Nobel Prize: literature

The Nobel Prize in Literature is one of the five Nobel Prizes established by the will of Alfred Nobel (1833-1896) a Swedish chemist, engineer, inventor, businessman, and philanthropist. It is the world’s most prestigious literary award, although many of its recipients are now obscure. Critics have alleged that the Swedish Academy, which chooses the winners, is, or at least has been, biased toward Europeans.

2024: Han Kang, born 1970, South Korea

 

2023: Jon Fosse, born 1959, Norway

 

2022: Annie Ernaux, born 1940, France

2021: Abdulrazak Gurnah, born 1948, Tanzania

 

2020: Louise Glück, born 1943, United States

 

2019: Peter Handke: born 1942, Austria

2018: Olga Tokarczuk: born 1962, Poland

2017: Kazuo Ishiguro: born 1954, Japan

2016: Bob Dylan: born 1941, United States

2015: Svetlana Alexievich: born 1948, Ukraine

2014: Patrick Modiano: born 1945, France

2013: Alice Munro: born 1931, Canada

2012: Mo Yan: born 1955, China

2011: Tomas Tranströmer: born 1931, Sweden

2010: Mario Vargas Llosa: born 1936, Peru

2009: Herta Müller: born 1953, Romania

2008: Jean-Marie Gustave Le Clézio: born 1940, France

2007: Doris Lessing: born 1919, Persia (now Iran)

2006: Orhan Pamuk: born 1952, Turkey

2005: Harold Pinter: born 1930, United Kingdom

2004: Elfriede Jelinek: born 1946, Austria

2003: John M. Coetzee: born 1940, South Africa

2002: Imre Kertész: born 1929, Hungary

2001: Vidiadhar Surajprasad Naipaul: born 1932, Trinidad and Tobago

2000: Gao Xingjian: born 1940, China

1999: Günter Grass: born 1927, Free City of Danzig (now Poland)

1998: José Saramago: born 1922, Portugal

1997: Dario Fo: born 1926, Italy

1996: Wislawa Szymborska: born 1923, Poland

1995: Seamus Heaney: born 1939, Northern Ireland

1994: Kenzaburo Oe: born 1935, Japan

1993: Toni Morrison: born 1931, United States

1992: Derek Walcott: born 1930, Saint Lucia

1991: Nadine Gordimer: born 1923, South Africa

1990: Octavio Paz: born 1914, Mexico

1989: Camilo José Cela: born 1916, Spain

1988: Naguib Mahfouz: born 1911, Egypt

1987: Joseph Brodsky: born 1940, USSR (now Russia)

1986: Wole Soyinka: born 1934, Nigeria

1985: Claude Simon: born 1913, Madagascar

1984: Jaroslav Seifert: born 1901, Austria-Hungary (now Czech Republic)

1983: William Golding: born 1911, United Kingdom

1982: Gabriel Garcia Márquez: born 1927, Colombia

1981: Elias Canetti: born 1905, Bulgaria

1980: Czeslaw Milosz: born 1911, Russian Empire (now Lithuania)

1979: Odysseus Elytis: born 1911, Crete (now Greece)

1978: Isaac Bashevis Singer: born 1904, Russian Empire (now Poland)

1977: Vicente Aleixandre: born 1898, Spain

1976: Saul Bellow: born 1915, Canada

1975: Eugenio Montale: born 1896, Itlay

1974 (two prizes): Eyvind Johnson: born 1900, Sweden

1974 (two prizes): Harry Martinson: born 1904, Sweden

1973: Patrick White: born 1912, United Kingdom

1972: Heinrich Böll: born 1917, Germany

1971: Pablo Neruda: born 1904, Chile

1970: Aleksandr Isayevich Solzhenitsyn: born 1918, Russia

1969: Samuel Beckett: born 1906, Ireland

1968: Yasunari Kawabata: born 1899, Japan

1967: Miguel Angel Asturias: born 1899, Guatemala

1966: Shmuel Yosef Agnon: born 1888, Austria-Hungary (now Ukraine)

1965: Mikhail Aleksandrovich Sholokhov: born 1905, Russia

1964: Jean-Paul Sartre: born 1905, France

1963:  Giorgos Seferis: born 1900, Ottoman Empire (now Turkey)

1962: John Steinbeck: born 1902, United States

1961: Ivo Andric: born 1892, Bosnia (now Bosnia and Herzegovina)

1960: Saint-John Perse: born 1887, Guadeloupe Island

1959: Salvatore Quasimodo: born 1901, Italy

1958: Boris Leonidovich Pasternak: born 1890, Russia

1957: Albert Camus: born 1913, French Algeria (now Algeria)

1956: Juan Ramón Jiménez: born 1881, Spain

1955: Halldór Kiljan Laxness: born 1902, Iceland

1954: Ernest Hemingway: born 1899, United States

1953: Winston Churchill: born 1874, United Kingdom

1952: François Mauriac: born 1885, France

1951: Pär Fabian Lagerkvist: born 1891, Sweden

1950: Bertrand Russell: born 1872, United Kingdom

1949: William Faulkner: born 1897, United States

1948: T.S. Eliot: born 1888, United States

1947: André Gide: born 1869, France

1946: Hermann Hesse: born 1877, Germany

1945: Gabriela Mistral: born 1889, Chile

1944: Johannes V. Jensen: born 1873, Denmark

1939: Frans Eemil Sillanpää: born 1888, Russian Empire (now Finland)

1938: Pearl Buck: born 1892, United States

1937: Roger Martin du Gard: born 1881, France

1936: Eugene O’Neill: born 1888, United States

1934: Luigi Pirandello: born 1867, Italy

1933: Ivan Bunin: born 1870, Russia

1932: John Galsworthy: born 1867, United Kingdom

1931: Erik Axel Karlfeldt: born 1864, Sweden

1930: Sinclair Lewis: born 1885, United States

1929: Thomas Mann: born 1875, Germany

1928: Singrid Undset: born 1882, Denmark

1927: Henri Bergson: born 1859, France

1926: Grazia Deledda: born 1871, Italy

1925: George Bernard Shaw: born 1856, Ireland

1924: Wladyslaw Reymont: born 1867, Russian Empire (now Poland)

1923: William Butler Yeats: born 1865, Ireland

1922: Jacinto Benavente: born 1866, Spain

1921: Anatole France: born 1844, France

1920: Knut Hamsun: born 1859, Norway

1919: Carl Spitteler: born 1845, Switzerland

1917 (two prizes): Karl Adolph Gjellerup: born 1857, Denmark

1917 (two prizes): Henrik Pontoppidan: born 1857, Demark

1916: Verner von Heidenstam: born 1859, Sweden

1915: Romain Rolland: born 1866, France

1913: Rabindranath Tagore: born 1861, India

1912: Gerhart Hauptmann: born 1862, Prussia (now Germany)

1911: Maurice Maeterlinck: born 1862, Belgium

1910: Paul Heyse: born 1830, Prussia (now Germany)

1909: Selma Lagerlöf: born 1858, Sweden

1908: Rudolf Christoph Eucken: born 1846, East Friesland (now Germany)

1907: Rudyard Kipling: born 1865, British India (now India)

1906: Giosuè Carducci: born 1835, Tuscany (now Italy)

1905: Henryk Sienkiewicz: born 1846, Poland

1904: Frédéric Mistral: born 1830, France

1903: Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson:born 1832, Norway

1902: Theodor Mommsen: born 1817, Schleswig (now Germany)

1901: Sully Prudhomme: born 1839, France