@TimeAndTide: I agree with you regarding the science prizes. However, if the Nobel prizes were truly unbiased, then one would think that the Literature prize, for example, would be evenly spread around the world. In reality, however, Westerners predominate even in this category. Using the Literature Prize as an example, I think this is due to four factors:
(By Western nations, I mean European nations plus the US, Canada, Australia and New Zealand.)
1. Western audiences (understandably) focus on Western literature (here in the US, for example, it goes American > British > other European > rest of the world);
2. Very few Westerners understand non-Western languages;
3. Most non-Western literature is either untranslated or badly translated into Western languages;
4. Pre-WWII, non-Western nations were not considered culturally important by Westerners.
The combination of the first three factors means that, as long as people from the West are put in charge of the Literature prize, Western nations will dominate it irrespective of actual achievement. As for the fourth, IIRC, there were only three non-Western pre-WWII Nobel recipients (Carlos Saavedra Lamas, Rabinadrath Tagore, and C.V. Raman)--one from Argentina, and two from India (then under British influence).
Think about it this way: how many Chinese authors do you know? What about Japanese? Indian? Or any other non-Western nation? My guess is "very few". This doesn't mean that non-Western nations have fewer distinguished authors or literary achievements than Western nations; it's just that Westerners have never heard of them. And that, I think, is the problem with the Nobel prizes. |
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