Can Xue, Haruki Murakami, Margaret Atwood and Salman Rushdie are among the most likely authors to win this year’s Nobel prize in literature, according to bookies.
Chinese avant garde author Can Xue, 70, is leading the pack with Ladbrokes giving 8/1 odds of her winning the prestigious literary award.
The winner is due to be announced on Thursday at noon BST. “It’s a wide-open field as far as the odds are concerned, but the latest figures suggest punters are fast-growing convinced by Can Xue’s chances,” said Alex Apati of Ladbrokes.
Can Xue, whose real name is Deng Xiaohua, was previously longlisted for the international Booker prize for her novel Love in the New Millennium, translated by Annelise Finegan Wasmoen, and her short story collection I Live in the Slums, translated by Karen Gernant and Chen Zeping.
The prize is awarded to “the person who shall have produced in the field of literature the most outstanding work in an ideal direction”, according to the 1895 will of Alfred Nobel. This year, the prize money will rise to 11m Swedish kronor (£822,000), from 10m SEK.
Following Can Xue at 12/1 odds is Japanese writer Murakami, 74, whose novels include Norwegian Wood, Kafka on the Shore and 1Q84. He has long been floated as a possible winner, and in 2013 he was the bookies’ favourite with 3-1 odds, though Alice Munro ended up winning.
After Murakami at 14/1 is Gerald Murnane, 84, the Australian author of novels including The Plains and Inland. His work is often self-referential. In a June essay in the Guardian, Emmett Stinson wrote that “Murnane’s international recognition has been belated”.
Also given 14/1 odds is 69-year-old László Krasznahorkai, a Hungarian novelist and screenwriter. His novels include Sátántangó and The Melancholy of Resistance, and he won the international Booker prize in 2015.
Seven writers have been given 16/1 odds: Lyudmila Ulitskaya (Russian), Atwood (Canadian), Mircea Cărtărescu (Romanian), Pierre Michon (French), Rushdie (Indian-British-American) and Thomas Pynchon (American).
Last year’s prize was awarded to French author Annie Ernaux, whose work is mostly autobiographical. She was the bookies’ favourite to win in 2021.
A total of 115 people have been awarded the Nobel prize in literature since 1901. If Can Xue wins, she will be the 18th woman to win the prize and the second Chinese resident, after Mo Yan was honoured in 2012. Chinese-born Gao Xingjian won the prize in 2000, but he is a French citizen.
• This article was amended on 4 October 2023. An earlier version mistakely referred to the Nobel prize “for” literature rather than “in”, and gave the announcement time in GMT rather than BST.
