When receiving the Nobel Prize in Literature becomes a curse For some of the winners of the award, which will be announced this Thursday in Stockholm, it was a ‘kiss of death.’ Many never wrote any more notable works, and others felt uneasy about the loss of their privacy The highest literary award, or a kiss of death? For some winners of the Nobel Prize in Literature , which will be awarded this Thursday in Stockholm, receiving the prize, worth 10 million Swedish kronor (almost $1 million), was more of a curse than a reason for joy. One of the most tragic examples is that of the Swedish writer Harry Martinson, who felt that getting the award in 1974 had ruined his existence as an author and as a person.
The poet was a member of the Swedish Academy, which has been in charge of awarding the prize since 1901, so the decision was highly controversial. The criticism deeply depressed Martinson, who committed suicide by hara-kiri four years later. “Over the years, a small number of Nobel Prize winners in literature have experienced the award as a misfortune or even as a curse,” admits Horace Engdahl, who was permanent secretary of the Swedish Academy from 1999 to 2009, in an email.
Martinson’s case is the most dramatic, but there were others. “It is said that some lost the gift of writing because they felt intimidated by the situation, constantly asking themselves: is this a page worthy of a Nobel Prize winner?” However, Engdahl considers this to be “more of a myth .