Not P who will never win for Literature but a plea for Peace (via Lit Prizes Past. This is off to the Washington Post but y'all can write or call or telegraph the Nobel Peace Prize Committee.

[Mark Kohut]

March 4, 2022

Letters Editor

Washington Post


Dear Washington Post,

                           Open Letter to the Norwegian Nobel Peace Prize
Committee

         President Zelensky of Ukraine is inspiring the whole world in his
fight for peace. We all know his life is in danger from Vladimir Putin. Is
there anything more we can do?

          I think of the Nobel Prize, that fully global judging of who does
it best in all kinds of fields. You have never seen so many microphones and
cameras clipped on stands, or held by a large room of reporters from all
over the world unless you have watched the Swedish Academy announce
prizewinners early in the US morning.

If Pres Zelensky is still alive by October he has to win this year’s Nobel
Prize. No contest, right? Even though the deadline for nominations,
February 1, had passed before

his heroism for his country and the world was manifested. Extraordinary
times mean extraordinary decisions, Committee. As Sweden and other
countries have done already.

I think back on some Nobel Prize winners for Literature. How Boris
Pasternak’s Dr. Zhivago was secretly gotten to the Academy judges even
before it was published so that that achievement, added to his poetry and
other work could be certainly known and cited for his award. Perhaps the
Soviet Union let him live (although they jailed him and he could not go to
get his Prize) because his death would antagonize the world against their
government?

            Truth-writer Alexander Solzhenitsyn, another Nobel Prize winner
from Russia was driven into exile to Germany in 1974,  after one earlier
failed assassination attempt. Who is to

say why the Soviets spared his life, but perhaps that international Prize
beacon of honor helped? A martyr against a system is never forgotten; the
whole world knows forever.

            Norwegian Committee: This American democrat with an Ukrainian
heritage asks you to make a special exception to your normal timeline to
award the Nobel Prize as soon as possible to President Zelensky for his
defense of all that the Academy stands for: Democracy itself.



He doesn’t need a free ride to October—he needs the worldwide publicity
ammunition to stay alive past then..

Sincerely,

Mark Kohut

Shepherdstown, WV

USA