ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Monday, October 14, 1996 TAG: 9610140092
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-4 EDITION: METRO
COLUMN: & Now This...
The wiry-haired one from Hibbing, Minn., is still in the running.
Gordon Ball, the Virginia Military Institute literature professor who nominated rock 'n' roll poet Bob Dylan in August for "the next Nobel Prize in Literature," found out last week that Dylan will be considered for the 1997 prize.
Ball didn't know whether the Oct. 3 announcement that Polish poetess Wislawa Szymborska had won the 1996 prize meant that Dylan had been passed over or not. His nomination had not specified a year, and The Swedish Academy, which chooses the winners, had not acknowledged his letter.
So Ball called the committee in Norway that had asked him to nominate Dylan and learned the gravel-throated former Robert Zimmerman was being considered for next year.
Ball, a scholar of Beat literature and a Dylan fan since 1965, said Dylan's work has had worldwide importance. His music "validated the imagination and independence of thought, and contributed very centrally to the questioning of the 1960s." He's been quoted by presidents and inspired the oppressed all over the globe.
The flood of calls Ball has had from all over the world since Dylan's nomination became known attests to Dylan's international popularity, if not his influence.
Ball has been interviewed by Monitor Radio, the broadcast arm of the Christian Science Monitor, the BBC, Radio New Zealand, PBS, U.S. News & World Report, and Asahi Weekly, a Tokyo magazine.
- MATT CHITTUM
Slovakian visitors get an earful
Roanoke Mayor David Bowers welcomes an opportunity to brag about his city.
So when a small delegation from the Eastern European country of Slovakia met with him in his municipal office Tuesday, he was quick to list Roanoke's most recent recognitions: one of the 10 best cities in America in which to raise a family, one of seven healthiest cities in the nation, the Virginia Municipal League's President's Award, the All-America City award.
"So we invite you to what we think is a very blessed part of God's Earth," he said. "We hope you have a great time. And we invite you to spend a lot of money."
The delegation was visiting Roanoke as part of a four-day tour of economic development projects in rural Southwest Virginia. Many Slovakian cities are rebuilding after the fall of communism in Czechoslovakia seven years ago. The delegation - four representatives from rural development organizations in Slovakia - came to the United States for information and ideas to take back to rural communities at home.
The delegation asked Bowers, through an interpreter, about Roanoke.
"We are a city with problems and many challenges," he said. "We have our poor. At the same time, we are a city with a great diversified economy. Most of our citizens live a middle-class lifestyle.
"Some are very wealthy. The mayor is not very wealthy."
- LESLIE TAYLOR
LENGTH: Medium: 60 linesby CNB