Uh oh . . . the fur is flying in the literary world. The head of the jury for the Nobel Literature Prize has declared American authors to be too ‘insular and ignorant’ to be considered for this esteemed award. Horace Engdahl has deemed that Europe is still the centre of the literary world. Cue much huffing and puffing from the luminaries of American literature. David Remick, editor of the New Yorker magazine, notes that an academy, guilty of failing to recognise the works of Marcel Proust, James Joyce and Vladimir Nabokov is hardly in a position to pontificate about what is, or is not, great writing.

The last time an American won the prize was Toni Morrison, best known for the Pulitzer Prize winning novel ‘Beloved’. Since then, nine Europeans, including last year’s winner, Doris Lessing, have been honoured together with authors from Japan, Turkey, South Africa, China and Trinidad. These authors all had close links with Europe. Many Americans have accused Engdahl of overlooking authors beyond the mainstream of US literary output but, strangely, none have come up with examples, as of now. Hmmmm.

The award announcement may come next Thursday but the Swedish government only announce the date two days before so it’s anyone’s guess when it will be. One of the favourites, prior to Engdahl’s comments, was US author, Philip Roth but he must have now downgraded his chances of getting his hands on the $1.3m prize. On the other hand, front runner, Japanese writer, Haruki Murakami has probably already pencilled in the order for the Ferrari. Italian, Claudio Magris is high on Ladbroke’s Nobel Prize betting list with Israel’s Amos Oz and America’s Joyce Carol Oates close behind while Bob Dylan languishes at the bottom of the list.