It's not about writers you like, but about bringing high talent to the light

Who won the 2025 Nobel Prize in Literature? Despite belonging to the publishing industry, I had to check how to spell Laszlo Krasznahorkai, so I wouldn't have to pretend it was a typo later. And the fact remains that I hadn't heard of Krasznahorkai before 2025, which has been the case with many other Nobel Laureates too.

Some of them I have subsequently become huge fans of, like Annie Ernaux, whose slim gorgeous memoirs I have devoured madly in the last few years. It's true that many obscure authors - in terms of fame accompanied by trifling financial success - have been discovered and revered after they won the Nobel. We depend on prizes to unearth, often enough, little-known struggling authors. Which raises deeper questions about fame, awards, genius, and talent. But that's for another day.

Abdulrazak Gurnah's novels, for instance, had modest print runs primarily in Britain. He was largely unknown in his home country, Tanzania. In India, his books weren't available at all until he won the Nobel in 2021. After which his popularity soared, and several literary festivals in India have hosted him as well.


I read and loved his 2001 novel By the Sea more than 20 years after it was first published. It was even longlisted for the 2002 Booker Prize. But Gunrah's books failed to sell big numbers - till he won the Nobel Prize. Regardless of how we feel about the instantaneous fame and recognition the Nobel brings, its role in bringing high talent to dazzling light can't be denied.

The Nobel has noble, notable outliers - those who were already popular household names by the time they received the prize. My favourite of the lot is Bob Dylan, whose win sparked debate on what qualifies as literature and, who, ironically enough, failed to turn up for the formal ceremony in Stockholm due to prior commitments.

In a delightful travesty to a prize that is the most prestigious literary award, every year the Nobel Prize in Literature allows betting - as if high literature is a thoroughbred horse with muscular hindquarters. The odds they offer are as odd as human nature itself, and it's hard to imagine that raucous bidding has ever led to anyone making a killing in the Nobel literary racecourse.

According to a Lit Hub article, no one was favoured that heavily in this year's list, with only the Chinese writer Can Xue back on top after falling out of the top 5 rather randomly last year. My nationalist brain started searching for authors of Indian origin in the vast list of bookies' odds, and found Salman Rushdie at 25/1, and Amitav Ghosh, god bless his soul, at 50/1.

I don't know if there are others I've missed. My eyes glazed over at the long, long list with half my mind wandering and wondering what books are doing on a sports betting site. I went to the Ladbrokes website to check out the authenticity of this literary betting, but found it was country-blocked.

This year's winner is Anne Carson, whose poetry I have read on Instagram. (I know that doesn't sound great, but what to do?). And Google tells me she described her mother as the love of her life (I love that, because same goes for me), and that her first husband took her notebooks when they divorced, as happens to the protagonist in her fictional essay in verse, The Beauty of the Husband. I love that, too, though the same doesn't go for me. All my notebooks and husbands are still in my possession.

I hope this means publishers will now be more open to the idea of poetry, which isn't really a favourite genre in the industry. In any case, I am excited to read very much more of Anne Carson in the coming years.