TheNobel Prize in Literature, here meaningfor Literature (Swedish:Nobelpriset i litteratur), is a Swedishliterature prize that is awarded annually, since 1901, to an author from any country who has, in the words of the will of Swedish industrialistAlfred Nobel, "in the field of literature, produced the most outstanding work in an idealistic direction" (original Swedish:den som inom litteraturen har producerat det utmärktaste i idealisk riktning).[2][3] Though individual works are sometimes cited as being particularly noteworthy, the award is based on an author's body of work as a whole. TheSwedish 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 fiveNobel Prizes established by the will of Alfred Nobel in 1895. Literature is traditionally the final award presented at the Nobel Prize ceremony. On some occasions, the award has been postponed to the following year, most recently in 2018.[4][5][6]
In 1901, French poet and essayistSully Prudhomme (1839–1907) was the first person to be awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature, "in special recognition of his poetic composition, which gives evidence of lofty idealism, artistic perfection, and a rare combination of the qualities of both heart and intellect."Hemingway's telegram in 1954 (The academy has alternately usedfor Literature andin Literature over the years, the latter becoming the norm today.)
Alfred Nobel stipulated in his last will and testament that his money be used to create a series of prizes for those who confer the "greatest benefit on mankind" inphysics,chemistry,peace,physiology or medicine, and literature.[7][8] Although Nobel wrote several wills during his lifetime, the last was written a little over a year before he died, and it was signed at the Swedish-Norwegian Club in Paris on 27 November 1895.[9][10] Nobel bequeathed 94% of his total assets, 31 millionSwedishkronor (US$198 million, €176 million in 2016), to establish and endow the five Nobel Prizes.[11] Due to the level of scepticism surrounding the will, it was not until 26 April 1897 that theStorting (Norwegian Parliament) approved it.[12][13] The executors of his will wereRagnar Sohlman and Rudolf Lilljequist, who formed theNobel Foundation to take care of Nobel's fortune and organise the prizes.
The members of the Norwegian Nobel Committee that were to award the Peace Prize were appointed shortly after the will was approved. The prize-awarding organisations followed: the Karolinska Institutet on 7 June, the Swedish Academy on 9 June, and the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences on 11 June.[14][15] The Nobel Foundation then reached an agreement on guidelines for how the Nobel Prize should be awarded. In 1900, the Nobel Foundation's newly createdstatutes were promulgated by KingOscar II.[13][16][17] According to Nobel's will, the prize in literature should be determined by "the Academy in Stockholm", which was specified by the statutes of the Nobel Foundation to mean theSwedish Academy.[18]
Each year, theSwedish Academy sends out requests for nominations of candidates for the Nobel Prize in Literature. Members of the Academy, members of literature academies and societies, professors of literature and language, former Nobel literature laureates, and the presidents of writers' organisations are all allowed to nominate a candidate. One cannot nominate oneself.[19]
Between 1901 and 1950, around 20 to 35 nominations were usually received each year.[20] Since then, thousands of requests are sent out each year, and as of 2011[update] about 220 proposals were returned.[21] These proposals must be received by the Academy by 1 February, after which they are examined by theNobel Committee, a working group within the Academy comprising four to five members.[22] By April, the committee narrows the field to around 20 candidates.[21] By May, a shortlist of five names is approved by the Academy.[21] The next four months are spent reading and reviewing the works of the five candidates.[21] In October, members of the Academy vote, and the candidate who receives more than half of the votes is named the Nobel laureate in Literature. No one can get the prize without being on the shortlist at least twice; thus, many authors reappear and are reviewed repeatedly over the years.[21] The academicians read works in their original language, but when a candidate is shortlisted from a language that no member masters, they call on translators and oath-sworn experts to provide samples of that writer's work.[21] Other elements of the process are similar to those of other Nobel Prizes.[22] The Swedish Academy is composed of 18 members who are elected for life and, until 2018, not technically permitted to leave.[23] On 2 May 2018,King Carl XVI Gustaf amended the rules of the academy and made it possible for members to resign. The new rules also mention that a member who has been inactive in the work of the academy for more than two years can be asked to resign.[24][25] The members of the Nobel committee are elected for a period of three years from among the members of the academy and are assisted by specially appointed expert advisers.[26]
The award is usually announced in October. Sometimes, however, the award has been announced the year after the nominal year, the latest such case being the2018 award. In the midst of controversy surrounding claims of sexual assault, conflict of interest, and resignations by officials, on 4 May 2018, the Swedish Academy announced that the 2018 laureate would be announced in 2019 along with the 2019 laureate.[5][4] Some years, such as in1949, no candidate received the required majority of the votes, and for that reason, the prize was postponed and announced the following year.[27]
A Literature Nobel Prize laureate receives agold medal, a diploma bearing acitation, and a sum of money.[28] The amount of money awarded depends on the income of the Nobel Foundation that year.[29] The literature prize can be shared between two, but not three, laureates.[30] If a prize is awarded jointly, the prize money is split equally between them.[31]
The prize money of the Nobel Prize has been fluctuating since its inauguration but as of 2012[update] it stood atkr 8,000,000 (aboutUS$1,100,000), previously it was kr 10,000,000.[32][33][34] This was not the first time the prize amount was decreased—beginning with a nominal value of kr 150,782 in 1901 (worth 8,123,951 in 2011SKr) the nominal value has been as low as kr 121,333 (2,370,660 in 2011 SKr) in 1945—but it has been uphill or stable since then, peaking at an SKr-2011 value of 11,659,016 in 2001.[34]
The laureate is also invited to give a lecture during "Nobel Week" inStockholm; the highlight is the prize-giving ceremony and banquet on 10 December.[35] It is the secondrichest literary prize in the world.
The literature medal features a portrait ofAlfred Nobel in left profile on theobverse.[36] It was designed byErik Lindberg.[36] The reverse of the medal depicts a 'young man sitting under a laurel tree who, enchanted, listens to and writes down the song of the Muse'.[37][36] It is inscribed "Inventas vitam iuvat excoluisse per artes" ("It is beneficial to have improved (human) life through discovered arts"), an adaptation of "inventas aut qui vitam excoluere per artes" from line 663 of book 6 of theAeneid by the Roman poetVirgil.[37] A plate below the figures is inscribed with the name of the recipient. The text "ACAD. SUEC." denoting theSwedish Academy is also inscribed on the reverse.[37]
Between 1902 and 2010, the Nobel Prize medals were struck by theMyntverket, the Swedish royalmint, located inEskilstuna. In 2011, the medals were made by the Det Norske Myntverket inKongsberg. The medals have been made by Svenska Medalj inEskilstuna since 2012.[36]
Nobel laureates receive a diploma directly from theKing of Sweden. Each diploma is uniquely designed by the prize-awarding institutions for the laureate who receives it.[38] The diploma contains a picture and text that states the name of the laureate and normally a citation of why they received the prize.[38]
Rudyard Kipling, the youngest recipient of the Nobel Prize in Literature.Selma Lagerlöf, the first female author awarded the prize.
The Nobel Prize in Literature has been awarded 116 times between 1901 and 2024 to 121 individuals: 103 men and 18 women.[39] The prize has been shared between two individuals on four occasions. It was not awarded on seven occasions. The laureates have included writers in 25 languages. The youngest laureate wasRudyard Kipling, who was 41 years old when he was awarded in 1907. The oldest laureate to receive the prize wasDoris Lessing, who was 88 when she was awarded in 2007. It has been awardedposthumously once, toErik Axel Karlfeldt in 1931. On some occasions, the awarding institution, theSwedish Academy, has awarded the prize to its own members;Verner von Heidenstam in 1916, the posthumous prize to Karlfeldt in 1931,Pär Lagerkvist in 1951, and the shared prize toEyvind Johnson andHarry Martinson in 1974.Selma Lagerlöf was elected a member of the Swedish Academy in 1914, five years after she was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1909. Three writers have declined the prize, Erik Axel Karlfeldt in 1919,[40]Boris Pasternak in 1958 ("Accepted first, later caused by the authorities of his country (Soviet Union) to decline the Prize", according to the Nobel Foundation) andJean-Paul Sartre in 1964.[41]
Alfred Nobel's guidelines for the prize, stating that the candidate should have bestowed "the greatest benefit on mankind" and written "in an idealistic direction," have sparked much discussion. In the early history of the prize, Nobel's "idealism" was read as "a lofty and sound idealism." The set of criteria, characterised by its conservative idealism, holding church, state, and family sacred, resulted in prizes forBjørnstjerne Bjørnson,Rudyard Kipling, andPaul Heyse. DuringWorld War I, there was a policy of neutrality, which partly explains the number of awards to Scandinavian writers. In the 1920s, "idealistic direction" was interpreted more generously as "wide-hearted humanity," leading to awards for writers likeAnatole France,George Bernard Shaw, andThomas Mann. In the 1930s, "the greatest benefit on mankind" was interpreted as writers within every person's reach, with authors likeSinclair Lewis andPearl Buck receiving recognition. In 1946, a renewed Academy changed focus and began to award literary pioneers likeHermann Hesse,André Gide,T. S. Eliot, andWilliam Faulkner. During this era, "the greatest benefit on mankind" was interpreted in a more exclusive and generous way than before. Since the 1970s, the Academy has often given attention to important but internationally unnoticed writers, awarding writers likeElias Canetti andJaroslav Seifert.
Wole Soyinka, the first African writer awarded the prize.
Beginning in 1986, the Academy acknowledged the international aspect in Nobel's will, which rejected any consideration of the nationality of the candidates, and awarded authors from all over the world, such asWole Soyinka from Nigeria,Naguib Mahfouz from Egypt,Octavio Paz from Mexico,Nadine Gordimer from South Africa,Derek Walcott from St. Lucia,Toni Morrison, the first African-American on the list,Kenzaburo Oe from Japan, andGao Xingjian, the first laureate to write in Chinese.[18] In the 2000s,V. S. Naipaul,Mario Vargas Llosa, and the Chinese writerMo Yan have been awarded, but the policy of "a prize for the whole world" has been less noticeable as the Academy has mostly continued to award European and English-language writers from the Western literary tradition. In 2015, a rare prize to a non-fiction writer was awarded toSvetlana Alexievich.[42]
The Nobel Prize in Literature can be shared between two individuals. However, the Academy has been reluctant to award shared prizes, because divisions are liable to be interpreted as a result of a compromise. The shared prizes awarded toFrédéric Mistral andJosé Echegaray in 1904 and toKarl Gjellerup andHenrik Pontoppidan in 1917 were, in fact, both results of compromises. Shared prizes are exceptional, and more recently, the Academy has awarded a shared prize on only two occasions, toShmuel Yosef Agnon andNelly Sachs in 1966, and toEyvind Johnson andHarry Martinson in 1974.[18]
Nobel Prize Laureates in Literature are awarded for the author's life work, but on some occasions, the Academy has singled out a specific work for particular recognition. For example,Knut Hamsun was awarded in 1920 "for his monumental work,Growth of the Soil";Thomas Mann in 1929 "principally for his great novel,Buddenbrooks, which has won steadily increased recognition as one of the classic works of contemporary literature";John Galsworthy in 1932 "for his distinguished art of narration which takes its highest form inThe Forsyte Saga";Roger Martin du Gard in 1937 "for the artistic power and truth with which he has depicted human conflict as well as some fundamental aspects of contemporary life in his novel-cycleLes Thibault";Ernest Hemingway in 1954 "for his mastery of the art of narrative, most recently demonstrated inThe Old Man and the Sea; and for the influence that he has exerted on contemporary style"; andMikhail Sholokhov in 1965 "for the artistic power and integrity with which, in hisepic of the Don, he has given expression to a historic phase in the life of the Russian people".[41]
Nominations are kept secret for at least 50 years before they are publicly available at The Nomination Database for the Nobel Prize in Literature. As of 2025[update], only nominations submitted between 1901 and 1973 are available for public viewing.[43]
What about the rumours circling around the world about certain people being nominated for the Nobel Prize this year? – Well, either it's just a rumour, or someone among the invited nominators has leaked information. Since the nominations are kept secret for 50 years, you'll have to wait until then to find out.[44]
— Nomination FAQ – Frequently Asked Questions about the Nomination and Selection of Nobel Laureates
William Faulkner, one of the authors who were instantly awarded after just one nomination.
From the start the Nobel Prize in Literature attracted much media attention. The first prize in 1901 was reported in hundreds of newspapers in different parts of the world.[48] The prizes toRudyard Kipling in 1907 andRabindranath Tagore in 1913 helped to establish the prize as a central phenomenon in world literature. AfterWorld War II, the prize has earned more intense media attention with dramatic news reports and in-depth comments from around the world, further establishing its central position in the global literary space.[48] Days before the announcement of the year's Nobel laureate in Literature, potential winners are widely guessed in the media, and controversial and surprising choices have often caused much media discussion.[48]
Although the Nobel Prize in Literature is widely regarded as the world's most prestigious literary prize,[49] the Swedish Academy has attracted significant criticism for its handling of the award. Many authors who have won the prize have fallen into obscurity, while others rejected by the jury remain widely studied and read. In theWall Street Journal, Joseph Epstein wrote, "You might not know it, but you and I are members of a club whose fellow members includeLeo Tolstoy,Henry James,Anton Chekhov,Mark Twain,Henrik Ibsen,Marcel Proust,James Joyce,Jorge Luis Borges andVladimir Nabokov. The club is the Non-Winners of the Nobel Prize in Literature. All these authentically great writers, still alive when the prize, initiated in 1901, was being awarded, didn't win it."[50] Other notable names from the non-western canon who were ignored despite being nominated several times for the prize includeSri Aurobindo andSarvepalli Radhakrishnan. The prize has "become widely seen as a political one – apeace prize in literary disguise", whose judges are prejudiced against authors with political tastes different from theirs.[51]Tim Parks has expressed skepticism that it is possible for "Swedish professors ... [to] compar[e] a poet fromIndonesia, perhaps translated into English with a novelist fromCameroon, perhaps available only in French, and another who writes in Afrikaans but is published in German and Dutch...".[52] As of 2021, 16 of the 118 recipients have been of Scandinavian origin. The Academy has often been alleged to be biased towards European, and in particular Swedish, authors.[53]
Nobel's "vague" wording for the criteria for the prize has led to recurrent controversy. In the original Swedish, the wordidealisk translates as "ideal."[3][54] TheNobel Committee's interpretation has varied over the years. In recent years, this means a kind of idealism championing human rights on a broad scale.[3][55]
From 1901 to 1912, the committee, led by the conservativeCarl David af Wirsén, assessed the literary quality of a work in relation to its contribution to humanity's pursuit of the "ideal."Leo Tolstoy,Henrik Ibsen,Émile Zola, andMark Twain were rejected in favour of authors who mostly are little read today.[54][56]
Later, the prize has often been controversial due to the Swedish Academy'sEurocentric choices of laureates, or for political reasons, as seen in the years1970,2005, and2019, and for the Academy awarding its own members, as happened in1974.[57]
French authorAlbert Camus was the first African-born writer to receive the award.
The prize's focus on European men, andSwedes in particular, has been the subject of criticism, even from Swedish newspapers.[58] The majority of laureates have been European, with Sweden itself receiving more prizes (8) than all of Asia (7, if TurkishOrhan Pamuk is included), as well as all of Latin America (7, if Saint LucianDerek Walcott is included). In 2009,Horace Engdahl, then the permanent secretary of the Academy, declared that "Europe still is the centre of the literary world" and that "the US is too isolated, too insular. They don't translate enough and don't really participate in the big dialogue of literature."[59]
In 2009, Engdahl's replacement,Peter Englund, rejected this sentiment ("In most language areas ... there are authors that really deserve and could get the Nobel Prize and that goes for the United States and the Americas, as well") and acknowledged the Eurocentric nature of the award, saying that, "I think that is a problem. We tend to relate more easily to literature written in Europe and in the European tradition."[60] American critics are known to object that those from their own country, likePhilip Roth,Thomas Pynchon, andCormac McCarthy, have been overlooked, as have Latin Americans such asJorge Luis Borges,Julio Cortázar, andCarlos Fuentes, while in their place Europeans lesser-known to that continent have triumphed. The 2009 award toHerta Müller, previously little-known outside Germany but many times named favourite for the Nobel Prize, re-ignited the viewpoint that the Swedish Academy was biased andEurocentric.[61]
The 2010 prize was awarded toMario Vargas Llosa, a native ofPeru in South America, a generally well-regarded decision. When the 2011 prize was awarded to the Swedish poetTomas 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."[62] The Swedish Academy awarded the next two prizes to non-Europeans, Chinese authorMo Yan and Canadian short story writerAlice Munro. French writerPatrick Modiano's win in 2014 renewed questions of Eurocentrism; when asked byThe 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.[63]
In the history of the Nobel Prize in Literature, many critical literary figures were ignored. The literary historianKjell Espmark admitted that "as to the early prizes, the censure of bad choices and blatant omissions is often justified.Tolstoy,Ibsen, andHenry James should have been rewarded instead of, for instance,Sully Prudhomme,Eucken, andHeyse."[64] There are omissions which are beyond the control of the Nobel Committee such as the early death of an author as was the case withMarcel Proust,Italo Calvino, andRoberto Bolaño. According toKjell Espmark, "the main works ofKafka,Cavafy, andPessoa were not published until after their deaths, and the true dimensions ofMandelstam'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."[64] British novelistTim 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"[65] 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?"[65]
Although several Scandinavians were awarded, two of the most celebrated writers, Norwegian playwrightHenrik Ibsen and Swedish authorAugust Strindberg, were repeatedly bypassed by the committee, but Strindberg holds the singular distinction of being awarded an Anti-Nobel Prize, conferred by popular acclaim and national subscription and presented to him in 1912 by future prime ministerHjalmar Branting.[66][67][68]
Paul Valéry was nominated twelve times between 1930 and 1945 but died just as the Academy intended to award him the prize in 1945.[69][70]
James Joyce wrote the books that rank 1st and 3rd on theModern Library 100 Best Novels –Ulysses andA Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man – but Joyce was never nominated for the prize.Kjell Espmark, a member of the Nobel Prize committee and author of the history of the prize, claimed that Joyce's "stature was not properly recognized even in the English-speaking world," but that Joyce doubtless would have been awarded if he had lived in the late 1940s when the Academy began to award literary pioneers likeT. S. Eliot.[71]
Argentine writerJorge Luis Borges was nominated for the prize several times, but the Academy did not award it to him, though he was among the final candidates some years in the 1960s.[72]
Graham Greene was nominated for the prize thirty-one times between 1950 and 1973.[73] Greene was a celebrated candidate to be awarded the prize in the 1960s and 1970s, and the Academy was criticised for passing him over.[18]
French novelist and intellectualAndré Malraux was seriously considered for the prize in the 1950s. Malraux was competing withAlbert 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.[74] Malraux was again considered in 1969 when he was competing withSamuel Beckett for the prize. Some members of the Nobel committee supported a prize to Malraux, but Beckett was awarded.[75]
W. H. Auden was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature nineteen times between 1961 and 1971,[76] and was among the final candidates for the prize several times, but the Academy favoured other writers. In 1964 Auden andJean-Paul Sartre were the leading candidates, and the Academy favoured Sartre as Auden's best work was thought "too far back in time." In 1967 Auden was one of three final candidates along withGraham Greene and the awarded Guatemalan authorMiguel Ángel Asturias.[77][78]
Membership in the 18-member academy, who select the recipients, is technically for life.[23] Until 2018, members were not allowed to leave, although they might refuse to participate.[23] For members who did not participate, their board seat was left vacant until they died.[79] Twelve active/participating members are required for a quorum.[79]
In 1989, three members, including the former permanent secretaryLars Gyllensten, resigned in protest after the academy refused to denounce AyatollahRuhollah Khomeini for calling for the death ofSalman Rushdie, author ofThe Satanic Verses.[23] A fourth member,Knut Ahnlund, decided to remain in the academy but later refused to participate in their work and resigned on 11 October 2005, just a few days before the announcement of the 2005 Nobel Prize in Literature in protest against the prize being awarded toElfriede Jelinek. According to Ahnlund, the decision to award Jelinek ruined the worth of the Nobel Prize in Literature for a long time.[80][81] He characterized Jelinek's work as chaotic and pornographic.[82]
In April 2018, three members of the academy board resigned in response to a sexual misconduct investigation involving authorJean-Claude Arnault, who is married to board memberKatarina Frostenson.[79] Arnault was accused by at least 18 women of sexual assault and harassment. He and his wife were also accused of leaking the names of prize recipients on at least seven occasions so friends could profit from bets.[83][79] He denied all accusations, although he was later convicted of rape and sentenced to two years and six months in prison.[84][85][86]Sara Danius, the board secretary, hired a law firm to investigate if Frostenson had leaked confidential information and if Arnault had any influence on the Academy, but no legal action was taken. The investigation caused a split within the Academy. Following a vote to exclude board member Frostenson, the three members resigned in protest over the decisions by the Academy.[79][23][87] Two former permanent secretaries,Sture Allén and Horace Engdahl, called Danius a weak leader.[79]
On 10 April, Danius was asked to resign from her position by the Academy, bringing the number of empty seats to four.[88] Although the Academy voted against removing Katarina Frostenson from the committee,[89] she voluntarily agreed to withdraw from participating in the academy, bringing the number of total withdrawals to five. Because two other seats were still vacant from the Rushdie affair, this left only 11 active members, one short of the quorum needed to vote in replacements. On 4 May 2018, the Swedish Academy announced that the selection would be postponed until 2019, when two laureates would be chosen. It was still technically possible to choose a 2018 laureate, as only eight active members are required to choose a recipient. However, there were concerns that the academy was not in any condition to credibly present the award.[4][5][6][90] TheNew Academy Prize in Literature, not affiliated with either theNobel Foundation or the Swedish Academy, was created as an alternative award for 2018 only.[91] The first and only New Academy Prize in Literature was won byMaryse Condé, a writer fromGuadeloupe noted for her novelsSegu,Tree of Life: A Novel of the Caribbean andWindward Heights.[92]
The scandal was widely seen as damaging to the credibility of the prize and its authority.[79] As noted byAndrew Brown inThe Guardian in a lengthy deconstruction of the scandal:
"The scandal has elements of a tragedy, in which people who set out to serve literature and culture discovered they were only pandering to writers and the people who hang around with them. The pursuit of excellence in art was entangled with the pursuit of social prestige. The academy behaved as if the meals in its clubhouse were as much an accomplishment as the work that got people elected there."[93]
KingCarl XVI Gustaf of Sweden said a reform of the rules may be evaluated, including the introduction of the right to resign from the current lifelong membership of the committee.[94] On 5 March 2019, it was announced that the Nobel Prize in Literature would once again be awarded, and laureates for both 2018 and 2019 would be announced together. The decision came after several changes were made to the structure of the Swedish Academy as well as to the Nobel Committee members selection, in order to "[restore] trust in the Academy as a prize-awarding institution".[95]
The Nobel Prize in Literature is not the only literary prize for which all nationalities are eligible. Other notable international literary prizes include theNeustadt International Prize for Literature, theJerusalem Prize,Franz Kafka Prize, theInternational Booker Prize, and theFormentor Prix International. The journalist Hephzibah Anderson has noted that the International Booker Prize "is fast becoming the more significant award, appearing an ever more competent alternative to the Nobel".[96] However, since 2016, the International Booker Prize now recognises an annual book of fiction translated into English.[97] Previous winners of the International Booker Prize who have gone on to win the Nobel Prize in Literature includeAlice Munro,Olga Tokarczuk, andHan Kang. The Neustadt International Prize for Literature is regarded as one of the most prestigious international literary prizes, often referred to as the American equivalent of the Nobel Prize.[98][99] Like the Nobel 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.
Another award of note is the SpanishPrincess of Asturias Award (formerly Prince of Asturias Award) in Letters. During the first years of its existence it was almost exclusively awarded to writers in the Spanish language, but in more recent times, writers in other languages have been awarded as well. Writers who have won both the Asturias Award in Letters and the Nobel Prize in Literature includeCamilo José Cela,Günter Grass,Doris Lessing, andMario Vargas Llosa.
There are also prizes for honouring the lifetime achievement of writers in specific languages, like theMiguel de Cervantes Prize (for Spanish language, established in 1976) and theCamões Prize (for Portuguese language, established in 1989). Nobel laureates who were also awarded the Miguel de Cervantes Prize includeOctavio Paz (1981 Cervantes, 1990 Nobel);Mario Vargas Llosa (1994 Cervantes, 2010 Nobel); and Camilo José Cela (1995 Cervantes, 1989 Nobel). José Saramago is the only author to receive both the Camões Prize (1995) and the Nobel Prize (1998) to date.
TheHans Christian Andersen Award is sometimes referred to as "the Little Nobel". The award has earned this appellation since, in a similar manner to the Nobel Prize in Literature, it recognises the lifetime achievement of writers, though the Andersen Award focuses on a single category of literary works (children's literature).[100]
^"Alfred Nobel will". Nobel Foundation. 15 December 2017.Archived from the original on 20 May 2023. Retrieved20 January 2021.
^abcJohn Sutherland (13 October 2007)."Ink and Spit".Guardian Unlimited Books.Archived from the original on 11 November 2007. Retrieved13 October 2007.
After Nobel's death, the Nobel Foundation was set up to carry out the provisions of his will and to administer his funds. In his will, he had stipulated that four institutions—three Swedish and one Norwegian—should award the prizes. From Stockholm, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences confers the prizes for physics, chemistry, and economics, the Karolinska Institute confers the prize for physiology or medicine, and the Swedish Academy confers the prize for literature. The Norwegian Nobel Committee based in Oslo confers the prize for peace. The Nobel Foundation is the legal owner and functional administrator of the funds and serves as the joint administrative body of the prize-awarding institutions, but it is not concerned with the prize deliberations or decisions, which rest exclusively with the four institutions.
^Nilsson, Christoffer (18 April 2018)."Kungen ändrar Akademiens stadgar" [The King alters Academy rules].Aftonbladet.Archived from the original on 4 May 2018. Retrieved4 May 2018.
Each Nobel Prize consists of a gold medal, a diploma bearing a citation, and a sum of money, the amount of which depends on the income of the Nobel Foundation. (A sum of $1,300,000 accompanied each prize in 2005.) A Nobel Prize is either given entirely to one person, divided equally between two persons, or shared by three persons. In the latter case, each of the three persons can receive a one-third share of the prize or two together can receive a one-half share.
^abLemmel, Birgitta (29 May 1998)."The Nobel Prize Diplomas". Nobel Foundation.Archived from the original on 16 November 2011. Retrieved12 October 2011.
^Neil Smith (13 October 2005)."'Political element' to Pinter Prize". BBC News.Archived from the original on 21 August 2017. Retrieved26 April 2008.Few people would deny Harold Pinter is a worthy recipient of the 2005 Nobel Prize in Literature. As a poet, screenwriter and author of more than 30 plays, he has dominated the English literary scene for half a century. However, his outspoken criticism of USforeign policy and opposition tothe war in Iraq undoubtedly make him one of the more controversial figures to be awarded this prestigious honour. Indeed, the Nobel academy's decision could be read in some quarters as a selection with an inescapably political element. 'There is the view that the Nobel literature prize often goes to someone whose political stance is found to be sympathetic at a given moment,' said Alan Jenkins, deputy editor ofthe Times Literary Supplement. 'For the last 10 years he has been more angry and vituperative, and that cannot have failed to be noticed.' However, Mr Jenkins insists that, though Pinter's political views may have been a factor, the award is more than justified on artistic criteria alone. 'His dramatic and literary achievement is head and shoulders above any other British writer. He is far and away the most interesting, the best, the most powerful and most original of English playwrights.'
^Kite, Lorien."Sweden's 'buzzard' poet wins Nobel Prize"Archived 4 March 2016 at theWayback Machine.Financial Times. Retrieved 6 October 2011. "Before Thursday's announcement, there had also been much speculation that the committee would choose to honour the Syrian poet Adonis in a gesture towards theArab Spring. But Mr England (sic) dismissed the notion that there was a political dimension to the prize; such an approach, he said, was "literature for dummies"."
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