This year's winner of the Nobel prize for literature is the
87-year-old British novelist Doris Lessing, a hugely
distinguished writer whose major work - including the seminal
Golden Notebook - might realistically be thought to be behind
her. Though, as Lessing herself noted earlier today, the
possibility of this award has been mooted frequently over the
last forty years, its timing has caused some surprise. After
all, of what use will it be to Lessing - or, perhaps more
importantly, to her work? In Europe, the term "Nobelisable" is
used freely to mean a writer who could perfectly well win the
Nobel prize. Every small country has one - sometimes two. In
Lithuania it's Tomas Venclova; in Estonia, Jaan Kaplinski and
Jaan Kross; in Slovenia, Tomas Salamun and, perhaps, Drago
Jancar. In contradistinction to the Anglo-American world, where
the repositories of national culture - or at least of national
debate - are often seen to be novelists, these figures are
frequently poets. Poets automatically play a significant