Welcome to Today in Books, our daily round-up of literary headlines at the intersection of politics, culture, media, and more.
South Korean Novelist Han Kang Awarded 2024 Nobel Prize in Literature
Han Kang’s Nobel Prize is unusual in a couple of ways. First, she is considerably younger than most winners and has a long time ahead of her in which to enjoy the unique glow this award provides. Second, she already has had one success in the U.S. with the truly fantastic The Vegetarian. There are a lot of people who have read that book out there, which means she has much more of a platform than usual for non-North American writers who win the Nobel (Ishiguro being the other notable recent-ish exception). One effect is that her books that have not been translated into English almost certainly will be. It also means that We Do Not Part, Kang’s next book, instantly is going to be one of the big books of 2025.
Created by Humans Partners with the Authors Guild
Whether sucking up copyrighted works into LLMs is legal is very much in question. If it turns out that it isn’t, then a process and terms for anyone who would be OK licensing their work to AI companies will be have some takers. I have no sense right now what even the payouts could be for these types of deals for individual authors; several publications have signed major deals, but those represent the works of hundreds if not thousands of writers. Prediction: it will be more than AI companies want to pay and much less than writers want.
I probably have read more John Gierach books over the last five years than those of any other author. I discovered Gierach deep in Covid and quickly listened my way through his extensive backlist. His avuncular, expert, and sharply self-effacing chronicles of fly-fishing were both travelogues of creeks and rivers and an evolving rumination on change, aging, and living a good life. If you or someone you know are interested in giving him a go, I recommend starting with Standing in a River, Waving a Stick, whose title should give you some sense of what you are in for.
I took a crack at making a list of the 50 U.S. writers who I think the best chance of winning a Literature Nobel some day. There might be, what 2-3 U.S. laureates that will win in the four or so decades I might expect to be around. I will consider it a successful exercise if I get one of them right.