To my mind, the fact that Milan Kundera hasn’t received a Nobel Prize says volume about whether the Price is political or literary. One can also look to the latest comments form a Nobel Committee member on American literature to see that there is currently an anti-American sentiment. They are apprently not aware of the works of Frederick Fierstein or Frederick Turner, two fine American poets (though the latter is naturalized).

On the other hand, the current trend in the Nobel Prizes is suggestive. Perhaps if I turned my own pen against the U.S. and wrote anti-American plays and poems, I could get my own Nobel Prize.