Nobel Prize in Literature To Be Announced on Thursday

According to various reports, this year’s Nobel Prize in Literature will be announced on Thursday around lunchtime.

As always, the announcement of the forthcoming announcement brings out the speculation as to who will win, the complaints about why Americans don’t win every year, and the betting. Since I don’t really care who wins (although I hope for our sake it’s Dubravka Ugresic, and I really hope Philip Roth doesn’t win), I just want to focus on the betting.

Ladbrokes is the main betting place, and here are the current odds for the top five and some select other listings:

Adonis 4/1
Tomas Transtromer 6/1
Haruki Murakami 8/1
Peter Nadas 10/1
Assia Djebar 12/1
Thomas Pynchon 16/1
Philip Roth 25/1
Antonio Lobo Antunes 25/1
Adam Zagajewski 33/1
Salman Rushdie 50/1
Javier Marias 50/1
Elias Khoury 50/1
Bob Dylan 50/1
Per Petterson 80/1
Jonathan Littell 80/1
William Gass 80/1

The authors with the top entries are always at the top right about this time, and the winner always seems to come out of nowhere. Michael Orthofer of the Complete Review is the master of deciphering these odds, but I’ll keep an eye on any sudden changes—that usually signals who the winner is going to be.

In the meantime, if you want to speculate—or just give a shout out as to who you think should win—feel free to post your thoughts in the comments section below.