The Nobel Prize in Literature

I am crestfallen, not to say dumbfounded, to see see how few of the prize winners I have even heard of, let alone read. Indeed, I can hardly bring myself to admit that the last book by a laureate that I have actually read was written by Aleksandr Solzinheysyn, who won the prize in 1970. I then have to go back to John Steinbeck (1962), Sir Winston Churchill (1953), François Mauriac (1952), George Bernard Shaw (1925 - but only because it was a set book at school) and Rudyard Kipling (1907). Mind you, when you read some of the synopses helpfully provided by the Swedish Academy you are not necessarily inspired to read the author's work. For instance, we learn that this year's winner, Patrick Modiano, was awarded the prize "for the art of memory with which he has evoked the most ungraspable human destinies and uncovered the life-world of the occupation".