
    
&lt;p class=&quot;info&quot;&gt;
  &lt;span class=&quot;section&quot;&gt;Forum&lt;/span&gt;
  | &lt;span class=&quot;byline&quot;&gt;Patrick Gage Kelley&lt;/span&gt;
  
&lt;/p&gt;

  &lt;div class=&quot;body&quot;&gt;
      &lt;p&gt;Every year, Nobel Prizes in chemistry, physics, physiology or medicine, peace, and literature are awarded: three to scientists, one to an activist, and one to an artist. &lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;That last one, we as a nation will ignore. We will not consider this year&rsquo;s winner&rsquo;s &ldquo;condensed, translucent images, [which] give us fresh access to reality.&rdquo; Even with the Swedish Academy&rsquo;s compelling tweet-length press quote on this year&rsquo;s winner of the Nobel Prize in literature, Swedish poet Tomas Transtr&ouml;mer, we will not dive into his art. Despite the fact that he has just won the Nobel for artists and that his entire corpus is less than 300 pages, he will remain largely unread in America.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;We as a country continue to be uninformed about actual literature, especially literature written by anyone outside of our country or by anyone who dares write in a language other than our own. We are so uninformed that we lack the ability to reason about the prize. Americans are not informed enough to call shenanigans o...&lt;/p&gt;

      &lt;br /&gt;
      &lt;strong&gt;
        Read the full article
        &lt;a href=&quot;http://thetartan.org/2011/10/10/forum/patty_cake&quot;&gt;online&lt;/a&gt;.
      &lt;/strong&gt;
  &lt;/div&gt;

  &lt;div class=&quot;footer&quot;&gt;
      &lt;p&gt;Patrick Gage Kelley (pkelley@) is assistant editor-in-chief for The Tartan.&lt;/p&gt;

  &lt;/div&gt;

  