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    Here are the bookies’ odds for the 2024 Nobel Prize in Literature.

    Emily Temple

    October 8, 2024, 11:28am

    The 2024 Nobel Prize in Literature will be announced this Thursday, October 10. Who will win? As ever, no one knows. But everyone likes to guess…and bet. And because money talks, the betting odds can tell you a lot. Or a little. Or, something, anyway!

    To figure out where to put my (extremely metaphorical) money this year, I consulted Ladbrokes, the UK’s premiere (?) betting outlet, which offers an extensive list of favorites, including many old hats and a few new ones.

    Can Xue tops the list for the second year in a row. Is this her year? (I wouldn’t be surprised—last year, I predicted that she would win in 2024.) Australian novelist Gerald Murnane is in second place. Is it his year? After all, last year he was third, and in second place was Jon Fosse, who won. So it only follows. Maybe, maybe. Murakami is hanging around as always; César Aira is in the mix; the Greek writer Ersi Sotiropoulos makes a surprise appearance. Margaret Atwood has rather come up in the world since last year, when her odds were 39/1. Robert Coover is on the list, though very sadly, now ineligible. J.K. Rowling is in the insult slot, which made me laugh.

    Anyway, one of these writers (or possibly another person altogether) will win 11 million Swedish krona (almost a million US dollars). See the full Ladbrokes list below, and place your bets.

    Here are the odds as of this writing:

    Can Xue – 10/1
    Gerald Murnane – 12/1
    Haruki Murakami– 14/1
    César Aira – 16/1
    Ersi Sotiropoulos – 16/1
    Margaret Atwood – 16/1
    Thomas Pynchon – 16/1
    Anne Carson  – 20/1
    Bushra al-Maqtari – 20/1
    Carl Frode Tiller – 20/1
    Norbert Gstrein – 20/1
    Pierre Michon – 20/1
    Ali Ahmad Said Esber – 25/1
    Dag Solstad25/1
    Don DeLillo25/1
    Ludmila Ulitskaja25/1
    László Krasznahorkai  – 25/1
    Mieko Kanai25/1
    Mircea Cărtărescu25/1
    Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o – 25/1
    Peter Nadas25/1
    Salman Rushdie25/1
    Karl Ove Knausgaard28/1
    Leslie Marmon Silko28/1
    Mia Couto28/1
    Michel Houellebecq28/1
    William T. Vollmann28/1
    Alexis WrightSUSP
    Ananda Devi33/1
    Andrey Kurkov33/1
    António Lobo Antunes – 33/1
    Colson Whitehead33/1
    David Grossman 33/1
    Duong Thu Huong33/1
    Edmund White33/1
    Emmanuel Carrère33/1
    Enrique Vila-Matas33/1
    Garielle Lutz33/1
    Hamid Ismailov33/1
    Han Kang33/1
    Homero Aridjis – 33/1
    Hwang Sok-yong – 33/1
    Hélène Cixous33/1
    Ivan Klíma – 33/1
    Jamaica Kincaid33/1
    Joy Harjo33/1
    Joyce Carol Oates33/1
    Mahmoud Dowlatabadi33/1
    Marie NDiaye33/1
    Marilynne Robinson33/1
    Martha Nussbaum33/1
    Nuruddin Farah33/1
    Robert Coover33/1
    Robert Macfarlane33/1
    Ryszard Krynicki – 33/1
    Salim Barakat33/1
    Scholastique Mukasonga33/1
    Sebastian Barry33/1
    Tahar Ben Jelloun33/1
    Yan Lianke33/1
    Amitav Ghosh40/1
    Ivan Vladislavic40/1
    Linton Kwesi Johnson – 40/1
    Louise Erdrich40/1
    Patricia Grace – 40/1
    Paulina Chiziane40/1
    Vladimir Sorokin40/1
    Wendell Berry40/1
    Xiaolu Guo40/1
    Ali Smith50/1
    Botho Strauss – 50/1
    Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie50/1
    Claudio Magris50/1
    David Peace50/1
    Ko Un – 50/1
    Murray Bail50/1
    Stephen King – 50/1
    Yoko Tawada50/1
    Yu Hua50/1
    Zoe Wicomb50/1
    J.K. Rowling66/1

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