have imagined" and yet emanated from a university that was "a model for encouraging studies, but also for the diffusion of poetry." Other honorees have included Gabriel Garc�a M�rquez, Elizabeth Bishop, Tomas Transtr�mer, David Malouf, Claribel Alegr�a, and Dubravka Ugresic, with obvious attention to a diverse body of writers from many traditions and ethnicities. Many of those writers have faced political repression at home. As the editor notes, for instance, "in 1991, when war broke out in the former Yugoslavia, Ugresic took a firm antiwar stance and became a target for nationalist journalists, politicians, and fellow writers. Subjected to ostracism and persistent media harassment, she left Croatia in 1993." In her warm, wide-ranging acceptance speech, she recalls Vladimir Nabokov, who remarked, "There are three points of view from which a writer can be considered: he may be considered as a storyteller, as a teacher, and as an enchanter. A major writer combines all three--storyteller, teacher, enchanter--but it is the enchanter in him that predominates." The enchanters gathered in this volume all merit our attention. A welcome anthology for readers of world letters.

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