Better than ugly and elitist

The man who will be announcing the winner of this year’s Nobel Prize in Literature within the next two weeks has seemingly indicated that the choice is unlikely to fall to an American writer.

In an interview with the Associated Press, Horace Engdahl, the permanent secretary of the Swedish Academy, says the United States is too insular and ignorant to compete with Europe when it comes to great writing.

Yes, a nation of immigrants, ranging from the icy frontier of Alaska to tropical paradise to the wide open west to New England to Hollywood--from rural expanse to clustered urban centers to green suburbs--a nation that moreso than any other sustains communities transplanted from every corner of the world, from church to mosque to synagogue--a nation that makes best-sellers out of authors from around the globe, from Salmon Rushdie to J.K. Rowling, from Milan Kundera to Terry Pratchett--is "too insular and ignorant".

Perhaps our ignorance is manifested by our lack of interest in anything written by Engdahl.