Turning Pages

Chapter 9th - Irish blood, english heart this I'm made of

and no regime can buy or sell me...

Part 3

In 1920 the Nobel Prize is awarded to the strongly influentuial and having lots of imitators, Norwegian author Knut Hamsun, also called father of modern literature, with a particular reference to his piece Growth of the Soil. In the next year, the French writer, poet and journalist Anatole France (real surname Thibault) is honored. A real intellect and a typical representative of the French culture in his time, he focused on the French revolution. An impressive detail, considering his brilliant spirit, is that he was born with a rare anatomic deficiency: the size of his brain only equaled 2/3 of the normal size... In 1922 the Spanish dramaturgy returns to the fore, with the award to Jacinto Benavente, a fanatical supporter of monarchy and Franco regime.

In 1923 and 1925, an entire nation receives the honor, personated by two exceptional Irish writers who introduced their culture to the rest of Europe. William Butler Yeats especially proved his worth after the Nobel Prize in 1923, as his most significant works - The Tower, The Winding Stair and Other Poems - followed, which was not usually observed. Satire, idealism and humanism are ideally combined in the work by George Bernard Shaw, whose work was acknowledged giving him the Nobel Prize in 1925. He dealt with various issues of social content, such as marriage, the educational system, religion and the exploitation of the working class. He declined the cash prize that came with the Nobel Prize, requesting its use on financing the translation of Swedish literature into English. 15 years later, in 1938, he was also awarded an Oscar for the film Pygmalion, based on one of his plays.

Between the two Irish writers, in 1924, the Pole Wladyslaw Reymont gets awarded, for the epic The Peasants, standing out against his fellow nominees, Thomas Mann and Maxim Gorky. The latter of course, did not have much potential to be awarded, as he was a pet aversion... In 1926, the sensitivity and emotional descriptions of Italian Grazia Deledda give vivid pictures of life in Sardinia, and move the committee. The next year it is the philosophical idealism that brings the Nobel Prize to French Henri Begson, but in 1928 a female affects glance again. The trilogy of Norwegian Singrid Undset, Kristin Lavransdatter vividly describes the hard life in Scandinavia in the Middle Ages, bringing her the prize. Finally, in 1929 the turn of German Thomas Mann has finally arrived, although his The Magic Mountain had already been published since 1924. Mann underwent intense criticism on his political views, but the value of his work was never disputed.

Irish Blood, English Heart - Morrissey

You made me the thief of your heart - Sinead O' Connor

(In the name of the father OST)

The Crying Game - Jaye Davidson (vocals by Kate Robbins)