The bookmaker’s aggregator Nicer Odds indicates that this year’s favorites for the Nobel Prize in Literature include Indian writer Amitav Ghosh, Japanese author Haruki Murakami, and Chinese novelist Can Xue. However, Hungarian Lázlo Krasznahorkai leads the predictions.
Other notable names in the running include Mexican Cristina Rivera Garza, Spanish author Enrique Vila-Matas, Australian Gerald Murnane, and Romanian Mircea Cartarescu, all of whom consistently feature prominently in these predictions.
Three of the top contenders this year are of Asian descent, even as last year saw South Korean author Han Kang win the prize, marking her as the first from her country to achieve this honor.
In past years, the prize was awarded to Chinese writer Mo Yan in 2012, Japanese author Kenzaburo Oe in 1994, and Indian Rabindranath Tagore in 1913, the latter being the first and only Indian Nobel laureate in literature to date.
Similarly, Portugal has only seen one laureate—José Saramago, who won in 1998. Despite Antonio Lobo Antunes being a regular favorite among bookmakers’ lists, he has never led the predictions.
José Saramago remains the sole Portuguese-language author to receive the Nobel Prize, even as authors from Portuguese-speaking African countries and Brazil have been considered over the years.
Brazilian writers often considered include Jorge Amado, Clarice Lispector, João Guimarães Rosa, Machado de Assis, and Carlos Drummond de Andrade, though all passed away before potentially receiving the prize.
This year, besides Antonio Lobo Antunes, the betting lists feature Mozambican authors Mia Couto and Paulina Chiziane, as well as Brazilian authors Adélia Prado and Milton Hatoum.
Several languages have been absent from recent Nobel recognitions, including Italian—the last winner being Dário Fo in 1997—Arabic, Greek, and Hebrew, with their last prizes awarded decades ago.
The Nobel Prize in Literature, awarded annually since 1901 by the Swedish Academy, recognizes outstanding contributions to literature and comes with a monetary award exceeding 900,000 euros.
Since its inception, the prize has been awarded to 121 writers, with 103 men and 18 women among them. While male recipients predominate, recent years have shown gender balance in laureates.
