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Nobel Prize in Literature
The Nobel Prize in Literature (Swedish: Nobelpriset i litteratur) is awarded annually, since 1901, to an author from any country who has, in the words from the will of Alfred Nobel, produced "in the field of literature the most outstanding work in an ideal direction" (original Swedish: den som inom...
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Sully Prudhomme
René François Armand (Sully) Prudhomme (Paris, France, March 16, 1839 - Châtenay-Malabry, France, September 6, 1907) was a French poet and essayist, winner of the first Nobel Prize in Literature, in 1901.
Prudhomme originally studied to be an...
Theodor Mommsen
Christian Matthias Theodor Mommsen (30 November 1817 – 1 November 1903) was a German classical scholar, historian, jurist, journalist, politician, archaeologist, and writer generally regarded as the greatest classicist of the 19th century. His work...
- Awards Won
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- x Year:
- 1902
- x Award:
- Nobel Prize in Literature
- x Award Winner:
- x Winning work:
- A History of Rome
- x Notes/Description:
- "the greatest living master of the art of historical writing, with special reference to his monumental work, A history of Rome"
Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson
Bjørnstjerne Martinius Bjørnson (8 December 1832 – 26 April 1910) was a Norwegian writer and the 1903 Nobel Prize in Literature laureate. Bjørnson is considered as one of "The Great Four" Norwegian writers; the others being Henrik Ibsen, Jonas Lie,...
José Echegaray
José Echegaray y Eizaguirre (April 19, 1832 Madrid, Spain—September 14, 1916) was a Spanish civil engineer, mathematician, statesman, and the one of the leading Spanish dramatists of the last quarter of the 19th century.
Along with the Provençal...
Frédéric Mistral
Frédéric Mistral was a French writer and lexicographer of the Occitan language. Mistral won the Nobel Prize in literature in 1904 and was a founding member of Félibrige and a member of l'Académie de Marseille. He was born on September 8, 1830 in...
- Awards Won
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- x Year:
- 1904
- x Award:
- Nobel Prize in Literature
- x Award Winner:
- x Winning work:
- x Notes/Description:
- "in recognition of the fresh originality and true inspiration of his poetic production, which faithfully reflects the natural scenery and native spirit of his people, and, in addition, his significant work as a Provençal philologist"
Henryk Sienkiewicz
Henryk Adam Aleksander Pius Sienkiewicz (Polish pronunciation: [ˈxɛnrɨk ˈadam alɛˈksandɛr ˈpʲus ɕɛnˈkʲevʲitʂ]; also known as "Litwos" [ˈlitfɔs]; May 5, 1846–November 15, 1916) was a Polish journalist and Nobel Prize-winning novelist. He was one of...
Giosuè Carducci
Giosuè Alessandro Michele Carducci (July 27, 1835 – February 16, 1907) was an Italian poet and teacher. He was very influential and was regarded as the unofficial national poet of modern Italy. In 1906 he became the first Italian to win the Nobel...
- Awards Won
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- x Year:
- 1906
- x Award:
- Nobel Prize in Literature
- x Award Winner:
- x Winning work:
- x Notes/Description:
- "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"
Rudyard Kipling
Rudyard Kipling (30 December 1865 – 18 January 1936) was a British author and poet. Born in Bombay, in British India, he is best known for his works of fiction The Jungle Book (1894) (a collection of stories which includes Rikki-Tikki-Tavi), Kim ...
- Awards Won
-
- x Year:
- 1907
- x Award:
- Nobel Prize in Literature
- x Award Winner:
- x Winning work:
- x Notes/Description:
- "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"
Rudolf Christoph Eucken
Rudolf Christoph Eucken (5 January 1846 – 15 September 1926) was a German philosopher, and the winner of the 1908 Nobel Prize for Literature.
He was born in Aurich, Kingdom of Hanover (now Lower Saxony), and studied at Göttingen University and...
- Awards Won
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- x Year:
- 1908
- x Award:
- Nobel Prize in Literature
- x Award Winner:
- x Winning work:
- x Notes/Description:
- "in recognition of his earnest search for truth, his penetrating power of thought, his wide range of vision, and the warmth and strength in presentation with which in his numerous works he has vindicated and developed an idealistic philosophy of life"
Selma Lagerlöf
Selma Ottilia Lovisa Lagerlöf (Swedish pronunciation: [ˈsɛlma ʊˈtiːlɪa lʊˈviːsa ˈlɑːɡərˌløːv] ( listen); 20 November 1858–16 March 1940) was a Swedish author. She was the first female writer to win the Nobel Prize in Literature, and most widely...
Paul Johann Ludwig von Heyse
Paul Johann Ludwig von Heyse (March 15, 1830 - April 2, 1914) was a distinguished German author. Paul von Heyse was born in Berlin, Germany, the son of Karl Wilhelm Ludwig Heyse, a notable philologist, and Julie Saaling. Saaling, his mother, was the...
- Awards Won
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- x Year:
- 1910
- x Award:
- Nobel Prize in Literature
- x Award Winner:
- x Winning work:
- x Notes/Description:
- "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"
Maurice Maeterlinck
Maurice Polydore Marie Bernard, Count Maeterlinck (29 August 1862 - 6 May 1949) was a Belgian playwright, poet and essayist who wrote in French. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1911. The main themes in his work are death and the...
- Awards Won
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- x Year:
- 1911
- x Award:
- Nobel Prize in Literature
- x Award Winner:
- x Winning work:
- x Notes/Description:
- "in appreciation of his many-sided literary activities, and especially of his dramatic works, which are distinguished by a wealth of imagination and by a poetic fancy, which reveals, sometimes in the guise of a fairy tale, a deep inspiration, while in a mysterious way they appeal to the readers' own feelings and stimulate their imaginations"
Gerhart Hauptmann
Gerhart Hauptmann (15 November 1862—6 June 1946) was a German dramatist who received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1912.
Hauptmann was born in Obersalzbrunn, a small town of Silesia, now known as Szczawno-Zdrój and a part of Poland.
He was the...
Rabindranath Tagore
Rabindranath Tagore (Bengali: রবীন্দ্রনাথ ঠাকুর)(7 May 1861 – 7 August 1941), sobriquet Gurudev, was a Bengali polymath. As a poet, novelist, musician, and playwright, he reshaped Bengali literature and music in the late 19th and early 20th...
- Awards Won
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- x Year:
- 1913
- x Award:
- Nobel Prize in Literature
- x Award Winner:
- x Winning work:
- x Notes/Description:
- "because of his profoundly sensitive, fresh and beautiful verse, by which, with consummate skill, he has made his poetic thought, expressed in his own English words, a part of the literature of the West"
Romain Rolland
Romain Rolland (29 January 1866 – 30 December 1944) was a French dramatist, essayist, art historian and mystic who was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1915.
Rolland was born in Clamecy, Nièvre to a family of notaries; he had both peasants...
Verner von Heidenstam
Carl Gustaf Verner von Heidenstam (6 July 1859 – 20 May 1940) was a Swedish poet and novelist, a laureate of the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1916. He was a member of the Swedish Academy from 1912. Most of his works are passionate depictions of the...
Karl Adolph Gjellerup
Karl Gjellerup (June 2, 1857 – October 13, 1919) was a Danish poet and novelist who together with his compatriot Henrik Pontoppidan won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1917. He belonged to the Modern Break-Through. He occasionally used the...
Henrik Pontoppidan
Henrik Pontoppidan (July 24, 1857–August 21, 1943) was a realist writer who shared with Karl Gjellerup the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1917 for "his authentic descriptions of present-day life in Denmark." Pontoppidan's novels and short stories —...
Carl Spitteler
Carl Friedrich Georg Spitteler (April 24, 1845 — December 29, 1924) was a Swiss poet who was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1919. His work includes both pessimistic and heroical poems.
Spitteler was born in Liestal, and from 1863 he...
- Awards Won
-
- x Year:
- 1919
- x Award:
- Nobel Prize in Literature
- x Award Winner:
- x Winning work:
- Olympic Spring
- x Notes/Description:
- "in special appreciation of his epic, Olympian Spring"
Knut Hamsun
Knut Hamsun (August 4, 1859 - February 19, 1952) was a Norwegian author. He was praised by King Haakon VII of Norway as Norway's soul. In 1920, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature "for the epic, Growth of the Soil. He insisted that the main...
- Awards Won
-
- x Year:
- 1920
- x Award:
- Nobel Prize in Literature
- x Award Winner:
- x Winning work:
- Growth of the Soil
- x Notes/Description:
- "for his monumental work, Growth of the Soil"
Anatole France
Anatole France (16 April 1844—12 October 1924), born François-Anatole Thibault, was a French poet, journalist, and novelist. He was born in Paris, and died in Saint-Cyr-sur-Loire. He was a successful novelist, with several best-sellers. Ironic and...
Jacinto Benavente
Jacinto Benavente y Martínez (August 12, 1866 – July 14, 1954) was one of the foremost Spanish dramatists of the 20th century. He was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1922.
Born in Madrid, the son of a celebrated pediatrician, he returned...
William Butler Yeats
William Butler Yeats (pronounced /ˈjeɪts/; 13 June 1865–28 January 1939) was an Irish poet and dramatist and one of the foremost figures of 20th century literature. A pillar of both the Irish and British literary establishments, in his later years...
Władysław Reymont
Władysław Stanisław Reymont (May 7, 1867 – December 5, 1925) was a Polish novelist and Nobel laureate. His best-known work is the novel Chłopi (Peasants).
Born Stanisław Władysław Rejment, Reymont's baptism certificate lists his original surname as ...
- Awards Won
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- x Year:
- 1924
- x Award:
- Nobel Prize in Literature
- x Award Winner:
- x Winning work:
- The Peasants
- x Notes/Description:
- "for his great national epic, The Peasants"
George Bernard Shaw
George Bernard Shaw (26 July 1856 – 2 November 1950) was an Irish playwright. Although his first profitable writing was music and literary criticism, in which capacity he wrote many highly articulate pieces of journalism, his main talent was for...
- Awards Won
-
- x Year:
- 1925
- x Award:
- Nobel Prize in Literature
- x Award Winner:
- x Winning work:
- x Notes/Description:
- "for his work which is marked by both idealism and humanity, its stimulating satire often being infused with a singular poetic beauty"
- x Year:
- 1938
- x Award Winner:
- Ian Dalrymple,
- Cecil Lewis,
- W.P. Lipscomb
- Cecil Lewis,
- x Notes/Description:
Grazia Deledda
Grazia Deledda (September 27, 1871—August 15, 1936) was a Sardinian writer whose works won her a Nobel Prize for Literature in 1926.
Born in Nuoro, Sardinia, into a bourgeois family, she attended elementary school and then was educated by a private...
Henri Bergson
Henri-Louis Bergson (French pronunciation: [bɛʁkˈsɔ̃]; 18 October 1859–4 January 1941) was a major French philosopher, influential especially in the first half of the 20th century.
Bergson was born in the Rue Lamartine in Paris, not far from the...
Sigrid Undset
Sigrid Undset (20 May 1882 – 10 June 1949) was a Norwegian novelist who was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1928.
Undset was born in Kalundborg, Denmark, but her family moved to Norway when she was two years old. In 1924, she converted to...
Thomas Mann
Thomas Mann (6 June 1875 – 12 August 1955) was a German novelist, short story writer, social critic, philanthropist, essayist, and 1929 Nobel Prize laureate, known for his series of highly symbolic and ironic epic novels and novellas, noted for...
- Awards Won
-
- x Year:
- 1929
- x Award:
- Nobel Prize in Literature
- x Award Winner:
- x Winning work:
- Buddenbrooks
- x Notes/Description:
- "principally for his great novel, Buddenbrooks, which has won steadily increased recognition as one of the classic works of contemporary literature"
Sinclair Lewis
Harry Sinclair Lewis (February 7, 1885 – January 10, 1951) was an American novelist, short-story writer, and playwright. In 1930, he became the first American to be awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature, "for his vigorous and graphic art of...
- Awards Won
-
- x Year:
- 1930
- x Award:
- Nobel Prize in Literature
- x Award Winner:
- x Winning work:
- x Notes/Description:
- "for his vigorous and graphic art of description and his ability to create, with wit and humour, new types of characters"
- x Year:
- 1926
- x Award:
- Pulitzer Prize for the Novel
- x Award Winner:
- x Winning work:
- Arrowsmith
- x Notes/Description:
Erik Axel Karlfeldt
Erik Axel Karlfeldt (July 20, 1864 — April 8, 1931) was a Swedish poet whose highly symbolist poetry masquerading as regionalism was popular and won him the Nobel Prize in Literature posthumously in 1931; he had refused it in 1918.
Karlfeldt was...
John Galsworthy
John Galsworthy OM (pronounced /ˈɡɔːlz.wɜrði/) (14 August 1867 – 31 January 1933) was an English novelist and playwright. Notable works include The Forsyte Saga (1906—1921) and its sequels, A Modern Comedy and End of the Chapter. He won the Nobel...
- Awards Won
-
- x Year:
- 1932
- x Award:
- Nobel Prize in Literature
- x Award Winner:
- x Winning work:
- The Forsyte Saga
- x Notes/Description:
- "for his distinguished art of narration which takes its highest form in The Forsyte Saga"
Ivan Alekseyevich Bunin
Ivan Alekseyevich Bunin (Ива́н Алексе́евич Бу́нин) (October 22 [O.S. October 10] 1870 – November 8, 1953) was the first Russian writer to win the Nobel Prize for Literature. The texture of his poems and stories, sometimes referred to as "Bunin...
Luigi Pirandello
Luigi Pirandello (28 June 1867 – 10 December 1936) was an Italian dramatist, novelist, and short story writer awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1934,for his "bold and brilliant renovation of the drama and the stage." Pirandello's works...
Eugene O'Neill
Eugene Gladstone O'Neill (16 October 1888 – 27 November 1953) was an American playwright, and Nobel laureate in Literature. His plays are among the first to introduce into American drama the techniques of realism, associated with Russian playwright...
- Awards Won
-
- x Year:
- 1936
- x Award:
- Nobel Prize in Literature
- x Award Winner:
- x Winning work:
- x Notes/Description:
- x Year:
- 1957
- x Award:
- Pulitzer Prize for Drama
- x Award Winner:
- x Winning work:
- Long Day's Journey Into Night
- x Notes/Description:
- x Year:
- 1920
- x Award:
- Pulitzer Prize for Drama
- x Award Winner:
- x Winning work:
- Beyond the Horizon
- x Notes/Description:
- more ▼
Roger Martin du Gard
Roger Martin du Gard (23 March 1881 - 22 August 1958) was a French author and winner of the 1937 Nobel Prize for Literature. Trained as a paleographer and archivist, Martin du Gard brought to his works a spirit of objectivity and a scrupulous regard...
Pearl S. Buck
Pearl Sydenstricker Buck (June 26, 1892 — March 6, 1973) also known as Sai Zhen Zhu (Simplified Chinese: 赛珍珠; Pinyin: Sài Zhēnzhū; Traditional Chinese: 賽珍珠), was a Pulitzer Prize-winning American writer who spent the majority of her life in China....
- Awards Won
-
- x Year:
- 1938
- x Award:
- Nobel Prize in Literature
- x Award Winner:
- x Winning work:
- x Notes/Description:
- x Year:
- 1932
- x Award:
- Pulitzer Prize for the Novel
- x Award Winner:
- x Winning work:
- The Good Earth
- x Notes/Description:
Frans Eemil Sillanpää
Frans Eemil Sillanpää ( pronunciation (help·info)) (September 16, 1888—June 3, 1964) was one of the most famous Finnish writers.
He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1939 "for his deep understanding of his country's peasantry and the...
Johannes Vilhelm Jensen
Johannes Vilhelm Jensen, in Denmark always called Johannes V. Jensen, (January 20, 1873—November 25, 1950) was a Danish author, often considered the first great Danish writer of the 20th century. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1944....
Gabriela Mistral
Gabriela Mistral (April 7, 1889 — January 10, 1957) was the pseudonym of Lucila de María del Perpetuo Socorro Godoy Alcayaga, a Chilean poet, educator, diplomat, and feminist who was the first Latin American to win the Nobel Prize in Literature, in...
- Awards Won
-
- x Year:
- 1945
- x Award:
- Nobel Prize in Literature
- x Award Winner:
- x Winning work:
- Lyric poetry
- x Notes/Description:
- "for her lyric poetry which, inspired by powerful emotions, has made her name a symbol of the idealistic aspirations of the entire Latin American world
Hermann Hesse
Hermann Hesse (German pronunciation: [ˈhɛʀman ˈhɛsə]) (2 July 1877 – 9 August 1962) was a German Swiss poet, novelist, and painter. In 1946 he received the Nobel Prize in Literature. His best-known works include Steppenwolf, Siddhartha, and The...
André Gide
André Paul Guillaume Gide (French pronunciation: [ɑ̃dʁe pɔl ɡijom ʒid]) (22 November 1869—19 February 1951) was a French author and winner of the Nobel Prize in literature in 1947. Gide's career ranged from its beginnings in the symbolist movement,...
T. S. Eliot
Thomas Stearns Eliot, OM (26 September 1888–4 January 1965), was a poet, playwright, and literary critic. He received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1948. Among his most famous writings are The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock, The Waste Land, "The...
William Faulkner
William Faulkner (September 25, 1897 – July 6, 1962) was a Nobel Prize-winning American author. One of the most influential writers of the 20th century, his reputation is based on his novels, novellas and short stories. He was also a published poet...
- Awards Won
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- x Year:
- 1949
- x Award:
- Nobel Prize in Literature
- x Award Winner:
- x Winning work:
- x Notes/Description:
- x Year:
- 1963
- x Award:
- Pulitzer Prize for Fiction
- x Award Winner:
- x Winning work:
- The Reivers
- x Notes/Description:
- x Year:
- 1955
- x Award:
- Pulitzer Prize for Fiction
- x Award Winner:
- x Notes/Description:
- more ▼
Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Arthur William Russell, 3rd Earl Russell, OM, FRS (18 May 1872 – 2 February 1970) was an English philosopher, logician, mathematician, historian, socialist, pacifist and social critic. Although he spent the majority of his life in England,...
Pär Lagerkvist
Pär Fabian Lagerkvist (May 23, 1891—July 11, 1974) was a Swedish author who was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1951.
Lagerkvist wrote poems, plays, novels, stories, and essays of considerable expressive power and influence from his early...
François Mauriac
François Mauriac (11 October 1885 — 1 September 1970) was a French author; member of the Académie française (1933); laureate of the Nobel Prize in Literature (1952). He was awarded the Grand Cross of the Légion d'honneur (1958). He is acknowledged...
Winston Churchill
Sir Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill KG, OM, CH, TD, FRS, PC (30 November 1874 – 24 January 1965) was a British politician known chiefly for his leadership of the United Kingdom during World War II. He served as Prime Minister from 1940 to 1945 and...
Ernest Hemingway
Ernest Miller Hemingway (July 21, 1899 – July 2, 1961) was an American writer and journalist. He was part of the 1920s expatriate community in Paris, and one of the veterans of World War I later known as "the Lost Generation." He received the...
- Awards Won
-
- x Year:
- 1954
- x Award:
- Nobel Prize in Literature
- x Award Winner:
- x Winning work:
- x Notes/Description:
- "for his mastery of the art of narrative, most recently demonstrated in The Old Man and the Sea, and for the influence that he has exerted on contemporary style"
- x Year:
- 1953
- x Award:
- Pulitzer Prize for Fiction
- x Award Winner:
- x Winning work:
- The Old Man and the Sea
- x Notes/Description:
Halldór Laxness
Halldór Kiljan Laxness ( ˈhaltour ˈcʰɪljan ˈlaxsnɛs (help·info)) (born Halldór Guðjónsson) (April 23, 1902—February 8, 1998) was a twentieth-century Icelandic novelist and author of Independent People, The Atom Station, and Iceland's Bell. He won...
Juan Ramón Jiménez
Juan Ramón Jiménez Mantecón (24 December 1881–29 May 1958) was a Andalusian poet, a prolific writer who received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1956. One of Jiménez's most important contributions to modern poetry was his advocacy of the French...
Albert Camus
Albert Camus (French pronunciation: [albɛʁ kamy]) (7 November 1913 – 4 January 1960) was a French author, philosopher, and journalist who was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1957. He is often cited as a proponent of existentialism (the...
Boris Pasternak
Boris Leonidovich Pasternak (Russian: Бори́с Леони́дович Пастерна́к) (10 February 1890 – 30 May 1960) was a Nobel Prize-winning Russian poet and writer. In the West he is best known for his epic novel Doctor Zhivago, a tragedy whose events span the...
Salvatore Quasimodo
Salvatore Quasimodo (August 20, 1901 - June 14, 1968) was an Italian author. In 1959, he won the Nobel Prize for Literature "for his lyrical poetry, which with classical fire expresses the tragic experience of life in our own times." Along with...
Saint-John Perse
Saint-John Perse (first Saint-Léger Léger, pseudonyms of Alexis Léger) (31 May 1887–20 September 1975) was a French poet and diplomat who was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1960 "for the soaring flight and evocative imagery of his poetry....
Ivo Andrić
Ivo Andrić (Cyrillic: Иво Андрић) (October 9, 1892 – March 13, 1975) was a Yugoslav novelist, short story writer, and the 1961 winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature. His novels, e.g. The Bridge on the Drina and Bosnian Chronicle dealt with life...
John Steinbeck
John Ernst Steinbeck, Jr. (February 27, 1902 – December 20, 1968) was an American writer. He wrote the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel The Grapes of Wrath (1939) and the novella Of Mice and Men (1937). He wrote a total of twenty-seven books, including...
- Awards Won
-
- x Year:
- 1962
- x Award:
- Nobel Prize in Literature
- x Award Winner:
- x Winning work:
- x Notes/Description:
- * "for his realistic and imaginative writings, combining as they do sympathetic humour and keen social perception"
- x Year:
- 1940
- x Award:
- Pulitzer Prize for the Novel
- x Award Winner:
- x Winning work:
- The Grapes of Wrath
- x Notes/Description:
Giorgos Seferis
Giorgos or George Seferis (Γιώργος Σεφέρης) was the pen name of Geōrgios Seferiádēs (Γεώργιος Σεφεριάδης, 13 March [O.S. 29 February] 1900 - September 20, 1971). He was one of the most important Greek poets of the 20th century, and a Nobel laureate....
Michail Aleksandrovich Sholokhov
Mikhail Aleksandrovich Sholokhov (Russian: Михаи́л Алекса́ндрович Шо́лохов, pronounced [mʲɪxɐˈil əlʲɪˈksandrəvʲɪtɕ ˈʂoləxəf]) (May 24 [O.S. May 11] 1905 – February 21, 1984) was a Soviet/Russian novelist and winner of the 1965 Nobel Prize in...
Shmuel Yosef Agnon
Shmuel Yosef Agnon (Hebrew: שמואל יוסף עגנון, July 17, 1888 - February 17, 1970) was a Nobel Prize laureate writer and was one of the central figures of modern Hebrew fiction. In Hebrew, he is known by the acronym Shai Agnon, ש"י עגנון In English,...
