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Nobel  Prizes  for  Literature
[est. 1901]

short history laureates, 1901-1950 laureates, 1951-2000 laureates, 2001-today Alfred Nobel [1833-96] image gallery links

"I can forgive Alfred Nobel for having invented dynamite, but only a fiend in human form could have invented the Nobel Prize."
— George Bernard Shaw [1856-1950]

Nobel Prize in Literature official homepage
official list of all Nobel Prizes in Literature
Nobel Prize in Literature entry at Wikipedia
list of Nobel laureates in Literature at Wikipedia

search for books on keywords 'nobel+prize+literature' {returns 400+ titles} at Amazon

"Nobel Crimes: Stories of Mystery & Detection By Winners of The Nobel Prize in Literature" [1992] Edited by Marie Smith 17 short stories by Nobel laureates, including Heinrich Böll, Albert Camus, T.S. Eliot ("Macavity, The Mystery Cat"), William Faulkner ("Smoke"), Anatole France, Nadine Gordimer, Ernest Hemingway ("The Killers"), Rudyard Kipling, Thomas Mann, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Bertrand Russell, G.B. Shaw (the hilarious "The Miraculous Revenge"), and John Steinbeck Carroll & Graf 8½x5½ pb [11/92] for $11.95

"Nobel Quotes: Inspirational and Perplexing Quotes of Nobel Prize Winners" [2012] by George Chityil Kindle Edition from Macadu, Ltd. [11/2012] for 99¢ {sic} 200 pages of quotations from Nobel laureates since 1901, including Kofi Annan, Samuel Beckett, Willy Brandt, Albert Camus, Albert Einstein, Milton Friedman, André Gide, Rudyard Kipling, Paul Krugman, Wangari Maathai, Gabriel García Márquez, Mother Teresa, Pablo Neruda, Barack Obama, Theodore Roosevelt, Alexandr Solzhenitsyn, and William Butler Yeats

Nobel  Prize  Library,  1901-1970

in twenty volumes, Illustrated [1971] Edited by T. Tertius? excerpts and speeches, lit winners only; published under sponsorship of the Nobel Foundation & the Swedish Academy; published by Alexis Gregory, C.R.M. Publishing of Del Mar, California, and Helvetica Press Alexis Gregory/C.R.M. hardcover set [1971] out of print/used Alexis Gregory/C.R.M. hardcover set [1971] out of print/used "Presenting The Nobel Prize Library" [1971] brochure with an Introduction by publisher Alexis Gregory, a Preface by Anders Osterling of The Swedish Academy, and a Chronological List of the Prizewinners 15-page Helvetica Press 5x8 booklet [1971] out of print/used

The Nobel Prize Library of twenty volumes is organized in not-quite alphabetical order:
"Nobel Prize Library: S.Y. Agnon (shared 1966) and Ivo Andric (1961)"
"Nobel Prize Library: Miguel Angel Asturias (1967), Jacinto Benavente y Martínez (1922), Henri Bergson (1927)"
"Nobel Prize Library: Samuel Beckett (1969), Bjornstjerne Bjornson (1903), Pearl Buck (1938), Ivan Bunin (1933)"
"Nobel Prize Library: Albert Camus (1957), Winston Churchill (1953)"
"Nobel Prize Library: poet Giosuè Carducci (1906), Grazia Deledda (1926), José Echegaray y Eizaguirre (shared 1904), poet T.S. Eliot (1948)"
"Nobel Prize Library: Rudolf Eucken (1908), Anatole France (1921), John Galsworthy (1932)"
"Nobel Prize Library: William Faulkner (1949), Eugene O'Neill (1936), John Steinbeck (1962)"
"Nobel Prize Library: André Paul Guillaume Gide (1947), Karl Adolph Gjellerup (shared 1917), Paul Johann Ludwig von Heyse (1910)"
"Nobel Prize Library: Gerhart Hauptmann (1912), Verner von Heidenstam (1916), Johannes Vilhelm Jensen (1944)"
"Nobel Prize Library: Ernest Hemingway (1954), Knut Hamsun (1920), Hermann Hesse (1946)"
"Nobel Prize Library: poet Juan Ramon Jimenez (1956), poet Erik Axel Karlfeldt (1939), Par Lagerkvist (1951), Selma Lagerlöf (1909)"
"Nobel Prize Library: Yasunari Kawabata (1968), Rudyard Kipling (1907), Sinclair Lewis (1930)"
"Nobel Prize Library: Wladyslaw Stanislaw Reymont (1924), Romain Rolland (1915), Bertrand Russell (1950)"
"Nobel Prize Library: Halldór Kiljan Laxness (1955), Maurice Maeterlinck (1911), Thomas Mann (1929)"
"Nobel Prize Library: Roger Martin du Gard (1937), Gabriela Mistral (1945), Boris Pasternak (1958)"
"Nobel Prize Library: François Charles Mauriac (1952), Frederic Mistral (shared 1904), Theodor Mommson (1902)
"Nobel Prize Library: St. John Perse (1960), Luigi Pirandello (1934), Henrik Pontoppidan (shared 1917), poet Salvatore Quasimodo (1959)"
"Nobel Prize Library: poet Nelly Sachs (shared 1966), Jean-Paul Sartre (1964), George Bernard Shaw (1925), Frans Eemil Sillanpää (1939), Rene Sully-Prudhomme (1901)"
"Nobel Prize Library: poet Giorgos Seferis (1963), Mikhail Sholokhov (1965), Henryk Sienkiewicz (1905), poet Carl Spitteler (1919)"
"Nobel Prize Library: Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn (1970), Rabindranath Tagore (1913), Sigrid Undset (1928), William Butler Yeats (1923)"

Alfred Nobel's will stipulated that no distinction of race or color or nationality should determine who receives the awards. Unaware of this, this writer/webmaster exchanged emails with someone at the Nobel website about why they did not display the national flag for each laureate (to make it easier to extract American laureates, for example) and the response was that the organization is bound not to do such a thing. The intention of this page is to highlight winners of the United States, so the plan is to build the list, mark Americans with the U.S. flag on the left-hand side, and gradually add national flags for other laureates on the right-hand side.

Laureates,  1901-1950

1901 • Rene Sully-Prudhomme [1839-1907] of France (poetry, essay)   

1902 • Theodor Mommsen [1817-1903] of Germany for his "A History of Rome"   

1903 • Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson [1832-1910] of Norway (poetry, novel, drama)   
Bjørnson was a poet, dramatist, novelist, journalist, editor, public speaker, theatre director, and one of the most prominent public figures in the Norway of his day; he is generally
known - together with Henrik Ibsen, Alexander Kielland, and Jonas Lie - as one of 'the four great ones' of 19th-century Norwegian literature. His poem "Ja, Vi Elsker Dette
Landet (Yes, We Love This Land)" is the Norwegian national anthem.

"The Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson MEGAPACK®: 159 Classic Works" for Kindle [2014] Kindle Edition from Wildside Press [2/2014] for 99¢ contains 24 prose works, 6 stageplays, 129 poems, and three critical essays – plus An Introductory Note From The Publisher {an introductory biography}

1904 • José Echegaray y Eizaguirre [1832-1916] of Spain (drama)   
1904 • Frédéric Mistral [1830-1914] of France (poetry, philology)   

1905 • Henryk Sienkiewicz [1846-1916] of Poland (novel)   

1906 • poet Giosuè Carducci [1835-1907] of Italy (poetry)   

1907 • Rudyard Kipling [1865-1936] of the United Kingdom   
(novel, short story, poetry)

1908 • Rudolf Christoph Eucken [1846-1926] of Germany (philosophy)   
browse books • Wikipedia

1909 • Selma Lagerlöf [1858-1940] of Sweden (novel, short story)   

1910 • Paul Johann Ludwig von Heyse [1830-1914] of Germany (poetry, drama, novel, short story)   

1911 • Maurice Maeterlinck [1862-1949] of Belgium (drama, poetry, essay)   

1912 • Gerhart Hauptmann [1862-1946] of Germany (drama, novel)   

1913 • Rabindranath Tagore [1861-1941] of Calcutta, British India   
(poetry, novel, drama, short story, music)

1914 • not awarded

1915 • Romain Rolland [1866-1944] of France (novel)   

1916 • Verner von Heidenstam [1859-1940] of Sweden (poetry, novel)   

1917 • Karl Adolph Gjellerup [1857-1919] of Denmark (poetry)   
1917 • Henrik Pontoppidan [1857-1943] of Denmark (novel)   

1918 • not awarded

1919 • poet Carl Spitteler [1845-1924] of Switzerland for his epic poem "Olympian Spring"   

1920 • Knut Hamsun [1859-1952] of Norway for his novel "Growth of The Soil"   

1921 • Anatole France [1844-1924] of France (novel, poetry)   

1922 • Jacinto Benavente y Martínez [1866-1954] of Spain (drama)   

1923 • William Butler Yeats [1865-1939] of Ireland (poetry)   

1924 • Wladyslaw Stanislaw Reymont [1867-1925] of Poland(novel)   
for his great national epic novel "The Peasants"

1925 • George Bernard Shaw [1856-1950] of Ireland & London, U.K. (drama, literary criticism)   

1926 • Grazia Deledda [1871-1936] of Italy (poetry, novel)   

1927 • Henri Bergson [1859-1941] of France (philosophy)   

1928 • Sigrid Undset [1882-1949] of Norway (novel)   

1929 • Thomas Mann [1875-1955] of Germany   
for his great novel "Buddenbrooks" (novel, short story, essay)

  1930 • Sinclair Lewis [1885-1951] of the United States (novel, short story, drama)

1931 • poet Erik Axel Karlfeldt [1864-1931] of Sweden (poetry)   

1932 • John Galsworthy [1867-1933] of the United Kingdom   
for his novel "The Forsyte Saga"

1933 • Ivan Bunin [1870-1953] stateless (born in Russia, living in France)
(short story, poetry, novel)

1934 • Luigi Pirandello [1867-1936] of Italy (drama, novel, short story)   

1935 • not awarded

  1936 • Eugene O'Neill [1888-1953] of the United States (drama)

1937 • Roger Martin du Gard [1881-1958] of France - for his novel cycle "Les Thibault"   

  1938 • Pearl S. Buck [1892-1973] of the United States (novel, biography)

1939 • Frans Eemil Sillanpää [1888-1964] of Finland (novel)   

1940 • not awarded

1941 • not awarded

1942 • not awarded

1943 • not awarded

1944 • Johannes Vilhelm Jensen [1873-1950] of Denmark (poetry)   

1945 • Gabriela Mistral [1889-1957] of Chile (lyric poetry)   

1946 • Hermann Hesse [1877-1962] of Switzerland (novel, poetry)   

1947 • André Paul Guillaume Gide [1869-1951] of France (novel, essay)   

1948 • poet T.S. Eliot [1888-1965] of the United Kingdom (poetry)   

  1949 • William Faulkner [1897-1962] of the United States (novel, short story)
William Faulkner's Nobel Prize Acceptance Speech, 1950 [audio 2:59] on YouTube

1950 • Bertrand Russell [1872-1970] of the United Kingdom (philosophy)   

Laureates,  1951-2000

1951 • Pär Lagerkvist [1891-1974] of Sweden (poetry, novel, short story, drama)   

1952 • François Charles Mauriac [1885-1970] of France (novel, short story)   

1953 • Winston Churchill [1874-1965] of the United Kingdom   
(history, essay, memoirs, oratory)

  1954 • Ernest Hemingway [1899-1961] of the United States
for "The Old Man and The Sea" (novel, short story, screenplay)

1955 • Halldór Kiljan Laxness [1902-98] of Iceland (novel, short story, drama, poetry)   

1956 • poet Juan Ramón Jiménez [1881-1958] of Spain (poetry)   

1957 • Albert Camus [1913-60] of France   
(novel, short story, drama, philosophy, essay)
http://www.amazon.com/Brave-Genius-Philosopher-Adventures-Resistance/dp/0307952339/

1958 • Boris Pasternak [1890-1960] of the Soviet Union (novel, poetry, translation)   

1959 • poet Salvatore Quasimodo [1901-68] of Italy (lyrical poetry)   

1960 • St. John Perse [1887-1975] of France (poetry)   

1961 • Ivo Andric [1892-1975] of Yugoslavia (novel, short story)

  1962 • John Steinbeck [1902-68] of the United States (novel, short story, screenplay)

1963 • poet Giorgos Seferis [1900-71] of Greece   

1964 • Jean-Paul Sartre [1905-80] of France   
(novel, philosophy, drama, literary criticism, screenplay)

1965 • Mikhail Sholokhov [1905-84] of the Soviet Union (novel)   

1966 • S.Y. (Shmuel Yosef) Agnon [1888-1970] of Israel (novel, short story)   
1966 • poet Nelly Sachs [1891-1970] of Sweden (poetry, drama)   

1967 • Miguel Ángel Asturias [1899-1974] of Guatemala (novel, poetry)

1968 • Yasunari Kawabata [1899-1972] of Japan (novel, short story)   

1969 • Samuel Beckett [1906-89] of Ireland (novel, drama, poetry)   

1970 • Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn [1918-2008] of the Soviet Union (novel)   

1971 • Pablo Neruda [1904-73] of Chile (poetry)   

1972 • Heinrich Böll [1917-85] of Germany (novel, short story)   

1973 • Patrick White [1912-90] of Australia (novel, short story, drama)   

1974 • Eyvind Johnson [1900-76] of Sweden (novel)   
1974 • Harry Martinson [1904-78] of Sweden (poetry, novel, drama)   

1975 • Eugenio Montale [1896-1981] of Italy (poetry)   

  1976 • Saul Bellow [1915-2005] of the United States (novel, short story)

1977 • Vicente Aleixandre [1898-1984] of Spain (poetry)   

  1978 • Isaac Bashevis Singer [1902-91] of the United States (novel, short story, memoirs)

1979 • Odysseas Elytis [1911-96] of Greece (poetry)   

1980 • Czeslaw Milosz [1911-2004] of Poland (poetry, essay)(novel)   

1981 • Elias Canetti [1905-94] of the United Kingdom (novel, drama, memoirs, essay)   

1982 • Gabriel García Márquez [1927-2014] of Colombia (novel, short story, screenplay)

1983 • William Golding [1911-93] of the United Kingdom (novel, poetry, drama)   

1984 • Jaroslav Seifert [1901-86] of Czechoslovakia (poetry)

1985 • Claude Simon [1913-2005] of France (novel)   

1986 • Wole Soyinka [b. 1934] of Nigeria (drama, novel, poetry)

the first laureate from Africa

  1987 • Joseph Brodsky [1940-96] of the United States (poetry)

1988 • Naguib Mahfouz [1911-2006] of Egypt (novel)

1989 • Camilo José Cela [1916-2002] of Spain (novel, short story)   

1990 • Octavio Paz [1914-98] of Mexico (poetry, essay)

1991 • Nadine Gordimer [1923-2014] of South Africa (novel, short story, essay)   

1992 • Derek Walcott [b. 1930] of Saint Lucia, Caribbean (poetry)

  1993 • Toni Morrison [b. 1931] of the United States (novel)

1994 • Kenzaburo Oe [b. 1935] of Japan (novel, short story)   

1995 • Seamus Heaney [1939-2013] of Ireland (poetry)   

1996 • Wislawa Szymborska [1923-2012] of Poland (poetry)(novel)   

1997 • Dario Fo [b. 1926] of Italy (drama)   

1998 • José Saramago [1922-2010] of Portugal (novel, drama, poetry)
"From Memory To Fiction Through History" circa 2001 lecture at UCLA with José Saramago
watch full lecture, mostly in Portuguese [2/2008 upload; 44:12] online at YouTube

1999 • Günter Grass [1927-2015] of Germany (novel, drama, poetry)   

2000 • Gao Xingjian [b. 1940] of China (1940-1998) and France (since 1998)   
(novel, drama, literary criticism)

Laureates,  2001 to today

2001 • V. S. Naipaul [1932-2018] of the United Kingdom (novel, essay)   

2002 • Imre Kertész [b. 1929] of Hungary (novel)

2003 • J.M. Coetzee [b. 1940] of South Africa (novel, essay, translation)   

2004 • Elfriede Jelinek [b. 1946] of Austria (novel, drama)

2005 • Harold Pinter [1930-2008] of the United Kingdom (drama)   

2006 • Orhan Pamuk [b. 1952] of Türkiye (novel, screenplay, essay)   

2007 • Doris Lessing [1919-2013] of the United Kingdom   
(novel, drama, poetry, short story, memoirs)

2008 • J.M.G. Le Clézio [b. 1940] of France/Mauritius   
(novel, short story, essay, translation)

2009 • Herta Müller [b. 1953] of Germany (novel, poetry)   

2010 • Mario Vargas Llosa [b. 1936] of Peru & Spain     
(novel, short story, essay, drama)

2011 • Tomas Tranströmer [1931-2015] of Sweden (poetry, translation)   

2012 • Mo Yan [b. 1955] of China (novel, short story)   

2013 • Alice Munro [b. 1931] of Canada (short story)   

2014 • Patrick Modiano [b. 1945] of France   
(novel, short story, essay, translation)

2015 • Svetlana Alexievich [b. 1948] of Minsk, Belarus (journalism)   
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Svetlana_Alexievich

  2016 • music legend Bob Dylan [born Robert Allen Zimmerman in 1941]
official website • entry at Wikipedia
browse the Bob Dylan Store at Amazon Music

listen to Nobel Lecture 6/2017 audio response [27:07] online at YouTube
. . . explaining influence on his work by Buddy Holly, "Moby Dick", "All Quiet On The Western Front", and "The Odyssey"

"The Nobel Lecture" [2017] by Bob Dylan 17-page Kindle Edition from Simon & Schuster [10/2017] for $11.99 Simon & Schuster, Ltd. 7¼x5½ hardcover [10/2017] for $8.60 32-page Simon & Schuster 7x5 hardcover [10/2017] for $14.99

2017 • British novelist Kazuo Ishiguro [b. 1954]  
The Nobel Committee cited his achievement of revealing “the abyss beneath our illusory sense of connection with the world”.
browse books • author entry at Wikipedia

"My Twentieth Century Evening and Other Small Breakthroughs: The Nobel Lecture" [2017] by Kazuo Ishiguro Kindle Edition from Knopf/Random House [12/2017] for $4.99 Faber & Faber mass pb [12/2017] for $8.54 Knopf 6½x4¾ hardcover [12/2017] for $13.44

2018 annual prize postponed
The Swedish Academy announced in May 2018 that it will not award a Nobel Prize in Literature this year because the organization is involved
in an internal sexual misconduct scandal; the 2018 winner will be announced at the same time as the 2019 laureate.

2018 • Polish author Olga Tokarczuk [b. 1962]  
also won the 2018 Man Booker International Prize for the novel "Flights", which was a finalist for the National Book Award for Translated Fiction
The Nobel Committee cited her achievement of “a narrative imagination that with encyclopedic passion represents the crossing of boundaries as a form of life”.
browse books • author entry at Wikipedia

2019 • Austrian writer Peter Handke [b. 1942]  
The Nobel Committee cited his achievement of “an influential work that with linguistic ingenuity has explored the periphery and the specificity of human experience”.
browse books • author entry at Wikipedia

  2020 • American poet Louise Glück [1943-2023]
The Nobel Committee cited her achievement of an “unmistakable poetic voice that with austere beauty makes individual existence universal”.
browse books • author entry at Wikipedia

2021 • British writer Abdulrazak Gurnah [b. 1948]    
The Nobel Committee cited his achievement of “uncompromising and compassionate penetration of the effects of colonialism
and the fate of the refugee in the gulf between cultures and continents”.
browse books • author entry at Wikipedia

2022 • author Annie Ernaux [b. 1940] of France   
for her deeply personal books that speak candidly about incidents from her own life, highlighting class and gender
official website • author entry at Wikipedia
she is one of the seven founding authors of Seven Stories Press [est. 1995] of New York City

		"L'Événement (The Event)" autobiographical novel [2000] by Annie Ernaux Tells the story of an abortion that the author had in 1963, when it was illegal in France French-language Kindle Edition from Editions Gallimard [9/2011] for $7.99 French-language Gallimard mass pb [8/2001] for $19.23 "Happening" autobiographical novel [2001] Translated by Tanya Leslie Kindle Edition from Seven Stories Press [1/2011] for $10.99 Seven Stories Press 8¼x5½ pb [5/2019] for $13.46
		"L'Événement" aka "Happening" [France Nov 2021, USA May 2022] A simple but cruel story of a young woman who decides to go against the law and get an abortion in order to finish her studies and escape the social constraints of a working-class family; she has very little time to act as exams are just around the corner and her baby bump is growing fast • Produced by Edouard Weil; produced & co-written by Alice Girard; co-written & directed by Audrey Diwan; co-written by Marcia Romano & Anne Berest; based on the novel by Annie Ernaux; starring Anamaria Vartolomei, Kacey Mottet Klein, Luàna Bajrami, Louise Orry-Diquéro, Louise Chevillotte, Pio Marmaï, Sandrine Bonnaire, Leonor Oberson, Anna Mouglalis, Cyril Metzger, Eric Verdin, Madeleine Baudot, Alice de Lencquesaing, Fabrizio Rongione, Isabelle Mazin, Julien Frison, Édouard Sulpice, Leïla Muse, François Loriquet, Louis Bédot, Emeline Weickmans, Gabriel Washer, Lomane de Dietrich, Mélodie Adda, Michaël Assié, Gabriel Ecoffey, Gateane Vacelet, Elsa Barthélémy, Lucile Beaudouin, Eva Juan, Caroline Marcos, Matisse Bonzon, Cédric Meusburger, Cindy Renou, Marie Cornillon, Fleur Lecoeur, Sacha Pichol, Cédric Omont, Lucile Saget, Hossein Rahmani Manesh; actress AV won César Award for Most Promising Actress, Dublin Film Critics Award for Best Actress, Intl Cinephile Society Award for Best Break-through Performance; film won Intel Cinephile Society Award for Best Picture, Golden Lion Best Film Award at 87th Venice Film Festival; director won Prix du public at La Roche-sur-Yon Intl Film Festival, Directors To Watch Award & Grand Jury Prize at Palm Springs Intl Film Festival, FIPRESCI Prize at 87th Venice Film Festival • full credits at IMDb • movie entry at Wikipedia • official movie site watch official trailers online at YouTube: 1/2022 trailer #1 [1:49] • 2/2022 trailer #2 [2:16] Image Ent. color Blu-ray with subtitles [9/2022] for $14.99 Image Ent. color DVD with subtitles [9/2022] for $18.59 Q&A after May 2022 Opening Night screening at Film at Lincoln Center's 51st New Directors/New Films program watch full interview [28:34] online at YouTube

2023 • playwright & novelist Jon Fosse [b. 1959] of Norway   
Prize awarded "for his innovative plays and prose which give voice to the unsayable"
entry at Wikipedia
browse the Jon Fosse Store {returns 70 titles} at Amazon

2024 • novelist Han Kang [b. 1970] of South Korea   
author Han and translator Smith won the 2016 International Booker Prize for “The Vegetarian”
Prize awarded for her "intense poetic prose that confronts historical traumas and exposes the fragility of human life".
entry at Wikipedia • official website
browse the Han Kang Store {returns 30+ titles} at Amazon

Alfred  Nobel [1833-96]
official bio at Nobel Prize website • entry at Wikipedia

Spirit of America Bookstore's
Alfred Nobel [1833-96] Page

L i n k s
Nobel Prize in Literature official homepage
official list of all Nobel Prizes in Literature
Nobel Prize in Literature entry at Wikipedia
list of Nobel laureates in Literature at Wikipedia

Spirit of America Bookstore's Nobel Peace Prize Page

Spirit of America Bookstore's Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences Page

Spirit of America Bookstore's Alfred Nobel [1833-96] Page

here on the Nobel Prizes for Literature Page at Spirit of America Bookstore

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