The Nordic Council of Ministers' unofficial award for literary criticism

Focus on a disrupted symbiosis

BY OSCAR HEMER

"No statue has been erected to a literary critic yet," is something writers sometimes say, openly gleefully or with hidden malice. Mainly writers who have had unfavourable reviews. This is a qualified truth -- inasmuch as it is intended to be taken seriously at all. It does, however, say something about the problematic and symbiotic relationship between literature and literary criticism.

In the view of the general public, criticism is often considered a sort of parasitic activity, pursued by someone who lives off the creative work of others, that is, artists. Recognition of criticism as an activity in its own right, a literary genre with its own conventions and strict criteria, has proved hard to attain in the Nordic countries, despite a venerable tradition and the fact that literary criticism in daily newspapers has traditionally had an important position.

Many prominent Nordic writers have also been eminent literary critics, and done important work in introducing other writers. Swedish poet Artur Lundqvist, for instance, played an invaluable part especially in introducing Latin-American literature in Sweden, and ultimately he may be remembered more for his work as a literary critic, introducer and translator than for his own literary work.

In the Nordic countries, the main forum of literary criticism has always been the arts sections of daily newspapers rather than cultural journals. Book reviews have always been the foundation of cultural journalism. This solidly established position of literary criticism can no longer be taken for granted, however. Arts sections tend to be increasingly subject to the 'news room' values that apply to the rest of the newspaper. The reflective approach of a book review has to give way more and more to 'previews' and interviews with writers, which have far more impact on the fate of an individual book than the opinion of a reviewer. A critic who wishes to make himself heard must play along on the terms of the media, from his shrinking platform.

It seems as if the world of literature and the world of literary criticism are drifting apart, as Tomas Forser points out in his overview of trends in literary criticism in daily newspapers today. It seems clear that criticism will suffer from this separation. The question is what will become of literature when it is deprived of the touchstone that literary criticism ought to be. In the long run, it is surely literature, if not writers, who have most to lose as a consequence of the marginalization and 'medialization' of literary criticism. In this, the 2004 issue of Nordic Literature , we wish to focus on literary criticism as a literary practice in the Nordic countries, and hopefully stimulate discussion of its changing circumstances: criticism on criticism, if you will. We are doing this by wilfully establishing the Nordic Council's unofficial award for literary criticism. The editors of Nordic Literature have nominated ten literary critics, whom we gave the assignment of reviewing the nominees for the Nordic Council of Ministers' Literature Award in 2004. We are proud to present the results, an inter-Nordic meeting between the best literature and the best literary criticism.

We will announce the winner of our new award at the Göteborg Book Fair in September.

Our candidates are:

Denmark:                       
Torben Broström
Erik Skyum-Nielsen

Finland:                          
Pia Ingström
J P Pulkkinen

The Faeroe Islands:
Kim Simonsen

Iceland:
Skafti Þ Halldorsson

Norway:
Ane Farsethås
Øystein Rottem

Sweden:
Madeleine Gustafsson
Jonas Thente

Translated by The English Centre/Nicholas Mayow and Monica Sonck