Le Clezio: Genius, non-resident of Sweden

Okay, so maybe Horace Engdahl, the head of the Nobel Prize for Literature judging committee, was right when he said — as per this delighted-with-itself report from London’s Daily Telegraph — that American writers were “too insular” and, well, “ignorant” to win the Swedish kewpie doll, and also that Philip Roth should stop inundating him with chocolate and nylons. But by God, there is one thing we know how to do in America that apparently they don’t know how to do in Engdahl’s literary mecca of Sweden, and that’s rig an election without getting caught (three words: Flor id duh). To wit, a New York Post report that says the name of this year’s winner was leaked to gamblers before the official announcement was made, and the leak seems to have come from the sworn-to-secrecy panel headed by Engdahl. How do they know? Apparently, a surprising number of people in England, where they wager on the speed of leaves hitting the ground, placed bets on previously-completely-unknown-even-to-most-of-his-relatives-making-him-an-incredible-long-shot French writer Jean-Marie Gustave Le Clezio — who lives in, er, the US — in state-run betting parlors well before the announcement was made.