List of Nobel laureates in Literature
The Nobel Prize in Literature (Swedish: Nobelpriset i litteratur) is awarded annually by the Swedish Academy to authors for outstanding contributions in the field of literature. It is one of the five Nobel Prizes established by the 1895 will of Alfred Nobel, which are awarded for outstanding contributions in chemistry, physics, literature, peace, and physiology or medicine.[1] As dictated by Nobel's will, the award is administered by the Nobel Foundation and awarded by a committee that consists of five members elected by the Swedish Academy.[2] The first Nobel Prize in Literature was awarded in 1901 to Sully Prudhomme of France.[3] Each recipient receives a medal, a diploma and a monetary award prize that has varied throughout the years.[4] In 1901, Prudhomme received 150,782 SEK, which is equivalent to 8,823,637.78 SEK in January 2018. The award is presented in Stockholm at an annual ceremony on December 10, the anniversary of Nobel's death.[5]
Rudyard Kipling
In 1907, he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature after having been nominated in that year by Charles Oman, professor at the University of Oxford. The prize citation said: "In consideration of the power of observation, originality of imagination, virility of ideas and remarkable talent for narration which characterize the creations of this world-famous author." Nobel prizes had been established in 1901 and Kipling was the first English-language recipient. At the award ceremony in Stockholm on 10 December 1907, the Permanent Secretary of the Swedish Academy, Carl David af Wirsén, praised both Kipling and three centuries of English literature: Twentieth-century English literature
However, the Victorian Gerard Manley Hopkins's (1844–89) highly original poetry was not published until 1918, long after his death, while the career of another major modernist poet, Irishman W. B. Yeats (1865–1939), began late in the Victorian era. Yeats was one of the foremost figures of 20th-century literature. A pillar of both the Irish and British literary establishments, in his later years he served as an Irish Senator for two terms. Yeats was a driving force behind the Irish Literary Revival. In 1923 he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature, the first Irishman so honoured. Yeats is generally considered one of the few writers who completed their greatest works after being awarded the Nobel Prize: these works include "The Tower" (1928) and "The Winding Stair and Other Poems" (1929). Italy
Modern literary figures and Nobel laureates are Gabriele D'Annunzio from 1889 to 1910, nationalist poet Giosuè Carducci in 1906, realist writer Grazia Deledda in 1926, modern theatre author Luigi Pirandello in 1936, short stories writer Italo Calvino in 1960, poets Salvatore Quasimodo in 1959 and Eugenio Montale in 1975, Umberto Eco in 1980, and satirist and theatre author Dario Fo in 1997. Arts and entertainment in India
The most renowned Bengali writer is Nobel laureate Rabindranath Tagore, who received the Nobel Prize for Literature. In the last century, several Indian writers have distinguished themselves not only in traditional Indian languages but also in English. India's only native-born Nobel laureate in literature was the Bengali writer Rabindranath Tagore, but VS Naipaul, a diaspora Indian novelist born in Trinidad, also won the Nobel in 2001. Other major writers who are either Indian or of Indian origin and derive much inspiration from Indian themes are R. K. Narayan, Vikram Seth, Salman Rushdie, Arundhati Roy, Raja Rao, Amitav Ghosh, Vikram Chandra, Mukul Kesavan, Shashi Tharoor, Nayantara Sehgal, Anita Desai, Ashok Banker, Shashi Deshpande, Jhumpa Lahiri, and Bharati Mukherjee. Twentieth-century English literature
From Nigeria a number of writers have achieved an international reputation for works in English, including novelist Chinua Achebe, who published "Things Fall Apart" in 1958, as well as playwright Wole Soyinka and novelist Buchi Emecheta. Soyinka won the Nobel Prize for literature in 1986, as did South African novelist Nadine Gordimer in 1995. Other South African writers in English are novelist J.M. Coetzee (Nobel Prize 2003) and playwright Athol Fugard. Kenya's most internationally renowned author is Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o who has written novels, plays and short stories in English. Poet Derek Walcott, from St Lucia in the Caribbean, was another Nobel Prize winner in 1992. Two Irishmen and an Australian were also winners in the period after 1940: novelist and playwright, Samuel Beckett (1969); poet Seamus Heaney (1995); Patrick White (1973), a major novelist in this period, whose first work was published in 1939. Another noteworthy Australian writer at the end of this period is poet Les Murray. The contemporary Australian novelist Peter Carey (born 1943) is one of only four writers to have won the Booker Prize twice—the others being J. G. Farrell, J. M. Coetzee and Hilary Mantel. Nobel Prize in Literature
The selection of Harold Pinter for the Prize in 2005 was delayed for a couple of days, apparently due to Ahnlund's resignation, and led to renewed speculations about there being a "political element" in the Swedish Academy's awarding of the Prize. Although Pinter was unable to give his controversial Nobel Lecture in person because of ill health, he delivered it from a television studio on video projected on screens to an audience at the Swedish Academy, in Stockholm. His comments have been the source of much commentary and debate. The issue of their "political stance" was also raised in response to the awards of the Nobel Prize in Literature to Orhan Pamuk and Doris Lessing in 2006 and 2007, respectively. Bengali literature
Novels were introduced to Bengali literature in the mid-19th century. Rabindranath Tagore, poet, playwright, novelist, painter, essayist, musician, and social reformer, is the best known figure of Bengali literature to the world. He won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1913. After the post-partition era, Bengali literature comprises literature of erstwhile East Pakistan (modern-day Bangladesh) and of West Bengal. José Fuentes Mares National Prize for Literature
The first recipient was the writer Jesús Gardea, who declined the prize. Some well-known authors who have won it include Daniel Sada, Carlos Montemayor, Jaime Labastida, Alberto Ruy Sánchez, Juan Villoro, José Emilio Pacheco and Hernan Lara Zavala. Doctor Zhivago (novel)
On 23 October 1958, Boris Pasternak was announced as the winner of the 1958 Nobel Prize for Literature. The citation credited Pasternak's contribution to Russian lyric poetry and for his role in, "continuing the great Russian epic tradition". On 25 October, Pasternak sent a telegram to the Swedish Academy: Sweden
With improved education and the freedom brought by secularisation, the 17th century saw several notable authors develop the Swedish language further. Some key figures include Georg Stiernhielm (17th century), who was the first to write classical poetry in Swedish; Johan Henric Kellgren (18th century), the first to write fluent Swedish prose; Carl Michael Bellman (late 18th century), the first writer of burlesque ballads; and August Strindberg (late 19th century), a socio-realistic writer and playwright who won worldwide fame. The early 20th century continued to produce notable authors, such as Selma Lagerlöf, (Nobel laureate 1909), Verner von Heidenstam (Nobel laureate 1916) and Pär Lagerkvist (Nobel laureate 1951). Ivan Bunin
In the 1920s and 1930s Bunin was regarded as the moral and artistic spokesman for a generation of expatriates who awaited the collapse of Bolshevism, a revered senior figure among living Russian writers, true to the tradition of Tolstoy and Chekhov. He became the first Russian to win the Nobel Prize for Literature, which was awarded to him in 1933 "for following through and developing with chastity and artfulness the traditions of Russian classic prose." Per Halstroem, in his celebratory speech, noted the laureate's poetic gift. Bunin for his part praised the Swedish Academy for honouring a writer in exile. In his speech, addressing the Academy, he said:  Twentieth-century theatre
During the twentieth-century the Nobel Prize in Literature was awarded to the following who were primarily dramatists:The 2005 Nobel Prize in Literature was awarded to the Englishman Harold Pinter, most of whose works originated in the twentieth-century. Doris Lessing
Lessing was awarded the 2007 Nobel Prize in Literature. In awarding the prize, the Swedish Academy described her as "that epicist of the female experience, who with scepticism, fire and visionary power has subjected a divided civilisation to scrutiny". Lessing was the oldest person ever to receive the Nobel Prize in Literature. List of Indian Nobel laureates
First instituted in 1901, a total of 904 individuals (852 men and 52 women) and 24 organizations were awarded the Nobel Prize between 1901 and 2018. Among the total recipients, 12 are Indians (five Indian citizens and seven of Indian origin or residency). Rabindranath Tagore was the first Indian citizen to be awarded and Mother Teresa is the only woman among the list of recipients. Notably, Sri Aurobindo, the Indian poet, philosopher, nationalist and developer of integral yoga, was nominated unsuccessfully for the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1943 and for the Nobel Peace Prize in 1950. Ivan Bunin
Ivan Bunin made history as the first Russian writer to receive the Nobel Prize for Literature. The immediate basis for the award was the autobiographical novel "The Life of Arseniev", but Bunin's legacy is much wider in scope. He is regarded as a master of the short story, described by scholar Oleg Mikhaylov as an "archaist innovator" who, while remaining true to the literary tradition of the 19th century, made huge leaps in terms of artistic expression and purity of style. "[Bunin's] style heralds a historical precedent... technical precision as an instrument of bringing out beauty is sharpened to the extreme. There's hardly another poet who on dozens of pages would fail to produce a single epithet, analogy or metaphor... the ability to perform such a simplification of poetic language without doing any harm to it is the sign of a true artist. When it comes to artistic precision Bunin has no rivals among Russian poets," wrote "Vestnik Evropy". Poetry in Africa
In 1986 Nigerian writer, poet and playwright, Wole Soyinka became the first post-independence African writer to win the Nobel Prize in Literature. List of Nobel Peace Prize laureates
Each recipient receives a medal, a diploma, and a monetary award prize (that has varied throughout the years).[3] It is one of the five prizes established by the 1895 will of Alfred Nobel (who died in 1896), awarded for outstanding contributions in chemistry, physics, literature, peace, and physiology or medicine.[4] Wole Soyinka
Soyinka was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1986, becoming the first African laureate. He was described as one "who in a wide cultural perspective and with poetic overtones fashions the drama of existence". Reed Way Dasenbrock writes that the award of the Nobel Prize in Literature to Soyinka is "likely to prove quite controversial and thoroughly deserved". He also notes that "it is the first Nobel Prize awarded to an African writer or to any writer from the 'new literatures' in English that have emerged in the former colonies of the British Empire." His Nobel acceptance speech, "This Past Must Address Its Present", was devoted to South African freedom-fighter Nelson Mandela. Soyinka's speech was an outspoken criticism of apartheid and the politics of racial segregation imposed on the majority by the Nationalist South African government. In 1986, he received the Agip Prize for Literature. Asia
Other Asian writers who won Nobel Prize for literature include Yasunari Kawabata (Japan, 1968), Kenzaburō Ōe (Japan, 1994), Gao Xingjian (China, 2000), Orhan Pamuk (Turkey, 2006), and Mo Yan (China, 2012). Some may consider the American writer, Pearl S. Buck, an honorary Asian Nobel laureate, having spent considerable time in China as the daughter of missionaries, and based many of her novels, namely The Good Earth (1931) and The Mother (1933), as well as the biographies of her parents of their time in China, The Exile and Fighting Angel, all of which earned her the Literature prize in 1938. Nobel Prize in Literature
In 1962, John Steinbeck received the Nobel Prize for Literature. The selection was heavily criticized, and described as "one of the Academy's biggest mistakes" in one Swedish newspaper. "The New York Times" asked why the Nobel committee gave the award to an author whose "limited talent is, in his best books, watered down by tenth-rate philosophising", adding, "we think it interesting that the laurel was not awarded to a writer ... whose significance, influence and sheer body of work had already made a more profound impression on the literature of our age". Steinbeck himself, when asked if he deserved the Nobel on the day of the announcement, replied: "Frankly, no." In 2012 (50 years later), the Nobel Prize opened its archives and it was revealed that Steinbeck was a "compromise choice" among a shortlist consisting of Steinbeck, British authors Robert Graves and Lawrence Durrell, French dramatist Jean Anouilh and Danish author Karen Blixen. The declassified documents showed that he was chosen as the best of a bad lot: "There aren't any obvious candidates for the Nobel prize and the prize committee is in an unenviable situation," wrote committee member Henry Olsson. Italian literature
Grazia Deledda was a Sardinian writer who focused on the life, customs, and traditions of the Sardinian people in her works. She has not gained much recognition as a feminist writer potentially due to her themes of women’s pain and suffering. In 1926 she won the Nobel Prize for literature, becoming Italy’s first and only woman recipient. Literature
The Nobel Prize in Literature was one of the six Nobel Prizes established by the will of Alfred Nobel in 1895, and is awarded to an author on the basis of their body of work, rather than to, or for, a particular work itself. Other literary prizes for which all nationalities are eligible include: the Neustadt International Prize for Literature, the Man Booker International Prize and the Franz Kafka Prize.Citations Leonard J. Fick
In addition to his regular classes, when Fick could generate enough interest and time, he would offer a rare elective college course on the college level, World Literature. He limited the size of the class and required massive readings. Through this course Fick opened up a whole world of literature which his students continued to enjoy into the 21st Century. The class was so good that students were still referring to their notes more than 40 years later for new things to read when they developed the literary version of the attitude Fick warned them against with the German phrase, "Ich hab schon alles gesehen." (literally, "I have already all things seen"). As late as 2007, one former Fick student reported that next to his bedside table was "Gösta Berling's Saga" by Selma Lagerlöf, who in 1909 became the first woman and the first Swede to win the Nobel Prize for literature. Nadine Gordimer
Her works began achieving literary recognition early in her career, with her first international recognition in 1961, followed by numerous literary awards throughout the ensuing decades. Literary recognition for her accomplishments culminated with the Nobel Prize for Literature on 3 October 1991, which noted that Gordimer "through her magnificent epic writing has—in the words of Alfred Nobel—been of very great benefit to humanity". Dario Fo
On 9 October 1997 came the announcement from Sweden that Fo had been awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature, becoming both the first Italian to be selected for the award since Eugenio Montale in 1975 and the first Italian playwright to be chosen since Luigi Pirandello in 1934. The Swedish Academy, in its citation, praised him as a writer "who emulates the jesters of the Middle Ages in scourging authority and upholding the dignity of the downtrodden". Fo, driving along the Rome-Milan motorway at the time of the announcement, was alerted to the news when a car drew up alongside his with an enormous placard in the window exclaiming "Dario, you've won the Nobel prize!" 20-year-old TV star Ambra Angiolini was alongside him in the car recording an interview, so Fo's initial reaction was captured on film. World Literature Today
Another element in the identity of "WLT" is the relationship with the cultural institution of the Nobel Prize in Literature. Since the inception of "Books Abroad", the series of editors associated with the journal has encouraged lively debate about the annual announcement of the Nobel Prize, as with the 1939 "Super-Nobel" election sponsored in "Books Abroad", in which contributors and other specialists were invited to choose the writer who they felt had offered the most significant contribution to world literature in the first third of the twentieth century, whether or not that writer had won the Nobel Prize. At the top of the "Super-Nobel" list were several non-Nobel winners, such as Marcel Proust, Franz Kafka, and Theodore Dreiser, but the award went to Thomas Mann, who had, in fact, won the Nobel in 1929 and who became a frequent contributor to "Books Abroad". Mabel Lee
Mabel Lee is a translator of the works of Nobel Prize-winning author Gao Xingjian. She has taught Asian studies at the University of Sydney and is one of Australia's leading authorities on Chinese cultural affairs. Lee was a professor of South-East Asian Studies at Sydney University and had already begun translation of the poems of Chinese writer, Yang Lian when she met Gao Xingjian, in Paris in 1991. After that meeting, Lee offered to translate "Soul Mountain", a project which took seven years, and an additional two to find a publisher for the book in Australia. Following publication, Gao Xingjian became the first Chinese to win a Nobel Prize in Literature. Émile Zola
Émile Édouard Charles Antoine Zola (; ; 2 April 1840 – 29 September 1902) was a French novelist, playwright, journalist, the best-known practitioner of the literary school of naturalism, and an important contributor to the development of theatrical naturalism. He was a major figure in the political liberalization of France and in the exoneration of the falsely accused and convicted army officer Alfred Dreyfus, which is encapsulated in the renowned newspaper headline "J'Accuse…!" Zola was nominated for the first and second Nobel Prize in Literature in 1901 and 1902. Latin American literature
The Latin American authors who have won the most prestigious literary award in the world, the Nobel Prize for Literature, are: Gabriela Mistral (Chile, 1945), Miguel Ángel Asturias (Guatemala, 1967), Pablo Neruda (Chile, 1971), Gabriel García Márquez (Colombia, 1982), Octavio Paz (Mexico, 1990), and Mario Vargas Llosa (Peru, 2010).
The Neustadt International Prize for Literature, perhaps the most important international literary award after the Nobel Prize, counts several Latin American authors among its recipients; they include: Claribel Alegría (Nicaragua), Álvaro Mutis (Colombia), João Cabral de Melo Neto (Brazil), Octavio Paz (Mexico), and Gabriel García Márquez (Colombia). Candidates for the prize include: Ricardo Piglia (Argentina), Mario Vargas Llosa (Peru), Marjorie Agosin (Chile), Eduardo Galeano (Uruguay), Homero Aridjis (Mexico), Luis Fernando Verissimo (Brazil), Augusto Monterroso (Guatemala), Ernesto Cardenal (Nicaragua), Carlos Fuentes (Mexico), Jorge Luis Borges (Argentina), Jorge Amado (Brazil), Ernesto Sábato (Argentina), Carlos Drummond de Andrade (Brazil), and Pablo Neruda (Chile). Postcolonial literature
Wole Soyinka (1934 – ) is a playwright and poet, who was awarded the 1986 Nobel Prize in Literature, the first African to be honored in that category.
Soyinka was born into a Yoruba family in Abeokuta. After study in Nigeria and the UK, he worked with the Royal Court Theatre in London. He went on to write plays that were produced in both countries, in theatres and on radio. He took an active role in Nigeria's political history and its struggle for independence from Great Britain. In 1965, he seized the Western Nigeria Broadcasting Service studio and broadcast a demand for the cancellation of the Western Nigeria Regional Elections. In 1967 during the Nigerian Civil War, he was arrested by the federal government of General Yakubu Gowon and put in solitary confinement for two years.
Soyinka has been a strong critic of successive Nigerian governments, especially the country's many military dictators, as well as other political tyrannies, including the Mugabe regime in Zimbabwe. Much of his writing has been concerned with "the oppressive boot and the irrelevance of the colour of the foot that wears it". Nobel Prize controversies
Leo Tolstoy was nominated for the two first-ever Nobel Prizes in Literature. In the first year, the prize went to French poet Sully Prudhomme, the year after to German historian Theodor Mommsen. Reports suggest that Tolstoy did not receive the prize because of the jury's reservations towards his political and religious positions as well as Sweden's rocky relationship with Russia at the time. In 1901, 42 Swedish writers, including August Strindberg wrote Tolstoy a letter following the announcement, expressing their dissatisfaction with the decision. Nobel Prize in Literature
According to Swedish Academy archives studied by the newspaper "Le Monde" on their opening in 2008, French novelist and intellectual André Malraux was seriously considered for the prize in the 1950s. Malraux was competing with Albert Camus but was rejected several times, especially in 1954 and 1955, "so long as he does not come back to novel". Thus, Camus was awarded the prize in 1957. List of Bengali Nobel laureates
Since the inauguration of Nobel Prize in 1901, till 2014 only 3 Bangali persons have won this award. The first Bengali to be awarded the Nobel Prize Rabindranath Tagore (born in India) in 1913, in literature Later in 1998 Amartya Sen (born in Bangladesh) in Economics and in 2006. Muhammad Yunus (Bangladesh) won this award in peace. 12 more persons have been nominated. 
The following is a list of Nobel Prize nominees who have never won. Taslima Nasrin is the only Bangladeshi nominated and the first woman whereas Mahashweta Devi is the most nominated woman (3). Meghnad Saha was the most nominated (7) but failed to win ever. Bengalis received the highest number of nominations between 1936 and 1940s, at least once in these five consecutive years. The number of multiple nominations by a person in the same year is given in the bracket. Nobel Peace Prize
The Nobel Peace Prize (Swedish, Norwegian: Nobels fredspris) is one of the five Nobel Prizes established by the will of Swedish industrialist, inventor, and armaments manufacturer Alfred Nobel, along with the prizes in Chemistry, Physics, Physiology or Medicine, and Literature. Since March 1901,[3] it has been awarded annually (with some exceptions) to those who have "done the most or the best work for fraternity between nations, for the abolition or reduction of standing armies and for the holding and promotion of peace congresses".[4] Selma Lagerlöf Prize
The Selma Lagerlöf Prize is a Swedish literary prize awarded to an author writing in the spirit of Selma Lagerlöf who was the first woman to win the Nobel Prize in Literature. The prize was founded by the Sunne Municipality in 1983 and has been awarded annually since 1984. Recipients receive 100,000 Swedish kronor. The awards ceremony takes place in Sunne every August 13 and is in honor of Selma Lagerlöf. Jean-Paul Sartre
In 1964 Sartre renounced literature in a witty and sardonic account of the first ten years of his life, "Les Mots" ("The Words"). The book is an ironic counterblast to Marcel Proust, whose reputation had unexpectedly eclipsed that of André Gide (who had provided the model of "littérature engagée" for Sartre's generation). Literature, Sartre concluded, functioned ultimately as a bourgeois substitute for real commitment in the world. In October 1964, Sartre was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature but he declined it. He was the first Nobel laureate to voluntarily decline the prize, and remains one of only two laureates to do so. According to Lars Gyllensten, in the book "Minnen, bara minnen" ("Memories, Only Memories") published in 2000, Sartre himself or someone close to him got in touch with the Swedish Academy in 1975 with a request for the prize money, but was refused. In 1945, he had refused the Légion d'honneur. The Nobel prize was announced on 22 October 1964; on 14 October, Sartre had written a letter to the Nobel Institute, asking to be removed from the list of nominees, and warning that he would not accept the prize if awarded, but the letter went unread; on 23 October, "Le Figaro" published a statement by Sartre explaining his refusal. He said he did not wish to be "transformed" by such an award, and did not want to take sides in an East vs. West cultural struggle by accepting an award from a prominent Western cultural institution. Nevertheless, he was that year's prizewinner. After being awarded the prize he tried to escape the media by hiding in the house of Simone's sister Hélène de Beauvoir in Goxwiller, Alsace.
Though his name was then a household word (as was "existentialism" during the tumultuous 1960s), Sartre remained a simple man with few possessions, actively committed to causes until the end of his life, such as the May 1968 strikes in Paris during the summer of 1968 during which he was arrested for civil disobedience. President Charles de Gaulle intervened and pardoned him, commenting that "you don't arrest Voltaire". French literature
As of 2006, French literary people have been awarded more Nobel Prizes in Literature than novelists, poets and essayists of any other country. (However, writers in English—USA, UK, India, Ireland, South Africa, Australia, Canada, Nigeria and Saint Lucia—have won twice as many Nobels as the French.) In 1964 Jean-Paul Sartre was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature, but he declined it, stating that "It is not the same thing if I sign Jean-Paul Sartre or if I sign Jean-Paul Sartre, Nobel Prize winner. A writer must refuse to allow himself to be transformed into an institution, even if it takes place in the most honorable form." Miguel Torga
The recognition of his work earned him several important awards, as the Montaigne Prize, in 1981, and the first ever Prémio Camões in 1989. He was several times nominated for the Nobel Prize of Literature, from 1960 to 1994, and it was often believed that he would be the first Portuguese language writer to win it (José Saramago would eventually become the first Portuguese literary Nobel winner in 1998). Brazilian novelist Jorge Amado several times stated that Torga deserved that honour and the 1978 nomination had the support of Vicente Aleixandre, the winner of the previous year. Jaroslav Seifert
Jaroslav Seifert (; 23 September 1901 – 10 January 1986) was a Nobel Prize–winning Czechoslovak writer, poet and journalist.
In 1984 Jaroslav Seifert won the Nobel Prize in Literature "for his poetry which endowed with freshness, sensuality and rich inventiveness provides a liberating image of the indomitable spirit and versatility of man". List of Nobel laureates in Literature
As of 2017, the Nobel Prize in Literature has been awarded to 114 individuals.[6] When he received the award in 1958, Russian-born Boris Pasternak was forced to publicly reject the award under pressure from the government of the Soviet Union. In 1964, Jean-Paul Sartre made known that he did not wish to accept the Nobel Prize in Literature,[7] as he had consistently refused all official honors in the past.[8] However the Nobel committee does not acknowledge refusals, and includes Pasternak and Sartre in its list of Nobel laureates.[9] Albert Russo
In 1996 he is a juror at the Neustadt International Prize for Literature, which often leads to the Nobel Prize for Literature. Some of the Neustadt canditates, laureates or jurors having obtained the Nobel Prize are: Elias Canetti, Wole Soyinka, José Saramago, Nadine Gordimer, Eugenio Montale, Claude Simon. Eliza Orzeszkowa
In 1905 together with Henryk Sienkiewicz and Leo Tolstoy, Eliza Orzeszkowa was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature. The prize was awarded to Sienkiewicz. According to official records of the Nobel Prize committee, the idea of dividing the prize was rejected as an act of disparagement, and only the latter ended up as the laureate. Enrique Gómez Correa
Gomez Correa was friends with Vicente Huidobro and Pablo de Rokha, who both declared the Chilean who would win the Nobel Prize for Literature. Nobel Prize in Literature
The Nobel Prize in Literature () is a Swedish literature prize that is awarded annually, since 1901, to an author from any country who has, in the words of the will of Swedish industrialist Alfred Nobel, produced "in the field of literature the most outstanding work in an ideal direction" (original Swedish: "den som inom litteraturen har producerat det mest framstående verket i en idealisk riktning"). Though individual works are sometimes cited as being particularly noteworthy, the award is based on an author's body of work as a whole. The Swedish Academy decides who, if anyone, will receive the prize. The academy announces the name of the laureate in early October. It is one of the five Nobel Prizes established by the will of Alfred Nobel in 1895. It was not awarded in 2018, but two names will be awarded in 2019. Nobel Prize in Literature
The 2010 prize was awarded to Mario Vargas Llosa, a native of Peru in South America, a generally well-regarded decision. When the 2011 prize was awarded to the Swedish poet Tomas Tranströmer, permanent secretary of the Swedish Academy Peter Englund said the prize was not decided based on politics, describing such a notion as "literature for dummies". The Swedish Academy awarded the next two prizes to non-Europeans, Chinese author Mo Yan and Canadian short story writer Alice Munro. French writer Patrick Modiano's win in 2014 renewed questions of Eurocentrism; when asked by "The Wall Street Journal" "So no American this year, yet again. Why is that?", Englund reminded Americans of the Canadian origins of the previous year's recipient, the Academy's desire for literary quality and the impossibility of rewarding everyone who deserves the prize. Philosopher
Certain esteemed philosophers, such as Henri Bergson, Bertrand Russell, Albert Camus, and Jean-Paul Sartre, have also won the Nobel Prize in Literature. Egyptian literature
In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the Arab world experienced al-Nahda, a Renaissance-esque movement which touched nearly all areas of life, including literature. One of the most important figures from this time was Naguib Mahfouz, the first Egyptian to win the Nobel Prize in Literature. In 1914 Muhammad Husayn Haykal wrote "Zaynab", considered the first modern Egyptian as well as Islamic novel. Asian literature
The polymath Rabindranath Tagore, a Bengali poet, dramatist, and writer who was an Indian, became in 1913 the first Asian Nobel laureate. He won his Nobel Prize in Literature for notable impact his prose works and poetic thought had on English, French, and other national literatures of Europe and the Americas. He also wrote the Indian anthem. Later, other Asian writers won Nobel Prizes in literature, including Yasunari Kawabata (Japan, 1966), and Kenzaburō Ōe (Japan, 1994). Yasunari Kawabata wrote novels
and short stories distinguished by their elegant and spartan diction such as the novels Snow Country and The Master of Go. Selma Lagerlöf
Selma Ottilia Lovisa Lagerlöf (; 20 November 1858 – 16 March 1940) was a Swedish author and teacher. She published her first novel, "Gösta Berling's Saga", at the age of 33. She was the first female writer to win the Nobel Prize in Literature, which she was awarded in 1909. Additionally, she was the first female to be granted a membership in The Swedish Academy in 1914. Frans Eemil Sillanpää
Frans Eemil Sillanpää () (16 September 1888 – 3 June 1964) was one of the most famous Finnish writers and in 1939 became the first Finnish writer to be awarded the Nobel Prize for literature "for his deep understanding of his country's peasantry and the exquisite art with which he has portrayed their way of life and their relationship with Nature". Sinclair Lewis
In 1930 Lewis won the Nobel Prize in Literature, the first writer from the United States to receive the award, after he had been nominated by Henrik Schück, member of the Swedish Academy. In the Academy's presentation speech, special attention was paid to "Babbitt". In his Nobel Lecture, Lewis praised Theodore Dreiser, Willa Cather, Ernest Hemingway, and other contemporaries, but also lamented that "in America most of us—not readers alone, but even writers—are still afraid of any literature which is not a glorification of everything American, a glorification of our faults as well as our virtues," and that America is "the most contradictory, the most depressing, the most stirring, of any land in the world today." He also offered a profound criticism of the American literary establishment: "Our American professors like their literature clear and cold and pure and very dead." J. M. G. Le Clézio
Gao Xingjian, a Chinese émigré, was the previous French citizen to receive the prize (for 2000); Le Clézio was the first French-language writer to receive the Nobel Prize in Literature since Claude Simon for 1985, and the fourteenth since Sully Prudhomme, laureate of the first prize of 1901. Nigerian literature
Wole Soyinka was the first black African to win the Nobel Prize for literature. Previously, Claude Simon and Albert Camus, born in French Madagascar and French-held Algeria, respectively, had won the prize. Soyinka was awarded the prize as he "...in a wide cultural perspective and with poetic overtones fashions the drama of existence". Adunis
A perennial contender for the Nobel Prize in Literature, Adonis has been regularly nominated for the award since 1988. After winning Germany's major award the Goethe Prize in 2011, he emerged as a front runner to be awarded the Nobel Prize, but it was instead awarded to the Swedish poet Tomas Tranströmer, with Peter Englund, the permanent secretary of the Swedish Academy, commenting that there is no political dimension to the prize, and describing such a notion as "literature for dummies". William Faulkner
Faulkner was awarded the 1949 Nobel Prize for Literature for "his powerful and artistically unique contribution to the modern American novel". It was awarded at the following year's banquet along with the 1950 Prize to Bertrand Russell. Faulkner detested the fame and glory that resulted from his recognition. His aversion was so great that his 17-year-old daughter learned of the Nobel Prize only when she was called to the principal's office during the school day. Nobel Prize
In 1965, UN Secretary General U Thant was informed by the Norwegian Permanent Representative to the UN that he would be awarded that year's prize and asked whether or not he would accept. He consulted staff and later replied that he would. At the same time, Chairman Gunnar Jahn of the Nobel Peace prize committee, lobbied heavily against giving U Thant the prize and the prize was at the last minute awarded to UNICEF. The rest of the committee all wanted the prize to go to U Thant, for his work in defusing the Cuban Missile Crisis, ending the war in the Congo, and his ongoing work to mediate an end to the Vietnam War. The disagreement lasted three years and in 1966 and 1967 no prize was given, with Gunnar Jahn effectively vetoing an award to U Thant.
The Literature Prize also has controversial omissions. Adam Kirsch has suggested that many notable writers have missed out on the award for political or extra-literary reasons. The heavy focus on European and Swedish authors has been a subject of criticism. The Eurocentric nature of the award was acknowledged by Peter Englund, the 2009 Permanent Secretary of the Swedish Academy, as a problem with the award and was attributed to the tendency for the academy to relate more to European authors. This tendency towards European authors still leaves some European writers on a list of notable writers that have been overlooked for the Literature Prize, including Europe's Leo Tolstoy, Anton Chekhov, J. R. R. Tolkien, Émile Zola, Marcel Proust, Vladimir Nabokov, James Joyce, August Strindberg, Simon Vestdijk, Karel Čapek, the New World's Jorge Luis Borges, Ezra Pound, John Updike, Arthur Miller, Mark Twain, and Africa's Chinua Achebe. Malwida von Meysenbug
In 1890, the late nineteenth century English novelist George Gissing wrote in his diary that he was 're-reading Memoiren einer Idealisten'. 
In 1901 von Meysenbug was the first woman ever to be nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature after having been nominated by the French historian Gabriel Monod. Boris Pasternak
On 23 October 1958, Boris Pasternak was announced as the winner of the Nobel Prize. The citation credited Pasternak's contribution to Russian lyric poetry and for his role in "continuing the great Russian epic tradition." On 25 October, Pasternak sent a telegram to the Swedish Academy: "Infinitely grateful, touched, proud, surprised, overwhelmed." That same day, the Literary Institute in Moscow demanded that all its students sign a petition denouncing Pasternak and his novel. They were further ordered to join a "spontaneous" demonstration demanding Pasternak's exile from the Soviet Union. On 26 October, the "Literary Gazette" ran an article by David Zaslavski entitled, "Reactionary Propaganda Uproar over a Literary Weed". Japanese literature
War-time Japan saw the début of several authors best known for the beauty of their language and their tales of love and sensuality, notably Jun'ichirō Tanizaki and Japan's first winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature, Yasunari Kawabata, a master of psychological fiction. Ashihei Hino wrote lyrical bestsellers glorifying the war, while Tatsuzō Ishikawa attempted to publish a disturbingly realistic account of the advance on Nanjing. Writers who opposed the war include Denji Kuroshima, Mitsuharu Kaneko, Hideo Oguma, and Jun Ishikawa. Georg Büchner Prize
Four winners of the Georg Büchner Prize, Günter Grass (1965), Heinrich Böll (1967), Elias Canetti (1972), and Elfriede Jelinek (1998) were awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in subsequent years. The Georg Büchner Prize is frequently seen as an indicator for potential future Nobel Prize winners writing in the German language. Most recently, however, the Swedish Academy in Stockholm preceded the German Academy for Language and Literature in awarding a prolific writer from the German "sprachraum". Herta Müller received the Nobel Prize in Literature but has not yet been awarded the Georg Büchner Prize. Other writers who were omitted but received the Nobel Prize in Literature were Thomas Mann, Hermann Hesse, and Nelly Sachs. Paul Heyse
Paul Johann Ludwig von Heyse (15 March 1830 – 2 April 1914) was a distinguished German writer and translator. A member of two important literary societies, the "Tunnel über der Spree" in Berlin and "Die Krokodile" in Munich, he wrote novels, poetry, 177 short stories, and about sixty dramas. The sum of Heyse's many and varied productions made him a dominant figure among German men of letters. He was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1910 "as a tribute to the consummate artistry, permeated with idealism, which he has demonstrated during his long productive career as a lyric poet, dramatist, novelist and writer of world-renowned short stories." Wirsen, one of the Nobel judges, said that "Germany has not had a greater literary genius since Goethe." Heyse is the fifth oldest laureate in literature, after Sully Prudhomme, Theodor Mommsen, Alice Munro and Jaroslav Seifert. Nobel Prize in Literature
The Nobel Prize in Literature is not the only literary prize for which all nationalities are eligible. Other notable international literary prizes include the Neustadt International Prize for Literature, the Franz Kafka Prize, the Man Booker International Prize, and in the 1960s the Formentor Prix International. In contrast to the other prizes mentioned, the Neustadt International Prize is awarded biennially. The journalist Hephzibah Anderson has noted that the Man Booker International Prize "is fast becoming the more significant award, appearing an ever more competent alternative to the Nobel". The Man Booker International Prize "highlights one writer's overall contribution to fiction on the world stage" and "has literary excellence as its sole focus". Established in 2005, it is not yet possible to analyze its importance on potential future Nobel Prize in Literature laureates. Only Alice Munro (2009) has been awarded with both. The Neustadt International Prize for Literature is regarded as one of the most prestigious international literary prizes, often referred to as the American equivalent to the Nobel Prize. Like the Nobel or the Man Booker International Prize, it is awarded not for any one work, but for an entire body of work. It is frequently seen as an indicator of who may be awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature. Gabriel García Márquez (1972 Neustadt, 1982 Nobel), Czesław Miłosz (1978 Neustadt, 1980 Nobel), Octavio Paz (1982 Neustadt, 1990 Nobel), Tomas Tranströmer (1990 Neustadt, 2011 Nobel) were first awarded the Neustadt International Prize for Literature before being awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature. Wole Soyinka Prize for Literature in Africa
Wole Soyinka Prize for Literature in Africa is a pan-African writing prize awarded biennially to the best literary work produced by an African. It was established by the Lumina Foundation in 2005 in honour of Africa's first Nobel Laureate in literature, Wole Soyinka, who presents the prize, which is chosen by an international jury of literary figures. Administered by the Lumina Foundation, the prize has been described as "the African equivalent of the Nobel Prize". Svetlana Alexievich
She has been described as the first journalist to receive the Nobel Prize in Literature. She herself rejects the notion that she is a journalist, and, in fact, what appears in her books as witnesses, are fiction and are changed between different editions of the same book. Giosuè Carducci
Giosuè Alessandro Giuseppe Carducci (; also Giosue Carducci in later years; 27 July 1835 – 16 February 1907) was an Italian poet, writer, literary critic and teacher. He was very influential and was regarded as the official national poet of modern Italy. In 1906 he became the first Italian to receive the Nobel Prize in Literature "not only in consideration of his deep learning and critical research, but above all as a tribute to the creative energy, freshness of style, and lyrical force which characterize his poetic masterpieces". Nobel Prize in Literature
Spanish playwright Àngel Guimerà, who wrote in the Catalan language was nominated twenty-three times for the Nobel Prize, though he never won, due to controversy about the political significance of the gesture. He was a candidate for the Nobel Prize in 1904, to be shared with the Provençal writer Frédéric Mistral, in recognition of their contributions to literature in non-official languages. Political pressure from Spain's central government having made this prize impossible, it was eventually awarded to Mistral and to the Spanish language playwright José Echegaray.  Culture of Norway
Several Norwegian authors have been awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature, namely Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson in 1903, Knut Hamsun in 1920 and Sigrid Undset in 1928 for "Kristin Lavransdatter". Though he was not awarded a Nobel Prize for his plays, as the first of these were awarded after he published his last play in 1899, playwright Henrik Ibsen is probably the most famous figure in Norwegian literature. Ibsen wrote plays such as "Peer Gynt", "A Doll's House", "Hedda Gabler", and "The Lady from the Sea". Other famous Norwegian writers from the realistic era include Jonas Lie and Alexander Kielland, who are along with Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson and Henrik Ibsen regarded as the "four greats" of Norwegian literature. German literature
Biedermeier refers to the literature, music, the visual arts and interior design in the period between the years 1815 (Vienna Congress), the end of the Napoleonic Wars, and 1848, the year of the European revolutions. Under the Nazi regime, some authors went into exile ("Exilliteratur") and others submitted to censorship ("internal emigration", "Innere Emigration"). The Nobel Prize in Literature has been awarded to German language authors thirteen times (as of 2009), or the third most often after English and French language authors (with 27 and 14 laureates, respectively), with winners including Thomas Mann, Hermann Hesse, and Günter Grass. Culture of Asia
The polymath Rabindranath Tagore, a Bengali poet, dramatist, and writer from India, became in 1913 the first Asian Nobel laureate. He won his Nobel Prize in Literature for notable impact his prose works and poetic thought had on English, French, and other national literature of Europe and the Americas. He also wrote Jana Gana Mana the national anthem of India as well as Amar Sonar Bangla the national anthem of Bangladesh. Moreover, translation of his another song “Namo Namo Matha" is the national anthem of Sri Lanka. This song was collected by his student Mr. Ananda Samarakoon and M. Nallathamby translated in Tamil language. Other Asian writers won Nobel Prizes in literature, including Yasunari Kawabata (Japan, 1966), and Kenzaburō Ōe (Japan, 1994). Yasunari Kawabata wrote novels and short stories distinguished by their elegant and spartan diction such as the novels Snow Country and The Master of Go. Highbury, Centennial Park
Patrick White remains the first and only Australian to have been awarded the Nobel Prize for literature, the highest international literary accolade. White was the first Australian author to be studied in overseas universities, his works are widely studied in schools and universities worldwide, and have been the subject of numerous PhD theses not only in Australia, but also in countries such as India, China, Finland, Sweden, the USA and Canada. More books and articles have been published on White than any other Australian author. White was also the first Australian author to be admitted to the canon of world literature. John Steinbeck
In 1962, Steinbeck won the Nobel Prize for literature for his "realistic and imaginative writing, combining as it does sympathetic humor and keen social perception." The selection was heavily criticized, and described as "one of the Academy's biggest mistakes" in one Swedish newspaper. The reaction of American literary critics was also harsh. The "New York Times" asked why the Nobel committee gave the award to an author whose "limited talent is, in his best books, watered down by tenth-rate philosophising", noting that "[T]he international character of the award and the weight attached to it raise questions about the mechanics of selection and how close the Nobel committee is to the main currents of American writing. ... [W]e think it interesting that the laurel was not awarded to a writer ... whose significance, influence and sheer body of work had already made a more profound impression on the literature of our age". Steinbeck, when asked on the day of the announcement if he deserved the Nobel, replied: "Frankly, no." Biographer Jackson Benson notes, "[T]his honor was one of the few in the world that one could not buy nor gain by political maneuver. It was precisely because the committee made its judgment ... on its own criteria, rather than plugging into 'the main currents of American writing' as defined by the critical establishment, that the award had value." In his acceptance speech later in the year in Stockholm, he said: Rudyard Kipling
Kipling was one of the most popular writers in the United Kingdom, in both prose and verse, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Henry James said: "Kipling strikes me personally as the most complete man of genius, as distinct from fine intelligence, that I have ever known." In 1907, at the age of 41, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature, making him the first English-language writer to receive the prize and its youngest recipient to date. He was also sounded out for the British Poet Laureateship and on several occasions for a knighthood, both of which he declined. History of the Spanish language
The list of Nobel laureates in Literature includes eleven authors who wrote in Spanish (José Echegaray, Jacinto Benavente, Gabriela Mistral, Juan Ramón Jiménez, Miguel Ángel Asturias, Pablo Neruda, Vicente Aleixandre, Gabriel García Márquez, Camilo José Cela, Octavio Paz, and Mario Vargas Llosa). List of Nobel laureates in Literature
The 114 Nobel laureates in literature from 1901 to 2017 have written in the following languages: Tomas Tranströmer
Tranströmer was announced as the recipient of the 2011 Nobel Prize in Literature. He was the 108th winner of the award and the first Swede to win since 1974. Tranströmer had been considered a perennial frontrunner for the award in years past, with reporters waiting near his residence on the day of the announcement in prior years. The Swedish Academy revealed that he had been nominated every single year since 1993. Nobel Prize in Literature
In 1974, Graham Greene, Vladimir Nabokov, and Saul Bellow were considered but rejected in favor of a joint award for Swedish authors Eyvind Johnson and Harry Martinson, both members of the Swedish Academy at the time, and unknown outside their home country. Bellow received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1976; neither Greene nor Nabokov was awarded it. List of Nobel laureates in Literature
The 114 Nobel laureates in literature from 1901 to 2017 have come from the following countries: Czechs
Jaroslav Seifert was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature for his poetry. Božena Němcová has become a cultural icon and gained much fame for her book Babička.
Other important Czech writers include Milan Kundera, Karel Čapek, Jaroslav Hašek, Jan Neruda, Franz Kafka, Bohumil Hrabal, Viktor Dyk, Kosmas, Pavel Kohout, Alois Jirásek, Josef Škvorecký, Karel Jaromír Erben, Jiří Wolker, Karel Hynek Mácha, Vítězslav Nezval, Arnošt Lustig, Jaroslav Vrchlický, Karel Havlíček Borovský, Ivan Klíma, Egon Erwin Kisch, Vladimír Holan, Julius Zeyer or Svatopluk Čech. From contemporary Czech writers can be mentioned Jáchym Topol, Patrik Ouředník, Michal Viewegh or Daniela Hodrová. Important playwrights were Karel Čapek, František Langer or Josef Kajetán Tyl. Strong was also the theatrical avant-garde (Jan Werich, Jiří Voskovec, Emil František Burian). Known journalists were Julius Fučík, Milena Jesenská or Ferdinand Peroutka. Nobel Prize controversies
French novelist and intellectual André Malraux was considered for the Literature prize in the 1950s, according to Swedish Academy archives studied by newspaper "Le Monde" on their opening in 2008. Malraux was competing with Albert Camus, but was rejected several times, especially in 1954 and 1955, "so long as he does not come back to novel", while Camus won the prize in 1957. Nausea (novel)
In 1964 Sartre was awarded the Nobel Prize for literature, but he ultimately declined to accept it. The Nobel Foundation recognized him "for his work which, rich in ideas and filled with the spirit of freedom and the quest for truth, has exerted a far-reaching influence on our age." Sartre was one of the few people to have declined the award, referring to it as merely a function of a bourgeois institution. Nobel Prize in Literature
In 1964, Jean-Paul Sartre was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature, but he wrote declining it, stating that "It is not the same thing if I sign Jean-Paul Sartre or if I sign Jean-Paul Sartre, Nobel Prize laureate. A writer must refuse to allow himself to be transformed into an institution, even if it takes place in the most honorable form." Nevertheless he was awarded the prize. British literature
While modernism was to become an important literary movement in the early decades of the new century, there were also many fine writers who, like Thomas Hardy, were not modernists. Novelists include: Rudyard Kipling (1865–1936), who was also a successful poet; H. G. Wells (1866–1946); John Galsworthy (1867–1933), (Nobel Prize in Literature, 1932), whose novels include "The Forsyte Saga" (1906–21); Arnold Bennett (1867–1931) author of "The Old Wives' Tale" (1908); G. K. Chesterton (1874–1936); E.M. Forster (1879–1970). The most popular British writer of the early years of the 20th century was arguably Rudyard Kipling, a highly versatile writer of novels, short stories and poems, and to date the youngest ever recipient of the Nobel Prize for Literature (1907). Russian literature
Russian literature refers to the literature of Russia and its émigrés and to the Russian-language literature. The roots of Russian literature can be traced to the Middle Ages, when epics and chronicles in Old East Slavic were composed. By the Age of Enlightenment, literature had grown in importance, and from the early 1830s, Russian literature underwent an astounding golden age in poetry, prose and drama. Romanticism permitted a flowering of poetic talent: Vasily Zhukovsky and later his protégé Alexander Pushkin came to the fore. Prose was flourishing as well. The first great Russian novelist was Nikolai Gogol. Then came Ivan Turgenev, who mastered both short stories and novels. Leo Tolstoy and Fyodor Dostoevsky soon became internationally renowned. In the second half of the century Anton Chekhov excelled in short stories and became a leading dramatist. The beginning of the 20th century ranks as the Silver Age of Russian poetry. The poets most often associated with the "Silver Age" are Konstantin Balmont, Valery Bryusov, Alexander Blok, Anna Akhmatova, Nikolay Gumilyov, Osip Mandelstam, Sergei Yesenin, Vladimir Mayakovsky, Marina Tsvetaeva and Boris Pasternak. This era produced some first-rate novelists and short-story writers, such as Aleksandr Kuprin, Nobel Prize winner Ivan Bunin, Leonid Andreyev, Fyodor Sologub, Aleksey Remizov, Yevgeny Zamyatin, Dmitry Merezhkovsky and Andrei Bely. English novel
Immigrant authors played a major role in post-war literature. Doris Lessing (1919) from Southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe), published her first novel The Grass is Singing in 1950, after immigrating to England. She initially wrote about her African experiences. Lessing soon became a dominant presence in the English literary scene, frequently publishing right through the century, and won the Nobel prize for literature in 2007. Salman Rushdie (born 1945) is another among a number of post Second World War writers from the former British colonies who permanently settled in Britain. Rushdie achieved fame with Midnight's Children 1981, which was awarded both the James Tait Black Memorial Prize and Booker prize, and named Booker of Bookers in 1993. His most controversial novel The Satanic Verses (1989), was inspired in part by the life of Muhammad. V. S. Naipaul (born 1932), born in Trinidad, was another immigrant, who wrote among other things A House for Mr Biswas (1961) and A Bend in the River (1979). Naipaul won the Nobel Prize in Literature.[35] Also from the West Indies George Lamming (born 1927) is best remembered for In the Castle of the Skin (1953). Another important immigrant writer Kazuo Ishiguro (born 1954) was born in Japan, but his parents immigrated to Britain when he was six.[36] His works include, The Remains of the Day 1989, Never Let Me Go 2005. Naguib Mahfouz Medal for Literature
The Naguib Mahfouz Medal for Literature is a literary award for Arabic literature. It is given to the best contemporary novel written in Arabic, but not available in English translation. The winning book is then translated into English, and published by American University in Cairo Press. It was first awarded in 1996 and is presented annually on December 11, the birthday of Nobel laureate Naguib Mahfouz, by the President of the American University in Cairo.  Alexander Baumgartner
Alexander Baumgartner (born in St. Gall, Switzerland, 27 June 1841; died Luxembourg, 1910) was a poet and writer on the history of literature.
He was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature three times. Yiddish literature
The awarding of the Nobel Prize in Literature to Isaac Bashevis Singer in 1978 helped cement his reputation as one of the great writers of world literature. Many readers of Yiddish, however, are convinced that there are many finer writers among Yiddish literature, including his brother. Chaim Grade believed himself overlooked by the English-speaking world. Cynthia Ozick’s short story “Envy; or, Yiddish in America” implies a similar emotion on the part of a Yiddish poet, generally taken to be based on Yankev Glatshteyn. Some Yiddish critics complained of the excessive sex and superstition in Singer’s work, which they felt brought Yiddish literature in general into disrepute. In addition, Singer’s habit of presenting himself to the American press as the last or only Yiddish writer was irksome to the dozens of writers still living and working at the time. But in spite of these squabbles (which to some extent continue, years after the death of the protagonists), most scholars of Yiddish today would agree that the awarding of the Nobel Prize to Singer brought an unprecedented amount of attention to Yiddish literature, and has served to heighten interest in the field generally. Many scholars believe it to be a justified prize on the basis of the part of Singer’s oeuvre that is available in translation, which represents his most accomplished works. Gabriel García Márquez
 García Márquez received the Nobel Prize in Literature on 8 December 1982 "for his novels and short stories, in which the fantastic and the realistic are combined in a richly composed world of imagination, reflecting a continent's life and conflicts". His acceptance speech was entitled "The Solitude of Latin America". García Márquez was the first Colombian and fourth Latin American to win a Nobel Prize for Literature. After becoming a Nobel laureate, García Márquez stated to a correspondent: "I have the impression that in giving me the prize, they have taken into account the literature of the sub-continent and have awarded me as a way of awarding all of this literature". Nobel Prize in Literature
In the history of the Nobel Prize in Literature, many literary achievements were overlooked. The literary historian Kjell Espmark admitted that "as to the early prizes, the censure of bad choices and blatant omissions is often justified. Tolstoy, Ibsen, and Henry James should have been rewarded instead of, for instance, Sully Prudhomme, Eucken, and Heyse". There are omissions which are beyond the control of the Nobel Committee such as the early death of an author as was the case with Marcel Proust, Italo Calvino, and Roberto Bolaño. According to Kjell Espmark "the main works of Kafka, Cavafy, and Pessoa were not published until after their deaths and the true dimensions of Mandelstam's poetry were revealed above all in the unpublished poems that his wife saved from extinction and gave to the world long after he had perished in his Siberian exile". British novelist Tim Parks ascribed the never-ending controversy surrounding the decisions of the Nobel Committee to the "essential silliness of the prize and our own foolishness at taking it seriously" and noted that "eighteen (or sixteen) Swedish nationals will have a certain credibility when weighing up works of Swedish literature, but what group could ever really get its mind round the infinitely varied work of scores of different traditions. And why should we ask them to do that?" Wole Soyinka
Akinwande Oluwole Babatunde Soyinka (Yoruba: "Akinwándé Oluwo̩lé Babátúndé S̩óyinká" (born 13 July 1934), known as Wole Soyinka (), is a Nigerian playwright, poet and essayist. He was awarded the 1986 Nobel Prize in Literature, the first African to be honoured in that category. African-American literature
Toni Morrison, meanwhile, helped promote Black literature and authors when she worked as an editor for Random House in the 1960s and '70s, where she edited books by such authors as Toni Cade Bambara and Gayl Jones. Morrison herself would later emerge as one of the most important African-American writers of the 20th century. Her first novel, "The Bluest Eye", was published in 1970. Among her most famous novels is "Beloved", which won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1988. This story describes a slave who found freedom but killed her infant daughter to save her from a life of slavery. Another important novel is "Song of Solomon", a tale about materialism, unrequited love, and brotherhood. Morrison is the first African American to win the Nobel Prize in Literature. Thomas Wolfe
When published in the UK in July 1930, the book received similar reviews. Richard Aldington wrote that the novel was "the product of an immense exuberance, organic in its form, kinetic, and drenched with the love of life... I rejoice over Mr. Wolfe." Both in his 1930 Nobel Prize for Literature acceptance speech and original press conference announcement, Sinclair Lewis, the first American to win the Nobel Prize for literature, said of Wolfe, "He may have a chance to be the greatest American writer... In fact I don't see why he should not be one of the greatest world writers." Mark Linz
In 1984 Linz became director of the American University in Cairo Press, first for two years, and then from 1995 until 2011. On returning to Cairo in 1995 he collaborated with Naguib Mahfouz to establish the Naguib Mahfouz Medal for Literature, an annual literary prize for a work of fiction in Arabic, with the guarantee of translation and publication in English for the winner. Among his authors at the AUC Press were Naguib Mahfouz, the first Arabic writer to win the Nobel Prize in Literature, Ahmed Zewail, who won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry, archaeologist Zahi Hawass and Pope Shenouda III, head of the Coptic Church. Edith Wharton
Edith Wharton (/ˈhwɔːrtən/; born Edith Newbold Jones; January 24, 1862 – August 11, 1937) was an American novelist, short story writer, playwright, and designer. Wharton drew upon her insider's knowledge of the upper class New York "aristocracy" to realistically portray the lives and morals of the Gilded Age. She was the first woman to win the Pulitzer Prize for Literature, in 1921. She was inducted into the National Women's Hall of Fame in 1996.[1] J. M. Coetzee
On 2 October 2003, Horace Engdahl, head of the Swedish Academy, announced that Coetzee had been chosen as that year's recipient of the Nobel Prize in Literature, making him the fourth African writer to be so honoured and the second South African after Nadine Gordimer. When awarding the prize, the Swedish Academy stated that Coetzee "in innumerable guises portrays the surprising involvement of the outsider". The press release for the award also cited his "well-crafted composition, pregnant dialogue and analytical brilliance", while focusing on the moral nature of his work. The prize ceremony was held in Stockholm on 10 December 2003. British literature
British recipients of the Nobel Prize in Literature include Rudyard Kipling (1907), John Galsworthy (1932), T. S. Eliot (1948), Bertrand Russell (1950), Winston Churchill (1953), William Golding (1983), V. S. Naipaul (2001), Harold Pinter (2005) Doris Lessing (2007), and Kazuo Ishiguro (2017). List of Nobel laureates in Literature
Fourteen women have won the Nobel Prize in Literature, more than any other Nobel Prize with the exception of the Nobel Peace Prize.[10][11] There have been four instances in which the award was given to two people (1904, 1917, 1966, 1974). There have been eight years in which the Nobel Prize in Literature was not awarded (1914, 1918, 1935, 1940–1943, 2018[12]).[6] The country with the most recipients of the Nobel Prize in Literature is France with 16, followed by the United States with 12 and the United Kingdom with 11. List of poems by Ivan Bunin
Ivan Alekseyevich Bunin (; – 8 November 1953), the first Russian writer to win the Nobel Prize for Literature (1933), wrote more than 200 poems. The great majority of them were included into his 1900s collections: "Poems (1887–1891)", "Under the Open Skies" (1898), "Falling Leaves" (1901), "Flowers of the Field" (1901), "Poems (1903)", "Poems (1903–1906)" and "Poems of 1907" (1908). Some appeared in short stories' collections ("Poems and stories", 1900, "Flowers of the Field", 1901, etc.). Shen Congwen
Shen Congwen was twice nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature. Jeffrey Kinkley nominated Shen for the prize first in 1980 after returning from a trip to China where he interviewed the aging writer. He wrote to Swedish sinologist Göran Malmqvist inviting him to join the nomination. Later, in 1988 Malmqvist had become a member of the Swedish Academy and Shen made the list of finalists for the prize. Shen Congwen died later that year, before the prize could be awarded to him. He would have been the first Chinese writer to receive the award. Norwegian literature
After the death of the great four and Amalie Skram, a new period of Norwegian literature took place. The year 1905, when Norway was free from the union with Sweden, marks a new period in the history of Norwegian literature. In the 20th century, three Norwegian novelists won the Nobel prize in literature. The first was Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson, whose prize reflected work of the previous century. The second was awarded to Knut Hamsun for the idealistic novel "Markens Grøde" (Growth of the Soil, 1917) in 1920. The third was Sigrid Undset for the trilogy of Kristin Lavransdatter and the two books of Olav Audunssøn, in 1927.