Map by Wisława Szymborska

Name: Wisława Szymborska

Year Won: 1996

Read: Map

Original Language: Polish

Reason: "for poetry that with ironic precision allows the historical and biological context to come to light in fragments of human reality"

About: Map is a collection of poetry. Most of the poems focus on normal life, with some traces of history and mythology thrown in. Just like oh...95% of the other poets the Nobel committee seems enamored of.

What I liked: The poetry is very pretty, even in translation and quite evocative. I liked this better than most collections of poetry.

What I Disliked: It's really hard for me to judge poetry. Like, okay, I guess the words are interesting and creative? Which is, I think, what a poem is supposed to do? But they rarely transport me the way fiction does, so all I can do is go, "I guess it seems nice."

It's especially hard when 95% of poems that the Nobel committee picks are practically the same. Free form (e.g. not attempting for rhyme or meter - I think - hard to tell in different languages) poetry about daily life, with some mythology or history mixed in. And usually it's Greek mythology, so it's not even different mythology like, say, Polish folk tales or whatever. So it all feels very same-ish.

Should it have won a Nobel: This is clearly what they like. Not sure if it should have won, but sometimes the winning feels kind of inevitable now.

Next Up: "The Pope's Daughter" by Dario Fo