Here are the bookies’ odds for the 2025 Nobel Prize in Literature.
The 2025 Nobel Prize in Literature will be announced next week, on Thursday, October 9. As always, to prepare myself (emotionally, I guess?), I consulted the UK betting site NicerOdds (nicer than whose, I wonder?) to find out who the bookies think will take home the biggest prize in international letters. Money talks, as we are reminded every single day in our late capitalist dystopia. Did I mention the winner gets 11 million Swedish kronor (currently about 1.2 million in USD)?
This year’s list features many of the usual subjects—Gerald Murnane is sitting pretty there at the top, after being in the top three for the last two years, though it seems the bookies may be giving up on Can Xue, who was number one for the last two years, and has now dropped out of the top five. (That probably means it’s her year.) Margaret Atwood took a significant dive in this list too, but it’s nice to see the rise of Alexis Wright, and the surprise appearance of Cristina Rivera Garza—who hasn’t made the odds at all since I’ve been tracking them—at number three. (Somebody knows something.) Paul Simon rears his precious little head again, give me strength—he won’t win, but it’s still funny to imagine the UK bookies stacking him up next to Dylan. And Murakami’s always hanging around up there, because at heart, the bookies are trying to take your money.
Those who bet and those who guess, use the below list as you will, and remember that no one knows what will happen. Han Kang won last year with odds of 33/1, so it could be Atwood’s—or anyone’s—year after all.
Gerald Murnane – 5/1
László Krasznahorkai – 6/1
Cristina Rivera Garza – 9/1
Haruki Murakami – 11/1
Mircea Cărtărescu – 11/1
Thomas Pynchon – 11/1
Can Xue – 14/1
Enrique Vila-Matas – 14/1
Michel Houellebecq – 14/1
Alexis Wright – 17/1
Jamaica Kincaid – 17/1
Salman Rushdie – 17/1
Anne Carson – 19/1
César Aira – 19/1
Carl Frode Tiller – 19/1
Colm Tóibín – 19/1
Ersi Sotiropoulos – 19/1
Péter Nádas – 19/1
Pierre Michon – 19/1
Raul Zúrita – 19/1
Karl Ove Knausgaard – 21/1
Helle Helle – 24/1
Isabel Allende – 24/1
Ko Un – 24/1
Milton Hatoum – 24/1
Yoko Tawada – 24/1
Elena Poniatowska – 29/1
Homero Aridjis – 29/1
Joyce Carol Oates – 29/1
Ludmila Ulitskaja – 29/1
Margaret Atwood – 34/1
Paul Simon – 49/1
Stephen King – 49/1
