&gt; Nobody was up in arms earlier about the chemistry award going to people who weren&#x27;t &quot;household names&quot;<p>That&#x27;s because chemistry papers can only be appreciated by a trained chemist, whereas literature is a popular art form which ought to be appreciatable by anybody. Or any <i>educated</i> person, if you want to dismiss the tastes of the great unwashed (it&#x27;s interesting how literature is one of the few fields where it&#x27;s still socially acceptable to be a snob).<p>Now, maybe the Nobel Prize Committee is doing us a great service by uncovering the works of these great authors whose work has never been appreciated before. But in that case, you&#x27;d expect them to become popular <i>after</i> their prizes, and everyone would be going &quot;boy, I sure am glad that the Nobel Prize Committee brought Derek Walcott to my attention or else I&#x27;d never have read <i>Omeros</i>&quot;. But nope, most of the laureates continue to languish in relative obscurity even after they win the prizes.