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Irish Examiner
19 hours ago
- Entertainment
- Irish Examiner
Book review: Novellas of a Nobel prize winner translated for a whole new audience
The novels and short stories of Pontoppidan, who won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1917, reflect Danish political and cultural life from the perspective of social indignation and social realism. Yet they are leavened with brilliant satire and sarcasm to ridicule establishment hypocrisy. Such is the fluency of Larkin's translation and his use of familiar idiom that the two novellas here are refreshing and a joy to read. Pastor Thorkild Müller, a hopeless theology student, is sent to the Greenland colony to proselytise and preach. It's considered a lifelong exile for dunces. He is an unkempt, bearlike big man who has suffered much abuse and humiliation — but is not as slow-witted as he seems. The ice, the fjords, the harshness of lonely winter and the revitalising light of summer, help form the man, bring him closer to god but closer still to the indigenous Intuit people whose simplicity and harmony with nature draws him intimately into their culture. This is vivid writing, reminiscent of Knut Hamsun on landscape, and Halldór Laxness on the comedy of life. Müller goes native, marries, has children. It is many years later, after his wife dies, that he experiences the longing to go back to Denmark. There, his new parishioners are wary of the eccentric, uncouth, ill-dressed pastor who smells of fish, wandering the forests and hills, scaring the kids. But they come to love him and his down-to-earth spirituality. However, when he cancels tithes, a move which crosses the line, threatens order and his ecclesiastical superiors, the plot against him thickens and 'the white bear' has a choice to make. Rebellion of a different type is the theme of the second novella, The Rearguard, which is here translated into English for the first time. For someone who was never involved in organised politics (but sympathising with the worker and peasant), Pontoppidan perceptively portrays the dogmatism of Danish painter, 'Red Jørgen' Hallager, who rails against cosmopolitan, conventional art in favour of 'social realism', a principle he holds dear, at great cost to all around him, including his frail and loving wife, Ursula. However, while it is faintly possible to admire the idealism of 'Red Jørgen', ultimately it is impossible to sympathise with him and his destructive rampages. He follows Ursula to Rome, where her father, a connoisseur of the arts, State Councilor Branth — whom Hallager despises as the epitome of bourgeois society — swans with an expat 'Dutch colony' of cultural aesthetes, backslapping each other at their regular soirées. In the marital apartment, which daddy paid for, naïve Ursula believes she can tame her new husband ('you great, big barbarian wild man!'). She calls upon him to embrace the spectacular view from their balcony, the splendour of the spiritual capital, this centre of western civilisation. He, on the other hand, obsesses with his view that the world is dominated by the philistines and sell-outs — 'Arch scoundrels, Mountebanks … Infamous hypocrites' out to 'bamboozle the people, all the better to rob them and the fruits of their labors, blind and keep them in misery.' What drives him is a childhood grudge he bears against society because his father was falsely charged with embezzlement and imprisoned. The most sympathetic and decent character is Thorkild Drehling, who secretly loves Ursula, and is a Hallager devotee who gave up a family fortune to be beside his hero, only to be also denounced by Hallager. Regardless of who is ultimately right or wrong in determining what is art, if there ever can be such a conclusion, the fundamentalism of Hallager provides the dynamic for this sad, if not tragic and moral story. NYRB, this month, is also publishing Pontoppidan's masterpiece A Fortunate Man, again translated by Paul Larkin, another great addition to rediscovering overlooked or out-of-print works.
RTÉ News
13-06-2025
- Entertainment
- RTÉ News
Yeats Day in Sligo marks 160 years since birth of Nobel Laureate
A series of events are taking place across Sligo to celebrate Yeats Day - marking 160 years since the birth of Nobel Laureate William Butler Yeats. The Yeats Society is inviting people across Ireland and the world to recite or read a Yeats poem today or post a picture of one of his poems with the hashtag, #YeatsDay. This afternoon, a birthday cake for Yeats Day was cut and distributed in Queen Maeve's Square where his poetry, including The Lake Isle of Innisfree was recited publicly. Director of the Yeats Society Susan O'Keeffe told RTÉ News that Yeats Day aims to bring the pleasure of his poetry alive in the public sphere. "I think [Yeats'] legacy can be forged in a different way by presenting his poetry in different places that are easy for people to grasp and think, gosh, that's so amazing. "That's what we hear all the time when we read his poems aloud. They're easy to listen to when you can listen to them easily without stress around. "He is a global poet, and his poetry resonates as much today as it did when he wrote it in the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th century. "We have visitors [to the Yeat's Society Building] all year round, from across the globe. We call them the Yeats pilgrims." Many people regard Sligo as Yeats' spiritual home and a place that inspired and influenced his work. Although he was born in Sandymount, Dublin on 13 June 1865, William Butler Yeats spent much of his younger life in Sligo, home of his mother Susan Pollexfen. He was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1923 for "his always inspired poetry, which in a highly artistic form gives expression to the spirit of a whole nation". A poetry breakfast was held at the Oak Moon Café at the Yeats Society this morning which his poetry was recited. Sligo artist Karen Moynihan, whose artwork is displayed in the Yeats Society Building told RTÉ News that Yeats poetry has influenced her journalling and artwork. Fellow artist Carmel Reynolds fondly recalled hearing recitals of Yeats' poetry in her childhood. "He's integral to the Sligo landscape. Everywhere you turn a reference to it comes through in his poetry." Sarah O'Byrne from Sligo says Yeats has been part of her life. Sarah's parents who were English teachers were involved in the establishment of the Yates International Summer School, now in it's 66th year, making it the world's longest-running summer literary school. The Yeats Day Festival runs until Sunday in Sligo. Sarah said she felt that it was taken "for granted growing up that every town must have a poet that would have beautiful poems about the local scenery". "I lived abroad, but Yeats is a real drawback to Sligo. I pass Drumcliffe every day and there are people visiting Yeats' grave from all over the world." Yeats died in France in 1939 and was initially buried there, but, in 1948, his remains were re-interred at the graveyard in Drumcliffe, where his great-grandfather had been rector.
The Irish Sun
11-06-2025
- Entertainment
- The Irish Sun
‘It's been such a thrill' says RTE legend as she bids farewell in emotional retirement statement after 25 years
RTE legend Kay Sheehy is bidding farewell to the national station after working there for 25 years. Kay has worked in RTE Radio 1 for a quarter of a century as a producer, presenter and reporter. 3 KAY SHEEHY - RTE Credit: RTE 3 KAY SHEEHY - RTE Credit: RTE The radio star, who will be finishing up at the end of the week, described her time in RTE as an "exciting and often fun experience". From political highs like Seamus Heaney winning the Nobel Prize for Literature, to global horrors such as the Bosnian wars, Kay has had "the luck to live and work in the media during interesting time". She also had "the honour" of co-ordinating RTE's commemoration of the 1916 Rising. Kay began working in the arts as the first Arts Officer to be appointed by a County Council in Clare and she said it was "a dream" job. read more on rte She added: "What I loved most as my twenty-something-year-old self drove around the byways of Clare was coming up with an idea and seeing it through to completion with artists and colleagues. "From Dial a Seanchaí (a recently rejuvenated storytelling phone-in service), and Nights in the Gardens of Clare, an oratorio for speech and music in collaboration with poet Paul Durcan and virtuoso Micheal O Súilleabháin, to themed street parades with Theatre Omnibus." More recently, Kay has spent the last number of years working on RTE Radio 1's weeknight arts programme, Arena. Kay said: "You get to showcase creativity and add a bit of your own live on air five nights a week. read more on the irish sun "It's been such a thrill, working with the Abbey Theatre on an hour-long deep dive into Conor McPhearson's The Weir on the set of the show with the writer, director and actors as our guide, doing the same with the plays of Sean O'Casey in Druid for its phenomenal celebration of his Revolutionary period plays, the Plough, Shadow and Juno." Arena airs at 7pm each weekday but Kay has said her team "dream of having an afternoon slot" so they can showcase all art forms to a wider audience. Joe Duffy fights back tears on air She added her wish for the future as she leaves saying: "We also have dreams that our partners in TV will produce a sister arts show that can highlight creative endeavour on television. "Like the Government, RTE loves to promote its commitment to culture - my hope is that the schedule on both TV and radio will reflect that through more arts programming." Another RTE legend retiring this month is Joe Duffy. The 69-year-old is and leaving his hugely popular RTE Radio 1 show, Liveline, which he has helmed for over a quarter of a century. In his 27 years in the SAY JOE MORE And Joe shocked his listeners on air last month when he announced his retirement. The 69-year-old said: 'After 37 wonderful years here in "People felt they could pick up the phone, ring Liveline, and share their lives, problems, stories sad, bad, sometimes mad and funny, their struggles, and their victories. "I never took that for granted, not for a single minute. RTE has been a great place to work. Public service has always been at its heart. And now, after many happy years, I've decided the time has come to move on. "I would like to thank you the listener for tuning in each and every day, it has been an honour to sit in this seat and hear your stories.' Joe will be on air for another two weeks before his 3
Time of India
09-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Time of India
French Open 2025: How Carlos Alcaraz and Jannik Sinner gave us a glimpse of the future
Spain's Carlos Alcaraz (right) and second placed Jannik Sinner of Italy pose with trophies after the final match of the French Tennis Open at the Roland-Garros stadium in Paris, Sunday, June 8, 2025 (Image via AP /Thibault Camus) In A Complete Unknown , folk singer Pete Seeger tells an audience: 'A few months back, my friend Woody Guthrie and I met a young man who dropped in out of nowhere and played us a song. In that moment, it felt like we got a glimpse of the future. ' That young man was Bob Dylan , who didn't just change folk music but transcended the traditional barriers of space, time, and language with his craft—to the point that he became the first songwriter to win the Nobel Prize for Literature. On June 8 in Paris, two young men, both born after Y2K, also gave us a glimpse of the future—a post-Federer-Nadal-Djokovic future of tennis. A COMPLETE UNKNOWN | Official Teaser | Searchlight Pictures But let's back up a little to 2003, when Andy Roddick won the US Open after beating Juan Carlos Ferrero (now immaculately ageing like fine wine in Carlos Alcaraz's corner). He thought he was on the verge of a big innings, the new Great American Hope after Messrs Sampras and Agassi. Except, a classy gentleman from Switzerland, a bullish young man from Spain, and a gluten-free cyborg from Serbia had other ideas. In fact, for the next two decades, only 11 other men bothered the record keepers at Wimbledon , Flushing Meadows, Roland Garros and Melbourne Park. But under the Parisian sun, on the burnt orange soil of Roland Garros, we saw a new kind of final play out. by Taboola by Taboola Sponsored Links Sponsored Links Promoted Links Promoted Links You May Like Pinga-Pinga e HBP? Tome isso 1x ao dia se tem mais de 40 anos Portal Saúde do Homem Clique aqui Undo One that didn't just hark back to a glorious past but portended a new kind of future. Carlos Alcaraz and Jannik Sinner, two men not old enough to rent cars in some countries, produced a match for the ages: 5 hours and 29 minutes of court sorcery, athletic defiance, and generational transition. The Five-Set Epic Alcaraz and Sinner have been on a collision course for a while. Both had perfect records in Slam finals: Alcaraz 4 out of 4, Sinner 3 out of 3. They had met in quarters and semis before, but never in a Grand Slam final. Neither had come back from two sets down. Neither had survived a match over four hours. Something had to give, and it did in Paris. The 2025 French Open final didn't start like an instant classic. In fact, it was slow, laborious and ponderous—more Breaking Bad pilot than Game of Thrones. Sinner broke Alcaraz early, playing with depth and discipline, pushing the Spaniard behind the baseline. His backhand down the line—his Excalibur—sliced through Alcaraz's defence. Set one, 6-3 Sinner. No nerves, no frills. In the philosopher Mick Jagger's words, every saint is always a sinner and Sinner was a saint for the first thirty minutes. Italy's Jannik Sinner plays a shot against Spain's Carlos Alcaraz during their final match of the French Tennis Open at the Roland-Garros stadium in Paris, Sunday, June 8, 2025. (AP Photo/Lindsey Wasson) Set two was tighter. Alcaraz's forehands grew heavier, but Sinner's ice held. At 4-4 in the tiebreak, Alcaraz blinked, Sinner's Iceman destroying Alcaraz's Maverick. 7–6(4) Sinner. Two sets to love. The coronation script was already being copy edited but much like a modern-day Tittivillus, Alcaraz decided to ruin the plot. In the third set, he slowed the tempo, mixed up his spins, and started pulling Sinner into angles that could be studied in geometry classes. He broke late and closed it 6–4. The first crack in Sinner's Iceman act. Set four was the turning point of the match—and maybe the rivalry. Sinner served at 5–4, holding three championship points. That's when Alcaraz became the sinner in chief, the Devil who believed that free will was more important than having a seat at the table of heaven. A disguised drop shot that made the audience gasp. A running forehand that hugged the tramline. A backhand pass that defied gravity and good manners. He saved all three. He broke. He held. And in the tiebreak? 7–6(3) Alcaraz. From two sets down, he'd levelled it. Now the match had teeth. By the fifth, it was pure survival. Both called trainers. Both cramped. Both dragged themselves across clay as if auditioning for a post-apocalyptic drama. The rallies slowed. The tension didn't. They traded breaks, traded roars, traded mythologies. At 6–6, it came down to the super tiebreak. A ten-point sprint to tennis immortality. Alcaraz didn't blink. Sinner did. 10–2. The match: 3–6, 6–7(4), 6–4, 7–6(3), 7–6(10–2). A comeback for the ages. The longest Roland Garros final. The first time Alcaraz had come back from two sets down. A Study in Contrast Italy's Jannik Sinner tosses his racket during the final match of the French Tennis Open at the Roland-Garros against Spain's Carlos Alcaraz in Paris, Sunday, June 8, 2025. (AP Photo/Aurelien Morissard) The match was a masterclass in contrast. Alcaraz plays like a flamethrower in a Picasso studio—wild, dazzling, unpredictable. His forehand isn't just fast—it's early, angled, and deadly. His drop shots? Something even the Federer-Nadal-Djokovic troika never had to deal with. Sinner, by contrast, is all discipline and depth. His forehand holds up admirably, but his backhand—flat, fast, and surgical—is the true menace. He takes Alcaraz's spin and redirects it like a prism redirecting light. Even his drop shots, though fewer, are devastating—more assassin than artist. Where Alcaraz paints murals, Sinner solves equations with a scalpel. One plays to the gallery; the other to the gods of geometry. It is style versus structure. Swagger versus silence. Alas one has to give but there's no reason this is the end. If anything, it's the beginning. A Legacy Continues There's a funny thing in sports called the Barrier Effect—or to name it after its progenitor, the Roger Bannister Effect. When Bannister ran the first sub-four-minute mile in 1954, the world thought it was impossible. And then, it wasn't. Once the barrier broke, others stormed through. Watching Sinner and Alcaraz, it feels like they are – in a similar way – summoning the geniuses of Federer, Nadal, and Djokovic, the men who had almost redefined the art of playing tennis. The French Open had begun with a touching tribute to Rafael Nadal, where his greatest rivals turned up to pay homage. While one can employ many a Kipling-like phrase to describe Nadal, the most fitting was the epic Nike commercial that condensed his never-say-die insouciant essence into a single McEnroe line: 'Is he going to play every point like that?' Te emocionará: el anuncio de Nike que repasa la carrera de Rafa Nadal desde los 16 años I MARCA That line, that ethos, hovered over Philippe-Chatrier like ancestral smoke, much like Kipling's 'If you can meet Triumph and Disaster and treat both Imposters the same' hovers over Centre Court at Wimbledon. And as the match wore on, you could see it in both men—the unwillingness to concede a single point, the refusal to blink, the sacred duty of competing to the brink. I mean, you gotta remember this guy (Alcaraz) has defence and speed like Novak, if not more. He has feel like Federer, you could argue at times if not more. He has RPMs in pace like Rafa. You could argue maybe even more. Andre Agassi (Career Grand Slam Winner) They had watched the greats. Now they are channelling them. Novak Djokovic once said he saw in Alcaraz a mix of himself, Federer and Nadal. John McEnroe called Sinner 'the most improved player on the planet.' On June 8, both men made the prophecy real. Like Seeger watching Dylan, we got a glimpse of the future. And it is going to be glorious. And even if it isn't like Rick and Ilsa in Casablanca: We will always have Paris.
Hindustan Times
07-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Hindustan Times
Review: The Nobel Prize and the Formation of Contemporary World Literature
We might consider the Nobel Prize for Literature to be a holy pulpit that canonises a writer. It ordains the pantheon of all-time greats who have attained literary divinity and is where 'industrial money is gilded with royal glamour, scientific benefits, and cultural sophistication'. But the intimate connection between the 'the cultural capital of high-brow literature… dynamite money from the donor and…the feudally rooted status of the old Swedish monarchy' has meant that the Nobel Prize has always been under scrutiny. However, most of the books on the subject have been rich in myth but poor in scholarship. The process of the selection of laureates and how that has shaped the idea of 'universal' literary values and defined literary quality across languages and cultures has rarely, if ever, been discussed. But what mechanisms made it possible for 18 Swedish intellectuals – 'randomly chosen persons in the remote town of Stockholm' – to become the world's most influential literary critics with a power to exert an almost godlike influence on the literary world? Paul Tenngart's well-researched book The Nobel Prize and the Formation of Contemporary World Literature scours the history and future of the prize to explain the complex alchemy of how the Nobel Prize in Literature has shaped (and continues to shape) the world literary canon. Apart from fame, the Nobel Prize comes with a larger sum of money than most prizes. Alfred Nobel donated more than 30 million Swedish crowns, which is the approximate equivalent of 245 million US dollars in today's currency. Having money makes one earn more money, not only through interest and other capital gains, but also through the social and cultural attraction of economic success. This is how Nobel's generous donation empowered 'an outdated and elitist closed circle of cultural power' to judge the excellence of human endeavour. The cultish effect of the Nobel Prize for Literature has led other well-known prizes with a fundamentally international perspective on literature to be modelled on it – the Formentor, the Neustadt Prize, and the International Booker Prize, a spin-off of the Booker that, from 2005 onward, has awarded literature originally written in any language but available in English translation. That Rabindranath Tagore received the prize in 1913 because of the English translations of his Bengali poetry confirms Heilbron's notion of Anglophone hyper-centrality in literary traffic across markets and languages and accounts for English being the most awarded literary language. The book raises questions about what constitutes world literature that the donor, Nobel himself, probably had no means to answer. Drawing from a wide range of contemporary theories and methods, this multifaceted history of the Nobel Prize questions how the Swedish Academy has managed to uphold the global status of the prize through all the violent international crises of the last 120 years. It also looks at the impact the prize has had on the distribution and significance of particular works, literatures and languages. Over the years, in its strenuous attempt to 'recognize true and durable literary quality', the Swedish Academy has often awarded writers who have soon become outdated. The weighing and ranking of the literary merits of contemporaries is an almost hopeless undertaking. As a result, the Swedish intellectuals have missed the chance to award literary giants like Marcel Proust and James Joyce. Looking at the back list of laureates, in 1951, Henri-René Lenormand concluded that 'it is disturbing to have witnessed the disregard for universal geniuses like Joseph Conrad of England, Ibsen and Strindberg for the Scandinavian countries' and 'Chekhov, Tolstoy, Andreiev and Gorky of Russia'. The subjectivity of the selection process, and its propensity to be run by high-minded literary cabals has raised questions, laying the prize open to criticism of oversight and bias. Admittedly, canonization points readers to authors whom they might not have cared to read without the Nobel tag. Tagore's literature prize sparked the most intense reactions in The New York Times to any single Nobel Prize until the outbreak of the First World War. But it did also lend widespread expediency to the act of reading him. Many writers have been 'discovered' by readers, not on account of the epiphany of their greatness, but because they had been awarded the Nobel. As many deserving writers have been ignored, the Nobel Committee has been accused of holding Eurocentric attitudes toward literatures produced in non-European and non-Western contexts, resulting in authors and texts from such 'remote parts' not being 'consecrated'. 'The academy is often reproached for thus neglecting the literatures of Asia and Afric. Artur Lundkvist, an influential member of the Academy, infamously said in Svenska Dagbladet in 1977, 'But I doubt if there is so far very much to find there.' It was a comment as prejudiced as Thomas Macaulay's statement that 'A single shelf of a good European library was worth the whole native literature of India and Arabia'. Not that the Nobel committee is unaware of this, but diplomacy has a role to play amongst languages, cultures, and nations 'struggling for recognition and dominance'. From 1901 to 2022, of the 119 laureates, more than 80 have been born in or have been long-standing residents in European countries. Thirteen of the awarded authors have been US citizens, and nine of them have been born in Africa or have lived in African countries. Interestingly, sitting on the northern fringes of Europe, Stockholm and Sweden (its language is spoken by only 0.1 percent of the world's population) do not enjoy a central position in the world, either politically, economically, or culturally. Yet, in 'awarding the Nobel Prize in Literature, the semi-peripheral Stockholm is the middle sibling of world literature, a space of compromises between self-sufficient firstborns and defiant lastborns,' writes Tenngart. He believes the Nobel will 'always' be a European prize that will never be able to 'balance out the hierarchy between cultures, languages, and literatures,' reinforced further by its 'international importance'. He adds that the Swedish Academy is fundamentally an 'elitist' and 'undemocratic' assembly. In its zeal to remain politically neutral, in the wake of the death-edict issued by Ayatollah Khomeini against Salman Rushdie, the Swedish Academy decided not to condemn the fatwa and thereby not to officially and univocally support Rushdie. In protest, three Academy members – Kerstin Ekman, Werner Aspenström, and Lars Gyllensten – refused to continue their work in the Academy. It is impossible to officially resign so Aspenström's and Gyllensten's chairs remained empty until their deaths in 1997 and 2006. Kerstin Ekman's chair remained empty until the rules were changed in 2018. Interestingly, an intense political controversy ensued in 2019 when Peter Handke was awarded. The Austrian writer was accused of being sympathetic to Serbian nationalism, and denying the Srebrenica massacre and was strongly criticized for speaking at Serbian leader Slobodan Milosevic's funeral in 2006. Over the years, the Academy has also drawn flak over its selections of Gao Xingjian, VS Naipaul, Imre Kertész, Orhan Pamuk, Herta Müller, Mario Vargas Llosa, and Mo Yan – all of whom have been accused of painting a false picture of their home countries. Many believed that their consecration reinforced the authors' assumptions. And that's not all. Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen was disqualified due to his 'negativity' in relation to traditional institutions; Ezra Pound's 'fascist' opinions during the Second World War disqualified him. It is clear that moral and political considerations often gained precedence over merit. Language often has been a barrier. During the first three decades of the prize, no Russian author was awarded, because none of the early twentieth-century members knew Russian. The book tries to prise open an institution that has been overshadowed by its cultish culture of secrecy ('a leftover from the cultural practice of closed circles of power'). One of its rules is that critics and scholars have to wait for 50 years until committee discussions of nominated authors are made public. Tenngart believes the origins of this great secrecy is firmly rooted in 18th-century Freemasonry. While it ushered in Rabindranath Tagore's Bengali, Sinclair Lewis' American, Gabriela Mistral's Chilean, and Yasunari Kawabata's Japanese moorings, besides including politically entrenched writers like Winston Churchill, Boris Pasternak, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, and Gao Xingjian in the World Republic of Letters, the Republic was built, Tenngart reminds us, on western liberal ideology. Prasenjit Chowdhury is an independent writer. He lives in Kolkata.
