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 did not travel to Stockholm for the ceremony?

A) Leonard Cohen

B) Paul Simon

C) Bob Dylan

D) Bruce Springsteen

Answer · why

C) Bob Dylan

Bob Dylan's citation praised 'new poetic expressions within the great American song tradition', and he collected his medal at a private ceremony in Ap...

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 1984 William Gibson novel popularised the word cyberspace, coined in his short story 'Burning Chrome'?

A) Snow Crash

B) Hyperion

C) The Diamond Age

D) Neuromancer

Answer · why

D) Neuromancer

Neuromancer remains the only novel to win the Hugo, the Nebula and the Philip K. Dick Award, science fiction's triple crown.

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.