The Nobel Lecture

"On October 13, 2016, Bob Dylan became the first American musician in history to be awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature. In his Nobel lecture, he reflects on his life and literary influences, providing both an eloquent artistic statement and an intimate look at one of the world's most fascinating cultural figures."--Back cover

This is a collection in which meditations on imagination and the process of writing mingle with keen discussions of global affairs, geography and colonialism, cultural change, and the deeply lasting influences of the past.

The Nobel Lecture in Literature, delivered by Kazuo Ishiguro (The Remains of the Day and When We Were Orphans) at the Swedish Academy in Stockholm, Sweden, on December 7, 2017, in an elegant, clothbound edition. In their announcement of the 2017 Nobel Prize in Literature, the Swedish Academy recognized the emotional force of Kazuo Ishiguro’s fiction and his mastery at uncovering our illusory sense of connection with the world. In the eloquent and candid lecture he delivered upon accepting the award, Ishiguro reflects on the way he was shaped by his upbringing, and on the turning points in his career—“small scruffy moments . . . quiet, private sparks of revelation”—that made him the writer he is today. With the same generous humanity that has graced his novels, Ishiguro here looks beyond himself, to the world that new generations of writers are taking on, and what it will mean—what it will demand of us—to make certain that literature remains not just alive, but essential. An enduring work on writing and becoming a writer, by one of the most accomplished novelists of our generation.

On December 7, 2010, Mario Vargas Llosa was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature. His Nobel lLecture is a resounding tribute to fiction's power to inspire readers to greater ambition, to dissent, and to political action. "We would be worse than we are without the good books we have read, more conformist, not as restless, more submissive, and the critical spirit, the engine of progress, would not even exist," Vargas Llosa writes. "Like writing, reading is a protest against the insufficiencies of life. When we look in fiction for what is missing in life, we are saying, with no need to say it or even to know it, that life as it is does not satisfy our thirst for the absolute—the foundation of the human condition—and should be better." Vargas Llosa's lecture is a powerful argument for the necessity of literature in our lives today. For, as he eloquently writes, "literature not only submerges us in the dream of beauty and happiness but alerts us to every kind of oppression."

The complete acceptance speech of Louise Glück, winner of the 2020 Nobel Prize in Literature. The Nobel Prize committee selected poet and author Louise Glück "for her unmistakable poetic voice that with austere beauty makes individual existence universal." Here is the full text of her Nobel Lecture given on December 7, 2020.

"Riveting."—Science A Forbes, Physics Today, Science News, and Science Friday Best Science Book Of 2018 Cosmologist and inventor of the BICEP (Background Imaging of Cosmic Extragalactic Polarization) experiment, Brian Keating tells the inside story of the mesmerizing quest to unlock cosmology’s biggest mysteries and the human drama that ensued. We follow along on a personal journey of revelation and discovery in the publish-or-perish world of modern science, and learn that the Nobel Prize might hamper—rather than advance—scientific progress. Fortunately, Keating offers practical solutions for reform, providing a vision of a scientific future in which cosmologists may finally be able to see all the way back to the very beginning.

In 2002, President Jimmy Carter received the Nobel Peace Prize for his dedicated efforts for peaceful solutions to advance human rights and delivered this inspiring lecture—now published in ebook form. On October 11, 2002, the Norwegian Nobel Committee announced that the winner of the Nobel Peace Prize for 2002 was Jimmy Carter, making him the first American-born laureate since Martin Luther King, Jr. was awarded the prize in 1967. President Jimmy Carter received the Nobel Peace Prize on December 10, 2002, and delivered this inspiring lecture.

The speech delivered by Paz in acceptance of the 1990 Nobel Prize for Literature, in which he discusses gratitude, separateness, and modernity. Published in a handsome bilingual edition. Translated by Anthony Stanton.

The acceptance speech delivered by the winner of the 2003 Noble Prize for Literature, and the enigmatic short story "He and His Man" which Coetzee recited during his speech, are brought together in this volume.