A World Prize for a World Thinker?

Abstract

To reconstruct the history of the Nobel Prize and its impact on the making of world literature is a task of staggering dimensions. Nevertheless, letters and archival documents offer a glimpse into its workings. This paper examines Hannah Arendt’s efforts to secure the Nobel Prize for Karl Jaspers, as a case study in the globalization of the literary field after the Second World War. It is shown how Arendt and her allies in the German and American publishing trade mobilized an international network of supporters in Sweden, Norway, Switzerland, France, Italy, Great Britain, Japan, and the United States in order to secure the “world prize” for the German “world thinker”. The paper also tries to explain why these intensive international efforts ultimately failed.