Ideal and idealistic

[Dave Monroe]

October 24, 1969
Beckett Wins Nobel for Literature
JOHN M. LEE

Stockholm, Oct. 23--Samuel Beckett, the avant-garde
writer acclaimed for his plays and novels of
loneliness, despair and human degradation was
announced today as the winner of the 1969 Nobel Prize
in Literature. 

[...]

There was conjecture here that Mr. Beckett would
refuse to come to Stockholm to accept the award, as is
customary, at formal ceremonies on December. 10. The
Nobel laureate in literature has traditionally
addressed the Nobel banquet, but Mr. Beckett has
rarely granted so much as an interview.

http://www.nytimes.com/books/97/08/03/reviews/beckett-nobel.html

Beckett continued to live in Paris, but most of his
writing was done in a small house secluded in the
Marne valley, a short drive from Paris. His total
dedication to his art extended to his complete
avoidance of all personal publicity, of appearances on
radio or television, and of all journalistic
interviews. When, in 1969, he received the Nobel Prize
for Literature, he accepted the award but declined the
trip to Stockholm to avoid the public speech at the
ceremonies.

http://www.britannica.com/nobel/micro/59_4.html

Fame and accolades began to come in the 1960s. Beckett
returned to Dublin in 1959 to receive an honorary
doctorate from Trinity College, and two years later he
won, with Jorge Luis Borges, the Prix International
des Editeurs (or Prix Formentor), valued at $10,000.
But the biggest surprise came on October 23, 1969,
when Suzanne picked up the first in what was quickly
to become a persistent series of telephone calls. Her
reaction to the news it brought was to exclaim,
"Quelle catastrophe!" Beckett had won the Nobel Prize
for, in the words of the Academy's citation, "his
writing, which --- in new forms for the novel and
drama -- in the destitution of modern man acquires its
elevation." Having remarked that Joyce ought to have
won it, Beckett gave much of the Nobel money (over
$70,000) away to charities and needy writers (among
them, Djuna Barnes and B. S. Johnson).

http://www.themodernword.com/beckett/beckett_biography.html

L'Academie Suedoise regrette que Samuel Beckett ne
soit pas parmi nous aujourd'hui.  Cependent il a
choisi pour le representer ... son editeur a Paris, M.
Jerome Lindon ...

http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/literature/laureates/1969/press.html

Also ...

The Swedish Academy regrets that Patrick White is not
here to-day. But as his representative we greet one of
his best friends, the excellent Australian artist
Sidney Nolan.... 

http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/literature/laureates/1973/presentation-speech.html

--- The Great Quail <quail at libyrinth.com> wrote:

> I honestly think Pynchon will never get it; but
> not because of his lewd humor, but because he is
> not a team player. The Nobel Prize is above
> everything else, a *political* prize. They'd have
> to be crazy to give it to a guy who is just as
> likely to send Matt Groening to accept the prize
> as he is to decline it.

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