In its conception the literature prize belongs to days when a writer could still be thought of as, by virtue of his or her occupation, a sage, someone with no institutional affiliations who could offer an authoritative word on our times as well as on our moral life.

在它的概念中，文学奖属于这样一个时代，一个作家仍然可以被认为是一位圣人，因为他或她的职业，一个没有任何机构背景的人，可以对我们的时代以及我们的道德生活提供权威的话语。