[nicky g]

" Not meaning to overly toot my own horn here"

Er... right.

"ut if the author in question was writing in German or Russian, they wouldn't need to receive translation in order for me to recognize them. I'm fluent in both languages and can read them in the original."

Indeed no, but my point was that being a bookshop manager doesn't qualify you, as many important foreign works won't get translated or sell well if they do.

"Or so you assert. Counterexamples would help to bolster your case some. Non-English language authors who have not previously won the Nobel Prize whose oeuvre is comparable to that of Roth, Pinter, Oates and/or Atwood. Chinua Achebe I'll give you, perhaps, and what has he really done other than _Things Fall Apart_ and _Anthills of the Savannah_?"

You want a list of all world class non-English language writers, because you think none of them are of the quality of the four writers you mention? That's a ridiculous task based on a ridiculous premise. I could understand if you thought there were proprotionally more English language writers, but no non-English ones? Be serious. I'll give you one perfectly worthy nominee: Amin Maalouf. I'm sure there are dozens.

:his is the same sort of assertion I hear from "lit snobs" practically every other day, and the reason they use it is because they know they probably won't be called on it because it's based on opinion, not fact. They SAY that Melville's stories have more "intelligence" in them than King's, but yet they fail to PROVE that to any reasonable person's satisfaction."

It's all based on opinion ultimately, and it's impossible to prove. But I challenge you yo find any work that teases out the range of literary and philosphical implications and underpinnings in King's work that is present in Melville's. I'll also wager you that in 50 years time, King will not have entered "the canon", if you fancy getting back in touch then.

"There have been plenty of years when a foreign-language author (or multiple foreign-language authors) has been one of the 4 or 5 most deserving potential recipients of the Lit Nobel. This is not one of those years."

Maybe this is the crux of our disagreement; I don't belive that in any one year deserving writers can be narrowed down to four or five. There will always be more deserving writers than the prize can hounour. But if there were, I still say it's impossible that they all write in English and unliklely that you'd have heard of all of them.

"No less an authority than Jorge Luis Borges, who counted Melville among his favorite writers, alluded to it in an interview with William F. Buckley, Jr. on the -Firing Line_ TV program."

And what did he have to say about King?