The Nobel Prizes were instituted by Swedish inventor, Alfred Nobel, in 1901.
Nobel amassed a fortune from the invention of high explosives. In 1888 he was disconcerted to read his own obituary, which was headlined, “The Merchant of Death is Dead.”
The obituary was of course a mistake. It was actually Nobel’s brother who had died, but it caused Nobel himself immense remorse, and he set up the prizes in an attempt to atone for his terrible invention.
The prizes are nearly always controversial, especially in the United States. The most recent outcry was when Barack Obama won the Peace Prize in 2009. Obviously your feelings about President Obama winning the prize would be dependent on your political affiliation.
Louise Gluck’s award seems unlikely to cause much controversy.
Below is one of her poems.
The Evening Star
Tonight, for the first time in many years,
there appeared to me again
a vision of the earth’s splendor:
in the evening sky
the first star seemed
to increase in brilliance
as the earth darkened
until at last it could grow no darker.
And the light, which was the light of death,
seemed to restore to earth
its power to console. There were
no other stars. Only the one
whose name I knew
as in my other life I did her
injury: Venus,
star of the early evening,
to you I dedicate
my vision, since on this blank surface
you have cast enough light
to make my thought
visible again
Ed Asher Briant 