Powers Mentioned as Possible Future Nobel Laureate

The controversy stirred up by the recent comments by Horace Engdahl, the permanent secretary of the Swedish Academy, in a story carried by the Associated Press, wound up putting Richard Powers's name into the spotlight as a frequently-mentioned potential future winner of the literature prize.

In a story by Scott McLemee in Inside Higher Ed, Levi Stahl of the University of Chicago Press was quoted:

"What writers might be on the verge of a Nobel-level career? I’m placing my bet on Richard Powers (as did the MacArthur Foundation several years ago): His oeuvre to this point has shown him to possess a restless, inquisitive mind that is unlikely to allow him to repeat himself or settle into a rut, while his ambitious attempts to marry the language and insights of science to psychological realism seems like a reasonable formula for the sort of sweeping masterpiece that could get the Nobel committee’s attention."