I received the news in a phone call from Stockholm at 6 this morning. It came as a complete surprise -- Iwas not even aware that the announcement was pending.
I am particularly happy that the announcement has come during this autumn quarter, which is the time ofyear that I spend at the University of Chicago. The University of Chicago, and in particular the Committee onSocial Thought, has been my intellectual home for the past seven years.
Saul Bellow, my literary predecessor on the Committee, won the prize in 1976.
This year I am teaching two courses with colleagues here -- a course on Plato with the philosopher JonathanLear, and a course on Walt Whitman with the poet Mark Strand.
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And I am of course continuing with my own work. I am working on new fiction, and I have a book oftranslations of Dutch poets due out shortly.
