Nobel Prize for Literature

Updated September 9, 2022 | Infoplease Staff

The Most Famous Prize in 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)

2013

Alice Munro (Canada)

2014

Patrick Modiano(France)

2015

Svetlana Alexievich (Ukraine)

2016

Bob Dylan (U.S.)

2017

Kazuo Ishiguro (U.K.)

2018

Olga Tokarczuk (Poland)

2019

Peter Handke (Austria)

2020

Louise Gluck (U.S.)