Nobel Prize for Literature

Literature is one of the five prize areas mentioned in Alfred 's will. The will was, however, partly incomplete. Nobel simply stated that prizes be given to those who, during the year, "shall have conferred the greatest benefit on mankind" and that one part be given to the person who "shall have produced in the field of literature the most outstanding work in an ideal direction."

This award is granted not for a single book, but for an author's entire body of work, and hence usually goes to a well-established writer.

This year's winner is Sir V. S. Naipaul, "for having united perceptive narrative and incorruptible scrutiny in works that compel us to see the presence of suppressed histories." Sir Naipaul will be speaking at a bookstore event on November 8th at the Boston Public Library.

2001	V. S. Naipaul
2000	Gao Xingjian
1999	Gunter Grass
1998	Jose Saramago
1997	Dario Fo
1996	Wislawa Szymborska
1995	Seamus Heaney
1994	Kenzaburo Oe
1993	Toni Morrison
1992	Derek Walcott
1991	Nadine Gordimer
1990	Octavio Paz
1989	Camilo Jose Cela
1988	Naguib Mahfouz
1987	Joseph Brodsky
1986	Wole Soyinka
1985	Claude Simon
1984	Jaroslav Seifert
1983	William Golding
1982	Gabriel García Márquez
1981	Elias Canetti
1980	Czeslaw Milosz
1979	Odysseus Elytis
1978	Isaac Bashevis Singer
1977	Vicente Aleixandre
1976	Saul Bellow
1975	Eugenio Montale
1974	Eyvind Johnson and Harry Edmund Martinson
1973	Patrick White
1972	Heinrich Böll
1971	Pablo Neruda
1970	Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
1969	Samuel Beckett
1968	Yasunari Kawabata
1967	Miguel Angel Asturias
1966	Samuel Joseph Agnon and Nelly Sachs
1965	Mikhail Sholokhov
1964	Jean-Paul Sartre
1963	Giorgios Seferis
1962	John Steinbeck
1961	Ivo Andric
1960	St-John Perse (Alexis St. Léger)
1959	Salvatore Quasimodo
1958	Boris Pasternak
1957	Albert Camus
1956	Juan Ramón Jiménez
1955	Halidór Kiljian Laxness
1954	Ernest Hemingway
1953	Sir Winston Churchill
1952	Francois Mauriac
1951	Pär Lagerkvist
1950	Bertrand Russell
1949	William Faulkner
1948	T. S. Eliot
1947	André Gide
1946	Herman Hesse
1945	Gabriela Mistral
1944	Johannes V. Jensen
no awards given between 1940 and 1943
1939	Frans Eemil Sillanpää
1938	Pearl S. Buck
1937	Robert Martin du Gard
1936	Eugene O'Neill
1935	No Award
1934	Luigi Pirandello
1933	Ivan G. Bunin
1932	John Galsworthy
1931	Erik A. Karlfeldt
1930	Sinclair Lewis
1929	Thomas Mann
1928	Sigrid Undset
1927	Henri Bergson
1926	Grazia Deledda
1925	George Bernard Shaw
1924	Wladyslaw Reymount
1923	William Butler Yeats
1922	Jacinto Benavente
1921	Anatole France
1920	Knut Hamsun
1919	Carl F. G. Spitteler
1918	No Award
1917	Karl Gjellerup
1916	Verner von Heidenstam
1915	Romain Rolland
1914	No Award
1913	Rabindranath Tagore
1912	Gerhart Hauptmann
1911	Maurice Maeterlinck
1910	Paul J. L. Heyse
1909	Selma Lagerlöf
1908	Rudolf Eucken
1907	Rudyard Kipling
1906	Giusuè Carducci
1905	Henryk Sienkiewicz
1904	Frédéric Mistral and José Echegary
1903	Björnstjerne Björnson
1902	Theodor Mommsen
1901	René F. A. Sully-Prudhomme