Murakami- Kafka plot

A Turkish writer, I forget his name, won the nobel prize for literature. He wrote about persecution of albanians, I think, at the end of the 19th century. I think he even went to jail or at least on triel for it. Tricky topic in Turkey.

We talked about this in an 'International Issues" class. Student brought it up. Oh great, I thought, a chance to talk about persecution, whether ethnic groups like kurds deserve a homeland, why the focus on palestinians but silence about kurds, and so on.

No. The topic was the conspiracy to deny japan the nobel prize. Haruki Murakami recently won the Kafka award. Good job. Very prestigious. But apparently everyone (read: the Japanese media) expected him to get the nobel, and when he didn't, it was an example of the whole world ganging up on poor Japan to deny them the prize.

Much like sporting events. Before the olypics all the tv shows "We're gonna kick butt this year" Then one medal is won, that person is a star and everyone wonders why "foreign judges" are so unfair.