Why was Joseph Brodsky awarded the Nobel Prize for literature?
In this photo, the then 47-year-old emigre poet is literally glowing: a dream has come true! On December 10, 1987, he was awarded with the Nobel Prize in Stockholm.
“For an all-embracing authorship, imbued with clarity of thought and poetic intensity,” the Nobel Prize committee explained its choice.
Brodsky, indeed, had created a new poetic language, liberating it from any kinds of formalization or frames – the vocabulary and the syntax of the poet were not restrained by anything.
In his homeland, Brodsky was bullied, forced to undergo psychiatric treatment and prosecuted for “parasitism”. His poems were banned from publication and’ in 1972’ he left the USSR for the United States.
Overseas, he became better known as an essayist, publishing in English in magazines. Brodsky also lectured at American universities.
Many critics believe that, like most Russian authors, Brodsky was awarded the Nobel Prize only because he was a political exile. Nevertheless, even in emigration, Brodsky himself tried to avoid the image of a victim of the regime and was very apolitical.
In Russia, he was recognized only after his death in 1996. He was dubbed by many as “the last great Russian poet” and even “the Pushkin of our time”.
