From Iceland — Sjón & Jón Kalman Among Likely Nobel Prize Winners

Sjón & Jón Kalman Among Likely Nobel Prize Winners

Published October 4, 2017

Elías Þórsson
Photo by
Art Bicnick
Hörður Sveinsson

Tomorrow, the winner of the 2017 Nobel Prize in literature will be announced and according to bookies our very own Sjón and Jón Kalman Stefánsson are among the favourites, reports RÚV.

Swedish bookies have placed the two in the tenth and eleventh place of likely winners.

Speaking to SVT, the Swedish national TV broadcaster, Jón said that if he should win he’d buy a bottle of whiskey and get drunk among good friends. This is not the first time he has been named in relation to possible Nobel Prize winners as in 2014 bookies also ranked him among the top favourites. So, we assume he already has that victory bottle stashed away somewhere.

Jón, however, has said that he’d prefer it if the French writer Patrick Modiano won.

About time

It’s been 62 years since Halldór Kiljan Laxness won Iceland’s only Nobel Prize, and after the Swedish Academy shunned Gunnar Gunnarsson four times we think it’s time we get another one.

It’s always our ambition to be top of every per capita list, but currently we are ranked fifth behind the Faroe Islands, Saint Lucia, Luxembourg and Sweden in number of Nobel Laureates. This injustice must end.

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