Q 01/05

Which French philosopher tried to refuse the 1964 Nobel Prize in Literature, saying he declined all official honours?

A) Albert Camus

B) Jean-Paul Sartre

C) Samuel Beckett

D) Roger Martin du Gard

Answer · why

B) Jean-Paul Sartre

Jean-Paul Sartre argued that a writer should not let himself be turned into an institution, and the Swedish Academy gave him the prize anyway.

Q 02/05

Which singer-songwriter won the 2016 Nobel Prize in Literature but skipped the ceremony in Stockholm?

A) Leonard Cohen

B) Paul Simon

C) Bob Dylan

D) Bruce Springsteen

Answer · why

C) Bob Dylan

Bob Dylan stayed away, so Patti Smith sang his 'A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall' in his place, stopping to apologise when nerves made her lose a verse.

Q 03/05

Which Daphne du Maurier novel opens 'Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again' and never names its narrator?

A) Rebecca

B) Jamaica Inn

C) The Scapegoat

D) The Parasites

Answer · why

A) Rebecca

Rebecca's narrator becomes the second Mrs de Winter, yet it is Maxim's dead first wife, the title character, who dominates the Cornish estate.

Q 04/05

Which novel popularised the word cyberspace, coined in its author's short story 'Burning Chrome'?

A) Snow Crash

B) Hyperion

C) The Diamond Age

D) Neuromancer

Answer · why

D) Neuromancer

Neuromancer spread William Gibson's word until cyberspace became the name for the online world, and it swept the Hugo, Nebula and Philip K. Dick award...

Q 05/05

Which 1942 Albert Camus novella has Meursault kill a man on an Algiers beach weeks after his mother's funeral?

A) The Plague

B) The Stranger

C) The Fall

D) A Happy Death

Answer · why

B) The Stranger

The Stranger's prosecutor dwells more on Meursault's failure to cry at his mother's funeral than on the killing itself.