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Nobel Prize for Literature

The Nobel Prize for Literature, one of the six international awards administered by the Nobel Foundation, honors outstanding achievement in letters. The estate of Alfred Bernhard Nobel (1833–1896), the Swedish inventor of dynamite, funds the awards.

For years not listed, no award was made.


1901
René F. A. Sully Prudhomme (France)
1902
Theodor Mommsen (Germany)
1903
Björnstjerne Björnson (Norway)
1904
Frédéric Mistral (France) and José Echegaray (Spain)
1905
Henryk Sienkiewicz (Poland)
1906
Giosuè Carducci (Italy)
1907
Rudyard Kipling (U.K.)
1908
Rudolf Eucken (Germany)
1909
Selma Lagerlöf (Sweden)
1910
Paul von Heyse (Germany)
1911
Maurice Maeterlinck (Belgium)
1912
Gerhart Hauptmann (Germany)
1913
Rabindranath Tagore (India)
1915
Romain Rolland (France)
1916
Verner von Heidenstam (Sweden)
1917
Karl Gjellerup (Denmark) and Henrik Pontoppidan (Denmark)
1919
Carl Spitteler (Switzerland)
1920
Knut Hamsun (Norway)
1921
Anatole France (France)
1922
Jacinto Benavente (Spain)
1923
William B. Yeats (Ireland)
1924
Wladyslaw Reymont (Poland)
1925
George Bernard Shaw (Ireland)
1926
Grazia Deledda (Italy)
1927
Henri Bergson (France)
1928
Sigrid Undset (Norway)
1929
Thomas Mann (Germany)
1930
Sinclair Lewis (U.S.)
1931
Erik A. Karlfeldt (Sweden)
1932
John Galsworthy (U.K.)
1933
Ivan G. Bunin (Russia)
1934
Luigi Pirandello (Italy)
1936
Eugene O'Neill (U.S.)
1937
Roger Martin du Gard (France)
1938
Pearl S. Buck (U.S.)
1939
Frans Eemil Sillanpää ( Finland)
1944
Johannes V. Jensen (Denmark)
1945
Gabriela Mistral (Chile)
1946
Hermann Hesse (Switzerland)
1947
André Gide (France)
1948
Thomas Stearns Eliot (U.K.)
1949
William Faulkner (U.S.)
1950
Bertrand Russell (U.K.)
1951
Pär Lagerkvist (Sweden)
1952
François Mauriac (France)
1953
Sir Winston Churchill (U.K.)
1954
Ernest Hemingway (U.S.)
1955
Halldór Kiljan Laxness (Iceland)
1956
Juan Ramón Jiménez (Spain)
1957
Albert Camus (France)
1958
Boris Pasternak (U.S.S.R.) (declined)
1959
Salvatore Quasimodo (Italy)
1960
St. John Perse (Alexis St.-Léger Léger) (France)
1961
Ivo Andric (Yugoslavia)
1962
John Steinbeck (U.S.)
1963
Giorgios Seferis (Seferiades) (Greece)
1964
Jean-Paul Sartre (France) (declined)
1965
Mikhail Sholokhov (U.S.S.R.)
1966
Shmuel Yosef Agnon (Israel) and Nelly Sachs (Sweden)
1967
Miguel Angel Asturias (Guatemala)
1968
Yasunari Kawabata (Japan)
1969
Samuel Beckett (Ireland)
1970
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn (U.S.S.R.)
1971
Pablo Neruda (Chile)
1972
Heinrich Böll (Germany)
1973
Patrick White (Australia)
1974
Eyvind Johnson and Harry Martinson (both Sweden)
1975
Eugenio Montale (Italy)
1976
Saul Bellow (U.S.)
1977
Vicente Aleixandre (Spain)
1978
Isaac Bashevis Singer (U.S.)
1979
Odysseus Elytis (Greece)
1980
Czeslaw Milosz (U.S.)
1981
Elias Canetti (Bulgaria)
1982
Gabriel García Márquez (Colombia)
1983
William Golding (U.K.)
1984
Jaroslav Seifert (Czechoslovakia)
1985
Claude Simon (France)
1986
Wole Soyinka (Nigeria)
1987
Joseph Brodsky (U.S.)
1988
Naguib Mahfouz (Egypt)
1989
Camilo José Cela (Spain)
1990
Octavio Paz (Mexico)
1991
Nadine Gordimer (South Africa)
1992
Derek Walcott (St. Lucia)
1993
Toni Morrison (U.S.)
1994
Kenzaburo Oe (Japan)
1995
Seamus Heaney (Ireland)
1996
Wislawa Szymborska (Poland)
1997
Dario Fo (Italy)
1998
José Saramago (Portugal)
1999
Günter Grass (Germany)
2000
Gao Xingjian (China)
2001
V. S. Naipaul (UK)
2002
Imre Kertész (Hungary)
2003
J. M. Coetzee (South Africa)
2004
Elfriede Jelinek (Austria)
2005
Harold Pinter (UK)
2006
Orhan Pamuk (Turkey)
2007
Doris Lessing (UK)
2008
Jean-Marie Gustave Le Clézio (France)
2009
Herta Müller (Germany)
2010
Mario Vargas Llosa (Peru)

2011
Tomas Tranströmer (Sweden)

2012
Mo Yan (China)

Information Please® Database, © 2007 Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved.

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