Selections from Novels by Nobel Prize-winning Novelists

Author: Song Zhaolin
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2005-05-01
Features: Since 1901, the awarding of the Nobel Prize has been regarded as "a gift left to humanity by an individual to promote the cause of human progress and welfare, with the pure idealism as its purpose." However, it has been said that the interpretation and execution of the will have remained a silent mystery for the world to guess, to the extent that "the history of the Nobel Prize in Literature seems to be a history of continuously interpreting a will with ambiguous wording." This mystery has puzzled the world for a century and left the Swedish Academy in a difficult position for a century. Theoretically, the Literature Prize is awarded to those "who have created the best works with an idealistic tendency in literature." After World War II, the selection of the Nobel Prize in Literature placed greater emphasis on "literary pioneers" and also believed that only a true portrayal of the value and dilemmas of human existence could be considered a historically profound "idealistic tendency."
As of now, there have been 101 Nobel Prize-winning authors in literature; it will become a permanent and timeless award. This book collects fifty-seven works, primarily novels, awarded from 1901 to 2004. The translators are mostly renowned translators, many of whom are experts in the study of their respective countries' literatures. Most of the translations are direct translations from the original texts, with only a small number being translated from other languages, making them highly authoritative.
The author compiled these collections of Nobel Prize-winning literature with the intention of introducing the Nobel Prize in Literature to Chinese readers. This includes representative and outstanding works of the prize-winning authors, the reasons for their awards, their biographies, historical backgrounds, literary concepts, literary achievements, and creative experiences, for the appreciation and reference of Chinese readers. It allows readers to gain a comprehensive understanding of the Nobel Prize and also provides insights into the general state of the world literary scene and the evolution of literary trends since the 20th century, offering enlightenment and benefits.
This book is divided into two volumes, collecting fifty-seven works of fifty-seven prize-winning authors from 1901 to 2005, primarily short and medium-length fiction, with some excerpts from long novels. Among the selected works, only a small number are translated from other languages, while the majority are direct translations from the original texts. The novels include works in English, French, German, Russian, Japanese, Spanish, Italian, Czech, Greek, Polish, Swedish, Arabic, and Bengali. The translators are mostly renowned translators and experts in the literatures of their respective countries.