Nobel Prizes! Wheeee!
When I heard this morning that Muhammad Yunus, founder of the Grameen Bank, had won the Nobel Peace Prize, I dropped my spoon into my cereal bowl and started dancing around the kitchen in glee. It’s so exciting when someone whose work you’ve been following for ten years actually gets honored for it, especially when that work has helped so many thousands of women living in poverty. Plus, I admit that I have an element of personal satisfaction in Yunus’s receipt of the award: when I was in high school economics class, our teacher required us to read about and report on some famous economist (like, you know, Adam Smith or John Maynard Keynes). I didn’t want to. Instead, I went to Borders, browsed the shelves, and selected a book about Muhammad Yunus. I think Mr. W thought I was insane for reporting on somebody who actually helped the poor. Ha! In your face, Mr. W! (A very “peaceful” attitude on my part, I know.)
Also, I’m really excited about Orhan Pamuk winning the Nobel Prize in Literature, because I just started reading his novel My Name Is Red on the way back from my trip to Turkey and Egypt. K had recommended the novel, which is about the meeting, involving both mixing and clash, between Eastern and Western artistic styles during the Ottoman Period. I’m only about two-thirds of the way through, so I can’t yet make a definite declaration of whether I like the novel or not, but I do find the themes interesting. The Washington Post’s article on Pamuk describes his work as evoking “modern Turkey’s complex blending of westernized culture and Ottoman tradition. It is a mix, Pamuk said, that puts the lie to the simplistic notion of a ‘clash of civilizations’ between Islam and the West.”
It’s so gratifying when Nobel Prizes go to people you’ve actually heard of.
Add comment October 13th, 2006