Japanese, African, US writers among bettors’ Nobel favorites

FILE – In this Jan. 27, 1993 file photo, American author Toni Morrison is shown at Princeton University in Princeton, New Jersey. The Swedish Academy awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature to Morrison later that year, praising her novels for their “visionary force and poetic import” and for giving “life to an essential aspect of American reality.” Her novels, such as 1987’s “Beloved,” have shone a light on the racial prejudices that have afflicted her homeland. This year’s winner is due to be announced on Thursday, Oct. 13, 2016. (AP Photo/Charles Rex Arbogast, File)

STOCKHOLM (AP) — Scientists, peacemakers and economists have had their moment. Now it’s time for a man or woman of letters to bask in Nobel glory.

The Swedish Academy will reveal the Nobel Prize in literature on Thursday, capping this year’s award announcements.

As in previous years, Japanese author Haruki Murakami and Kenyan writer Ngugi wa Thiong’o top Nobel betting lists ahead of the announcement.

Others getting attention on betting sites include Syrian poet Adonis, Norwegian playwright Jon Fosse, Albanian novelist Ismail Kadare and American writers Joyce Carol Oates, Don DeLillo and Philip Roth.

The academy’s former permanent secretary, Horace Engdahl, sparked an uproar in the U.S. in 2008 when he told the AP that the American literature world is “too insular” and doesn’t “participate in the big dialogue of literature.”