 1941 Nobel Prize in Literature | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
 | ||||
| First award | 1901 | |||
| Website | Official website | |||
| ||||
The1941Nobel Prize in Literature was not awarded due to the ongoingSecond World War that started in September 1, 1939.[1] Instead, the prize money was allocated with 1/3 to the Main Fund and with 2/3 to the Special Fund of this prize section.[2] This was the fifth occasion in Nobel history that the prize was not conferred.
Despite no author(s) being awarded the 1940 prize due to the ongoingSecond World War, a number of literary critics, societies and academics continued sending nominations to the Nobel Committee of theSwedish Academy, hoping that their nominated candidate may be considered for the prize. In total, the academy received 21 nominations for 15 writers.[3]
Three of the nominees were nominated first-time namely Manoel Wanderley,Ruth Comfort Young, andBranislav Petronijević. The highest number of the nominations – three nominations – was for the Danish authorJohannes Vilhelm Jensen, who was awarded in1944. Four of the nominees were women namelyGabriela Mistral (awarded in1945),Henriette Charasson,Maria Madalena de Martel Patrício, and Ruth Comfort Young.[3]
The authorsAlexander Afinogenov,Sherwood Anderson,Oskar Baum,Mihály Babits,Tadeusz Boy-Żeleński,Karin Boye,Robert Byron,José de la Cuadra,Penelope Delta,William Arthur Dunkerley,James Joyce,Émile Nelligan,Banjo Paterson,Elizabeth Madox Roberts,Norberto Romualdez,Hasegawa Shigure,Gertrude Eileen Trevelyan,Marina Tsvetaeva,Evelyn Underhill,Elizabeth von Arnim,Benjamin Lee Whorf,Virginia Woolf, andMay Ziadeh died in 1941 without having been nominated for the prize.
| No. | Nominee | Country | Genre(s) | Nominator(s) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | René Béhaine (1880–1966) |  France | novel, short story, essays | François Dumas (1861–1948) |
| 2 | Edmund Blunden (1896–1974) |  United Kingdom | poetry, essays, biography | Heinrich Wolfgang Donner (1904-1980) |
| 3 | Henriette Charasson (1884–1972) | France | poetry, essays, drama, novel, literary criticism, biography | Jacques Chevalier (1882–1962) |
| 4 | Paul Claudel (1868–1955) | France | poetry, drama, essays, memoir | Peter Hjalmar Rokseth (1891–1945) |
| 5 | Maria Madalena de Martel Patrício (1884–1947) |  Portugal | poetry, essays | António Baião (1878–1961) |
| 6 | Vilhelm Ekelund (1880–1949) |  Sweden | poetry, essays |
|
| 7 | Johan Falkberget (1879–1967) |  Norway | novel, short story, essays | Richard Beck (1897–1980) |
| 8 | Vilhelm Grønbech (1873–1948) | Denmark | history, essays, poetry | Sven Lönborg (1871–1959) |
| 9 | Johan Huizinga (1872–1945) | Netherlands | history |
|
| 10 | Johannes Vilhelm Jensen (1873–1950) | Denmark | novel, short story, essays |
|
| 11 | Gabriela Mistral (1889–1957) |  Chile | poetry | Hjalmar Hammarskjöld (1862–1953) |
| 12 | Branislav Petronijević (1875–1954) | Serbia | philosophy |
|
| 13 | Felix Timmermans (1886–1947) | Belgium | novel, short story, drama, poetry, essays | Hjalmar Hammarskjöld (1862–1953) |
| 14 | Manoel Cyrillo Wanderley (?) |  Brazil | poetry, essays | Francisco de Aquino Correa, S.D.B. (1885–1956) |
| 15 | Ruth Comfort Young (1882–1954) |  United States | drama, screenplay, novel, short story, poetry |
|
