[ACPlayer]

[ QUOTE ]
What did Alfred Nobel himself think? His guidelines to the Swedish Academy were, IMHO, sufficiently balanced between the specific and the vague, thus enabling the award to change with the times and the personalities (of the Academy) : The candidate should have bestowed "the greatest benefit on mankind" with "the most outstanding work in an ideal direction" (the latter term being the cause of much debate ever since).



[/ QUOTE ]

In Nobel's will he also writes (emphasis in mine):

[ QUOTE ]
the interest on which shall be annually distributed in the form of prizes to those who, during the preceding year, shall have conferred the greatest benefit to mankind.

[/ QUOTE ]

Even though his will states that the interest is to the person who makes the contribution in the given year, it appears that for the most part, the prize for lit, medicine etc is given to people for a lifetime of work (some of which may be dated).

Even though I am a big fan of Stephen King, I cant imagine agreeing with his, proposed, winning the prize. Compared to such authors as Gordimer or Coetzee (both of which I have read as well) both contribute to the field in a more "ideal direction" IMO -- what ever those two words are supposed to mean.