“The annual Nobel Prize in Literature, which is to be awarded in Stockholm on Thursday, assures the happy laureate a gilded place in posterity. Or does it? The Swedish Academy is so eccentric in its choice that the astonished winner often enjoys 15 minutes of fame and is quietly forgotten. No less bizarrely, the academy has overlooked some pillars of modern literature, like Proust and Joyce. Then there are those well-known writers who year after year are considered to be contenders only to be disappointed. This year the word in Stockholm is that it is time for a woman to win again…”