Dorris Lessing on Winning Nobel Prize for Literature

Here are some quotes from Dorris Lessing, reported by the New York Times and AP, on being asked about winning the Nobel Prize for literature:

Reporters opened the door and told her she had won the Nobel Prize for literature, to which she responded: "Oh Christ! ... I couldn't care less."

"I was a bit surprised because I had forgotten about it actually," she said. "My name has been on the short list for such a long time."

Ms. Lessing said that on second thought, she was not as surprised "because this has been going on for something like 40 years," referring to the number of times she has been mentioned as a likely honoree. "Either they were going to give it to me sometime before I popped off or not at all."

"Now I’m going to go in to answer my telephone," she said. "I swear I’m going upstairs to find some suitable sentences, which I will be using from now on."

"I've won all the prizes in Europe, every bloody one, so I'm delighted to win them all, the whole lot, OK?" Lessing said, making her way through the crowd. "It's a royal flush."

It was interesting to see the censorship/story shaping that goes on in how you report a quote. We have:

"I've won all the prizes in Europe, every bloody one, so I'm delighted to win them all, the whole lot, OK?" Lessing said, making her way through the crowd. "It's a royal flush."

from the Associated Press, and

"I've won all the prizes in Europe, every bloody one, so I'm delighted to win them all. It's a royal flush," she said.

from AFP. And the latter didn't use the "I couldn't care less" quote. Agenda, anyone?

Free Novel in Progress from Nobel Laureate

Elfriede Jelinek, Austrian feminist playwright and novelist, is experimenting with posting her new novel Neid - German for Envy - onto the web in parts as she completes them. Here's her web site - though the three chapters she has posted, as most of the site, are in German. If you'd like a sense of her writing, go to the site, look under the 2007 posts, and click on the Bambiland - Translated by Lilian Friedberg link.