In what looks like an upset, on Thursday the Nobel Committee announced that 80 year-old poet Swedish Tomas Transtromer took home this year's literature prize. The committee got a bit poetic itself in its press release, saying "through his condensed, translucent images, he gives us fresh access to reality." Even though he's first Swede to win the prize in 40 years, both the Associated Press and The Guardian have noted that the committee "is espeically cautious about awarding Swedish writers out of fear of being seen as biased," as the AP put it. The UK newspaper relays two works recommended by the committee's permanent secretary, Peter Englund:  The Half-Finished Heaven and New and Collected Poems.The Transtromer win also shelved the idea of Bob Dylan as the favorite. The Atlantic Wire suspected those odds were inflated. 

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Erik Hayden