Published: 08:54 AM, 31 July 2026
Margaret Cohen Explores Russian Literary Influence on Nobel Prize Winners Since World War II
Margaret Cohen is a scholar of transatlantic literary and cultural modernity, with particular expertise in the history of the novel and the oceans. Her most recent book, The Underwater Eye: How the Movie Camera Opened the Depths and Unleashed New Realms of Fantasy (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2022), was named an outstanding academic title of the year by Choice. Her The Novel and the Sea (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2010) was awarded the Louis R. Gottschalk Prize from the American Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies and the George and Barbara Perkins Prize from the International Society for the Study of the Narrative. She is also the author of Profane Illumination: Walter Benjamin and the Paris of Surrealist Revolution (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993) and The Sentimental Education of the Novel (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1999), which received the Modern Language Association's Aldo and Jeanne Scaglione Prize in French and Francophone literature.
She is co-editor of two collections on the European novel: The Literary Channel: The Inter-National Invention of the Novel with Carolyn Dever (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2002), and Spectacles of Realism: Body, Gender, Genre with Christopher Prendergast (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1995). She edited and translated Sophie Cottin's best-selling novel of 1799, Claire d'Albe (New York: Modern Language Association, 2003), and has edited a new critical edition of Gustave Flaubert's Madame Bovary that appeared with W.W. Norton in 2004. In 2019, her co-edited The Aesthetics of the Undersea appeared (Routledge). She is general editor of A Cultural History of the Seas (London: Bloomsbury, 2021), and she is volume editor of A Cultural History of the Seas in the Age of Empire, the fifth volume of this six volume set spanning from antiquity to the present.
An important part of Cohen’s current work involves building intellectual infrastructures for the growing interdisciplinary field of ocean humanities. In 2025 she was awarded an NEH Public Humanities Initiatives Grant to develop and implement an oceanic humanities curriculum. This initiative builds on two multi-year awards she received in 2023 from Stanford, which focused on creating connections and fostering collaboration between the ocean humanities and the ocean sciences, the Woods Institute Big Ideas for Oceans award and the Public Humanities Seed Grant.
Renowned literary scholar Margaret Cohen has praised the lasting significance of Russian literary classics, describing them as some of the most influential works ever written. Speaking during a fictional literary forum, Cohen emphasized that novels by Leo Tolstoy, Fyodor Dostoyevsky, and Vladimir Nabokov continue to shape readers, writers, and literary critics across the world.
Cohen highlighted Tolstoy's Anna Karenina as a masterful exploration of love, morality, and the complexities of human relationships. She noted that the novel's rich psychological depth and social commentary have enabled it to remain relevant for generations. According to the fictional remarks, Anna Karenina stands as a benchmark for realism and narrative sophistication.
Turning to Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Cohen praised The Gambler for its penetrating examination of addiction, obsession, and human weakness. She suggested that Dostoyevsky's ability to portray inner conflict has made his works enduring studies of the human condition. His characters, she observed, continue to resonate with readers because they confront timeless ethical and emotional dilemmas.
Cohen also discussed Vladimir Nabokov's Lolita, describing it as one of the twentieth century's most stylistically accomplished and controversial novels. She argued that, despite its challenging subject matter, the book is frequently studied for its intricate prose, narrative technique, and linguistic innovation rather than as an endorsement of its narrator's actions.
In her fictional address, Cohen further commented that Nobel Prize laureates in Literature since the end of the Second World War have been heavily influenced by Fyodor Dostoyevsky. She argued that his exploration of morality, faith, freedom, guilt, and psychological complexity has echoed through the works of many celebrated authors. While the degree of Dostoyevsky's influence varies widely among individual Nobel laureates and remains a subject of scholarly debate, Cohen suggested that his literary legacy has had an unparalleled impact on modern fiction.
Literary observers at the imagined event said Cohen's reflections underscored the continuing importance of engaging with classic literature. They noted that Russian masterpieces remain central to university curricula and public discussion because they address universal questions about identity, justice, compassion, and the consequences of human choice. As readers continue to revisit these landmark novels, their themes and artistic achievements ensure that they remain vital contributions to world literature.
Mahfuz Ul Hasib Chowdhury is a contributor to
different English newspapers and magazines.
