It has been a good week for the English language, to paraphrase another tribute, another victory night, for American President Barack Obama. The man who famously ran for the most powerful job in the world on two stirring books about his life so far has now taken the Nobel peace prize for 2009 — less than nine months into his presidency — “for his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples”, for capturing the world’s attention and giving its people hope for a better future. It has to be, perhaps, the first time that a person has prize-winningly sustained diplomacy, has re-positioned his superpower of a country in international relations, on the strength of his words, his commitment to talking through every issue. Barack Obama should, if you really thought about it, have actually got a Nobel prize this year for literature.

This week too, Hilary Mantel became a rare favourite to actually win the Man Booker Prize, for her fictional rehabilitation of Thomas Cromwell. The storyline is all too familiar. King Henry VIII is desperate to annul his marriage to Katherine of Aragon and marry Anne Boleyn. To achieve this he will not just manage the politics of his court, but set off events that will change church-state relations and change England in ways perhaps not originally intended. Mantel’s achievement lies not only in capturing the personal and political undercurrents in the court of Henry VIII to bring Cromwell centrestage, but also to inquire into the influence personalities have on how power is used, into how matters of state can change ordinary lives in the realm.

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