The World Republic Of Letters By Pierre Bourdieu

Contemporary literary prizes are institutions that celebrate literary achievements, shape authors’ positions with respect to the market and the canon, form the worldwide readership. They frequently cause controversies, be it the list of nominees, the names of jury members, or, eventually, the winning authors or books. Among all literary prizes, the Nobel Prize in Literature is, probably, the most famous and controversial, because, “unlike the Booker or the Goncourt, [it] explicitly highlights and rewards the author rather than an individual literary work” (Braun 321). Since the Nobel Committee decided to award authors not only for the last year’s works, but for their writings in a wider period, the figure of the winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature, became “the guarantor of literature as it is mediated to an international public” (Braun 324).

Literary prizes are important parts of literary systems, which can be defined as structures that describe the mode of interaction between authors, readers and markets. One such systems is a centre-periphery concept of French scholar Pascale Casanova. According to her The World Republic of Letters, writers across the globe exist in a single literary space, which is (here she very much follows Pierre Bourdieu’s concept of literary field) politically and, subsequently, aesthetic autonomous. This space serves as a field for writers’ competition — both personal and national — and recognition. This field, The Republic of Letters, has