The Nobel Prize in Literature
Announcement of the Nobel Prize Laureate in Literature
Awarded for	Outstanding contributions in Literature
Presented by	Swedish Academy
Country	Sweden
First awarded	1901
Official website	nobelprize.org

Since 1901, the Nobel Prize in Literature (Swedish: Nobelpriset i litteratur) has been awarded annually to an author from any country who has, in the words of the will of Alfred Nobel, produced "in the field of literature the most outstanding work in an ideal direction" (original Swedish: den som inom litteraturen har producerat det mest framstående verket i en idealisk riktning).^[1][2] Though individual works are sometimes cited as being particularly noteworthy, here "Work" refers to an author's work as a whole. The Swedish Academy decides who, if anyone, will receive the prize in any given year. The academy announces the name of the chosen laureate in early October.^[3] It is one of the five Nobel Prizes established by the will of Alfred Nobel in 1895; the others are the Nobel Prize in Chemistry, Nobel Prize in Physics, Nobel Peace Prize, and Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.

Nobel's choice of emphasis on "idealistic" or "ideal" (English translation) in his criteria for the Nobel Prize in Literature has led to recurrent controversy. In the original Swedish, the word idealisk translates as either "idealistic" or "ideal".^[2] In the early twentieth century, the Nobel Committee interpreted the intent of the will strictly. For this reason, they did not award certain world-renowned authors of the time such as James Joyce, Leo Tolstoy, Anton Chekhov, Marcel Proust, Henrik Ibsen, and Henry James. ^[4] J. R. R. Tolkien was nominated by his friend C. S. Lewis but rejected on the grounds of his "poor prose"; the prize was instead awarded to Ivo Andrić.^[5] More recently, the wording has been more liberally interpreted. Thus, the Prize is now awarded both for lasting literary merit and for evidence of consistent idealism on some significant level. In recent years, this means a kind of idealism championing human rights on a broad scale. Hence the award is now arguably more political.^[2][6]

"The highlight of the Nobel Prize Award Ceremony in Stockholm is when each Nobel Laureate steps forward to receive the prize from the hands of His Majesty the King of Sweden. ... Under the eyes of a watching world, the Nobel Laureate receives three things: a diploma, a medal, and a document confirming the prize amount".

The Swedish Academy has attracted significant criticism in recent years for its handling of the award. Some critics contend that many well-known writers have not been awarded the prize or even been nominated, whereas others contend that some well-known recipients do not deserve it. There have also been controversies involving alleged political interests relating to the nomination process and ultimate selection of some of the recent literary Laureates.^[6]

Background[link]

In 1901, Sully Prudhomme (1839–1907), a French poet and essayist, was the first person to win 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."

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" in physics, chemistry, peace, physiology or medicine, and literature.^[7][8] Though Nobel wrote several wills during his lifetime, the last was written a little over a year before he died, and signed at the Swedish-Norwegian Club in Paris on 27 November 1895.^[9][10] Nobel bequeathed 94% of his total assets, 31 million Swedish kronor (US$186 million, €135 million in 2008), to establish and endow the five Nobel Prizes.^[11] Due to the level of scepticism surrounding the will it was not until April 26, 1897 that the Storting (Norwegian Parliament) approved it.^[12][13] The executors of his will were Ragnar Sohlman and Rudolf Lilljequist, who formed the Nobel Foundation to take care of Nobel's fortune and organize 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 June 7, the Swedish Academy on June 9, and the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences on June 11.^[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 created statutes were promulgated by King Oscar II.^[13][16][17] According to Nobel's will, the Royal Swedish Academy were to award the Prize in Literature.^[17]

Nomination procedure[link]

Each year the Swedish 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' organizations are all allowed to nominate a candidate. However, it is not permitted to nominate oneself.^[18]

Thousands of requests are sent out each year, and as of 2011^[update] about 220 proposals are returned.^[19] These proposals must be received by the Academy by 1 February, after which they are examined by the Nobel Committee. By April, the Academy narrows the field to around twenty candidates.^[19] By May a short list of five names is approved by the Committee.^[19] The subsequent four months are then spent in reading and reviewing the works of the five candidates.^[19] 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 list at least twice, thus many of the same authors reappear and are reviewed repeatedly over the years.^[19] The academy is master of thirteen languages, but when a candidate is shortlisted from an unknown language, they call on translators and oath-sworn experts to provide samples of that writer.^[19] Other elements of the process is similar to that of other Nobel Prizes.^[20]

Prizes[link]

A Literature Nobel Prize laureate earns a gold medal, a diploma bearing a citation, and a sum of money.^[21] The amount of money awarded depends on the income of the Nobel Foundation that year.^[22] If a prize is awarded to more than one laureate, the money is either split evenly among them or, for three laureates, it may be divided into a half and two quarters.^[23] If a prize is awarded jointly to two or more laureates the money is split among them.^[23]

The prize money of the Nobel Prize has been fluctuating since its inauguration but at present stands at ten million Swedish kronor. (About 1,356,610 USD or 1,067,950 Euros.)^[24] The winner also receives a gold medal and a Nobel diploma and is invited to give a lecture during "Nobel Week" in Stockholm; the highlight is the prize-giving ceremony and banquet on December 10.^[25] It is the richest literary prize in the world by a large margin.

Nobel Prize Medals[link]

The Nobel Prize medals, minted by Myntverket^[26] in Sweden and the Mint of Norway since 1902, are registered trademarks of the Nobel Foundation. Each medal features an image of Alfred Nobel in left profile on the obverse (front side of the medal). The Nobel Prize medals for Physics, Chemistry, Physiology or Medicine, and Literature have identical obverses, showing the image of Alfred Nobel and the years of his birth and death (1833–1896). Nobel's portrait also appears on the obverse of the Nobel Peace Prize medal and the Medal for the Prize in Economics, but with a slightly different design.^[27][28] The image on the reverse of a medal varies according to the institution awarding the prize. The reverse sides of the Nobel Prize medals for Chemistry and Physics share the same design.^[29]

Nobel Prize Diplomas[link]

Nobel laureates receive a Diploma directly from the hands of the King of Sweden. Each Diploma is uniquely designed by the prize-awarding institutions for the laureate that receives it.^[30] The Diploma contains a picture and text which states the name of the laureate and normally a citation of why they received the prize.^[30]

Laureates[link]

Criticism[link]

Controversies about Nobel Laureate selections[link]

From 1901 to 1912, the committee was characterised by an interpretation of the "ideal direction" stated in Nobel's will as "a lofty and sound idealism". This caused Leo Tolstoy, Henrik Ibsen, Émile Zola and Mark Twain to be rejected.^[4] Also, many believe Sweden's historic antipathy towards Russia is the reason neither Tolstoy nor Anton Chekhov was awarded the prize. During World War I and its immediate aftermath, the committee adopted a policy of neutrality, favouring writers from non-combatant countries.^[4] August Strindberg was repeatedly bypassed by the committee, but 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 minister Hjalmar Branting.^[32][33][34]

The academy considered Czech writer Karel Čapek's War With the Newts too offensive to the German government. He also declined to suggest some noncontroversial publication that could be cited as an example of his work, stating "Thank you for the good will, but I have already written my doctoral dissertation".^[35] He was thus denied the prize.

According to Swedish Academy archives studied by the newspaper Le Monde on their opening in 2008, French novelist and intellectual André Malraux was seriously considered for the prize in the 1950s. Malraux was competing with Albert Camus, but was rejected several times, especially in 1954 and 1955, "so long as he does not come back to novel". Thus, Camus won the prize in 1957.^[36]

Some attribute W. H. Auden's not being awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature to errors in his translation of 1961 Peace Prize winner Dag Hammarskjöld's Vägmärken (Markings)^[37] and to statements that Auden made during a Scandinavian lecture tour suggesting that Hammarskjöld was, like Auden, homosexual.^[38]

In 1964 Jean-Paul Sartre was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature, but he declined it, stating that "It is not the same thing if I sign Jean-Paul Sartre or if I sign Jean-Paul Sartre, Nobel Prize winner. A writer must refuse to allow himself to be transformed into an institution, even if it takes place in the most honorable form."

Soviet dissident writer Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, the 1970 prize winner, did not attend the Nobel Prize ceremony in Stockholm for fear that the U.S.S.R. would prevent his return afterwards (his works there were circulated in samizdat—clandestine form). After the Swedish government refused to honor Solzhenitsyn with a public award ceremony and lecture at its Moscow embassy, Solzhenitsyn refused the award altogether, commenting that the conditions set by the Swedes (who preferred a private ceremony) were "an insult to the Nobel Prize itself." Solzhenitsyn did not accept the award, and prize money, until 10 December 1974, after he was deported from the Soviet Union.^[39]

In 1974 Graham Greene, Vladimir Nabokov, and Saul Bellow were considered but rejected in favor of a joint award for Swedish authors Eyvind Johnson and Harry Martinson, both Nobel judges themselves, and unknown outside their home country. Bellow would win the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1976; neither Greene nor Nabokov was awarded the Prize.^[40]

Argentine writer Jorge Luis Borges was nominated for the Prize several times but, as Edwin Williamson, Borges's biographer, states, the Academy did not award it to him, most likely because of his support of certain Argentine and Chilean right-wing military dictators, including Pinochet, which, according to Tóibín's review of Williamson's Borges: A Life, had complex social and personal contexts.^[41] Borges' failure to win the Nobel Prize for his support of these right-wing dictators contrasts with the Committee honoring writers who openly supported controversial left-wing dictatorships, including Joseph Stalin, in the case of Sartre and Neruda.^[42][43]

The award to Italian performance artist Dario Fo in 1997 was initially considered "rather lightweight"^[44] by some critics, as he was seen primarily as a performer and Catholic organizations saw the award to Dario Fo as controversial as he had previously been censured by the Roman Catholic Church.^[45] The Vatican newspaper L'Osservatore Romano expressed surprise at Fo's selection for the prize commenting that "Giving the prize to someone who is also the author of questionable works is beyond all imagination."^[46] Salman Rushdie and Arthur Miller had been strongly favoured to receive the Prize, but the Nobel organisers were later quoted as saying that they would have been "too predictable, too popular."^[47]

Camilo José Cela willingly offered his services as an informer for Franco's regime and had moved voluntarily from Madrid to Galicia during the Spanish Civil War in order to join the rebel forces there; an article by Miguel Angel Villena, Between Fear and Impunity which compiled commentaries by Spanish novelists on the noteworthy silence of the older generation of Spanish novelists on the Francoist pasts of public intellectuals appeared below a photograph of Cela during the Nobel ceremony in Stockholm in 1989. ^[48]

There was also criticism of the academy's refusal to express support for Salman Rushdie in 1989, after Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini issued a fatwa calling for Rushdie to be killed. Two members of the Academy even resigned over its refusal to support Rushdie.^[49][50]

The choice of the 2004 winner, Elfriede Jelinek, was protested by a member of the Swedish Academy, Knut Ahnlund, who had not played an active role in the Academy since 1996; Ahnlund resigned, alleging that selecting Jelinek had caused "irreparable damage" to the reputation of the award.^[49][50]

The selection of Harold Pinter for the Prize in 2005 was delayed for a couple of days, apparently due to Ahnlund's resignation, and led to renewed speculations about there being a "political element" in the Swedish Academy's awarding of the Prize.^[6] Although Pinter was unable to give his controversial Nobel Lecture in person because of ill health, he delivered it from a television studio on video projected on screens to an audience at the Swedish Academy, in Stockholm. His comments have been the source of much commentary and debate. The issue of their "political stance" was also raised in response to the awards of the Nobel Prize in Literature to Orhan Pamuk and Doris Lessing in 2006 and 2007, respectively.^[51]

Eurocentrism[link]

The heavy focus on European authors, and authors from Sweden in particular, has been the subject of mounting criticism, even from major Swedish newspapers.^[52] The absolute majority of the laureates have been European, with Sweden itself receiving more prizes than all of Asia, as well as all of Latin America. In 2008, Horace Engdahl, then the permanent secretary of the Academy, declared that "Europe still is the center 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."^[53] 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."^[54] American critics in particular have objected that famous American authors such as Philip Roth, Cormac McCarthy, Don DeLillo or Thomas Pynchon have not yet been awarded, while lesser-known European authors have been taken into account. The 2009 award to Herta Müller, previously little-known outside (and even inside) Germany but many times named favorite for the Nobel Prize, has re-ignited criticism that the award committee is biased and Eurocentric.^[55] However, the 2010 prize was awarded to Mario Vargas Llosa, a native of Peru in South America. After the 2011 award was awarded to Swedish poet Tomas Tranströmer, permanent secretary of the Swedish Academy Peter Englund said it was not awarded based on politics, describing such a notion as “literature for dummies”.^[56]

Overlooked literary achievements[link]

In the history of the Nobel Prize in Literature, many literary achievements were overlooked or not recognized as such, often for political reasons, due to the lack of available translations, and ethnocentric bias. The literary historian Kjell Espmark admitted that "as to the early prizes, the censure of bad choices and blatant omissions is often justified. Tolstoy, Ibsen and Henry James should have been rewarded instead of, for instance, Sully Prudhomme, Eucken and Heyse"^[57]. While controversy sparked by blatant omissions is understandable, there are omissions which are beyond the control of the Nobel Committee such as the early death of an author as was the case with Marcel Proust and Roberto Bolaño. According to Kjell Espmark "the main works of Kafka, Cavafy, and Pessoa were not published until after their deaths and the true dimensions of Mandelstam'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"^[58]. British novelist Tim 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"^[59] 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?"^[60]

This section may contain original research. Please improve it by verifying the claims made and adding references. Statements consisting only of original research may be removed. More details may be available on the talk page. (May 2012)

List of notable and controversial omissions:

1. Herbert Spencer (1820-1903, English), nominated 1 time^[61]
2. Jules Verne (1828-1905, French)^[62], not nominated
3. Henrik Ibsen (1828-1906, Norwegian)^[63], nominated 3 times^[64]
4. Leo Tolstoy (1828-1910, Russian)^[65], nominated 17 times^[66]
5. Wilhelm Busch (1832-1908, German)^[67], not nominated
6. Mark Twain (1835-1910, American)^[68][69], not nominated
7. Machado de Assis (1839-1908, Brazilian), not nominated
8. Émile Zola (1840-1902, French), nominated 2 times by Marcellin Berthelot^[70]
9. Thomas Hardy (1840-1928, English), nominated 16 times^[71]
10. Henry James (1843-1916, American-British), nominated 4 times^[72]
11. Kurd Laßwitz (1848-1910, German), not nominated
12. Octave Mirbeau (1848-1917, French), not nominated
13. August Strindberg (1849-1912, Swedish), not nominated
14. Sigmund Freud (1856-1939, Austrian)^[73], nominated 1 time by Romain Rolland in 1936^[74]
15. Joseph Conrad (1857-1924, Polish-English), not nominated
16. John Dewey (1859-1952, American), nominated 1 time^[75]
17. Anton Chekhov (1860-1904, Russian), not nominated
18. Theodor Herzl (1860-1904, Austro-Hungarian-Jewish), not nominated
19. Arthur Schnitzler (1862-1931, Austrian), not nominated
20. Constantine P. Cavafy (1863-1933, Greek), not nominated
21. George Santayana (1863-1952, Spanish-American), nominated 2 times^[76]
22. Frank Wedekind (1864-1918, German), not nominated
23. Miguel de Unamuno (1864-1936, Spanish), nominated 5 times^[77]
24. H. G. Wells (1866-1946, English)^[78], nominated 4 times^[79]
25. Rubén Darío (1867-1916, Nicaraguan)^[80], not nominated
26. Maxim Gorky (1868-1936, Russian), nominated 5 times^[81]
27. Marcel Proust (1871-1922, French), not nominated
28. Paul Valéry (1871-1945, French), nominated 27 times^[82]
29. Willa Cather (1873-1947, American), not nominated
30. Hugo von Hofmannsthal (1874-1929, Austrian), nominated 4 times^[83]
31. Robert Frost (1874-1963, American), nominated 1 time (until 1950)^[84]
32. Rainer Maria Rilke (1875-1926, Bohemian-Austrian), not nominated
33. Antonio Machado^[85] (1875-1939, Spanish), not nominated
34. Júlio Dantas (1876-1962, Portuguese), nominated 1 time (until 1950)^[86]
35. Teixeira de Pascoaes (1877-1952, Portuguese), nominated 5 times (until 1950)^[87]
36. Martin Buber (1878-1965, Austrian-Israeli), nominated 1 time (until 1950)^[88]
37. António Correia de Oliveira (1879-1960, Portuguese), nominated 15 times (until 1950)^[89]
38. E.M. Forster (1879-1970, English), nominated 3 times (until 1950)^[90]
39. Robert Musil (1880-1942, Austrian), not nominated
40. Lu Xun (1881-1936, Chinese), not nominated
41. Stefan Zweig (1881-1942, Austrian), not nominated
42. James Joyce (1882-1941, Irish), not nominated
43. Virginia Woolf (1882-1941, English), not nominated
44. Jaroslav Hašek (1883-1923, Czech), not nominated
45. Franz Kafka (1883-1924, Austrian-Hungarian), not nominated
46. José Ortega y Gasset (1883-1955, Spanish), nominated 1 time (until 1950)^[91]
47. Nikos Kazantzakis (1883-1957, Greek), nominated 2 times (until 1950)^[92]
48. Yevgeny Zamyatin (1884-1937, Russian), not nominated
49. D.H. Lawrence (1885-1930, English), not nominated
50. Karen Blixen (1885-1962, Danish), nominated 1 time (until 1950)^[93]
51. Ezra Pound (1885-1972, American), not nominated (until 1950)
52. Olaf Stapledon (1886-1950, British), not nominated
53. Fernando Pessoa (1888-1935, Portuguese), not nominated
54. Giuseppe Ungaretti (1888-1970, Italian), not nominated (until 1950)
55. Anna Akhmatova (1889-1966, Russian), not nominated (until 1950)
56. Karel Čapek (1890-1938, Czech), nominated 7 times^[94]
57. Osip Mandelstam (1891-1938, Russian), not nominated
58. Henry Miller (1891-1980, American), not nominated (until 1950)
59. J.R.R. Tolkien (1892-1973, English), not nominated (until 1950)
60. Hans Fallada (1893-1947, German), nominated 2 times^[95]
61. Aldous Huxley (1894-1963, English), nominated 2 times (until 1950)^[96]
62. Lin Yutang (1895-1976, Chinese), nominated 3 times (until 1950)^[97]
63. F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896-1940, American), not nominated
64. Mao Dun (1896-1981, Chinese), not nominated (until 1950)
65. Federico García Lorca (1898-1936, Spanish), not nominated
66. Bertold Brecht (1898-1956, German), not nominated (until 1950)
67. Erich Maria Remarque (1898-1970, German), nominated 1 time (until 1950)^[98]
68. Lao She (1899-1966, Chinese), not nominated (until 1950)
69. Vladimir Nabokov (1899-1977, Russian), not nominated (until 1950)
70. Jorge Luis Borges (1899-1986, Argentine), not nominated (until 1950)
71. André Malraux (1901-1976, French), nominated 3 times (until 1950)^[99]
72. Carlos Drummond de Andrade (1902-1987, Brazilian), not nominated (until 1950)
73. George Orwell (1903-1950, English), not nominated
74. Evelyn Waugh (1903-1966, English), not nominated (until 1950)
75. Witold Gombrowicz (1904-1969, Polish), not nominated (until 1950)
76. Alejo Carpentier (1904-1980, Cuban), not nominated (until 1950)
77. Graham Greene (1904-1991, English), nominated 2 times (until 1950)
78. Ba Jin (1904-2005, Chinese), not nominated (until 1950)
79. Érico Veríssimo (1905-1975, Brazilian), not nominated (until 1950)
80. R. K. Narayan (1906-2001, Indian)^[100], not nominated (until 1950)
81. W. H. Auden (1907-1973, British-American), not nominated (until 1950)
82. Alberto Moravia (1907-1990, Italian), nominated 1 time (until 1950)^[101]
83. Yasushi Inoue (1907-1991, Japanese), not nominated (until 1950)
84. Miguel Torga (1907-1995, Portuguese), not nominated (until 1950)
85. João Guimarães Rosa (1908-1967, Brazilian), not nominated (until 1950)
86. Simone de Beauvoir (1908-1986, French), not nominated (until 1950)
87. Eugène Ionesco (1909-1994, Romanian-French), not nominated (until 1950)
88. Juan Carlos Onetti (1909-1994, Uruguayan)^[102], not nominated (until 1950)
89. Jean Genet (1910-1986, French), not nominated (until 1950)
90. Max Frisch (1911-1991, Swiss), not nominated (until 1950)
91. Nelson Rodrigues (1912-1980, Brazilian), not nominated (until 1950)
92. Lawrence Durrell (1912-1990, British), not nominated (until 1950)
93. Jorge Amado (1912-2001, Brazilian), not nominated (until 1950)
94. Vinicius de Moraes (1913-1980, Brazilian), not nominated (until 1950)
95. Julio Cortázar (1914-1984, Argentine), not nominated (until 1950)
96. Arthur Miller (1915-2005, American), not nominated (until 1950)
97. Vergílio Ferreira (1916-1996, Portuguese), not nominated (until 1950)
98. Iris Murdoch (1919-1999, Irish-British)^[103], not nominated (until 1950)
99. Sophia de Mello Breyner Andresen (1919-2004, Portuguese), not nominated (until 1950)
100. Paul Celan (1920-1970, Romanian-French), not nominated (until 1950)
101. Clarice Lispector (1920-1977, Brazilian), not nominated (until 1950)
102. Isaac Asimov (1920-1992, American), not nominated (until 1950)
103. Friedrich Dürrenmatt (1921-1990, Swiss), not nominated (until 1950)
104. João Cabral de Melo Neto (1920-1999, Brazilian), not nominated (until 1950)
105. Stanisław Lem (1921-2006, Polish), not nominated (until 1950)
106. Kurt Vonnegut (1922-2007, American), not nominated (until 1950)
107. Italo Calvino (1923-1985, Italian), not nominated (until 1950)
108. James Baldwin (1924-1987, American), not nominated (until 1950)
109. Kōbō Abe (1924-1993, Japanese), not nominated (until 1950)
110. Josef Škvorecký (1924-2012, Czech), not nominated (until 1950)
111. Pramoedya Ananta Toer (1925-2006, Indonesian), not nominated (until 1950)
112. Yukio Mishima (1925-1970, Japanese), not nominated (until 1950)
113. Harry Mulisch (1927-2010, Dutch), not nominated (until 1950)
114. Carlos Fuentes (1928-2012, Mexican), not nominated (until 1950)
115. Guillermo Cabrera Infante (1929-2005, Cuban), not nominated (until 1950)
116. Christa Wolf (1929-2011, German)^[104], not nominated (until 1950)
117. Jacques Derrida (1930-2004, French)^[105], not nominated (until 1950)
118. Thomas Bernhard (1931-1989, Austrian), not nominated (until 1950)
119. Mordecai Richler (1931-2001, Canadian)^[106], not nominated (until 1950)
120. Ryszard Kapuściński (1932-2007, Polish), not nominated (until 1950)
121. John Updike (1932-2009, American)^[107] , not nominated (until 1950)
122. Inger Christensen (1935-2009, Danish)^[108]
123. Václav Havel (1936-2011, Czech)^[109]
124. Antonio Tabucchi (1943-2012, Italian)^[110]
125. W. G. Sebald (1944-2001, German)^[111]
126. Roberto Bolaño (1953-2003, Chilean)^[112]

Similar international prizes[link]

The Nobel Prize in Literature is not the only literary prize for which all nationalities are eligible. Other notable international literary prizes include the Neustadt International Prize for Literature, the Franz Kafka Prize, and the Man Booker International Prize. In contrary to the Nobel Prize in Literature and the Franz Kafka Prize, the Neustadt International Prize and Man Booker International Prize are awarded bienially. The journalist Hephzibah Anderson has noted that the Man Booker International Prize "is fast becoming the more significant award, appearing an ever more competent alternative to the Nobel"^[113]. The Neustadt International Prize for Literature is regarded as one of the most prestigious international literary prizes, often referred to as the American equivalent to the Nobel^[114].

• Neustadt International Prize for Literature (since 1970, biennial)
• Franz Kafka Prize (since 2001, annual)
• Man Booker International Prize (since 2005, biennial)

Nobel and Neustadt Laureates Comparison[link]

The Neustadt International Prize for Literature is widely considered to be the most prestigious international literary prize after the Nobel Prize in Literature.^[115] Like the Nobel or the Man Booker International 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.

Potential candidates for the Nobel Prize in Literature[link]

This article may contain unsourced predictions, speculative material or accounts of events that might not occur. Please help improve it by removing unsourced speculative content. (May 2012)

Potential winners of the Nobel Prize in Literature are difficult to predict as nominations are kept secret for fifty years until they are publicly available at the The Nomination Database for the Nobel Prize in Literature. Currently, only nominations submitted during the years 1901 and 1950 are available for public viewing^[116]. This secrecy has led to speculations about the next Nobel laureate. The following is a list of well-known and lesser known writers whose literary work has generated enough verifiable media attention in journals, newspapers and the blogosphere to be potential future Nobel Prize winners.

Born between 1910-1919[link]

1. Nicanor Parra (born September 5, 1914, Chilean)^[117]

Born between 1920-1929[link]

1. Ray Bradbury (born August 22, 1920, American)^[118]
2. Lygia Fagundes Telles (born April 19, 1923, Brazilian), Camões Prize 2005
3. Yves Bonnefoy (born June 24, 1923, French)^[119], Franz Kafka Prize 2007
4. Álvaro Mutis (born August 25, 1923, Colombian)^[120][121], Neustadt International Prize for Literature 2002
5. Yaşar Kemal (born October 6, 1923, Turkish)
6. Claribel Alegría (born May 12, 1924, Nicaraguan), Neustadt International Prize for Literature 2006
7. Michel Tournier (born December 19, 1924, French)
8. Siegfried Lenz (born March 17, 1926, German)
9. John Ashbery (born July 28, 1927, American)
10. Milan Kundera (born April 1, 1929, Czech-French)
11. George Steiner (born April 23, 1929, French-American)
12. Ursula K. Le Guin (born October 21, 1929, American)
13. Adunis (born January 1, 1930, Syrian)^[122]

Born between 1930-1939[link]

1. Ferreira Gullar (born September 10, 1930, Brazilian)^[123], Camões Prize 2010
2. Chinua Achebe (born November 16, 1930, Nigerian), Man Booker International Prize 2007
3. E. L. Doctorow (born January 6, 1931, American)
4. Tom Wolfe (born March 2, 1931, American)
5. Gene Wolfe (born May 7, 1931, American)
6. Alice Munro (born July 10, 1931, Canadian)^[124], Man Booker International Prize 2009
7. Umberto Eco (born January 5, 1932, Italian)
8. Juan Marsé (born January 8, 1933, Spanish)^[125]
9. Philip Roth (born March 19, 1933, American), Franz Kafka Prize 2001, Man Booker International Prize 2011
10. Cormac McCarthy (born July 20, 1933, American)
11. Cees Nooteboom (born July 31, 1933, Dutch)
12. Ko Un (born August 1, 1933, South Korean)
13. David Malouf (born March 20, 1934, Australian), Neustadt International Prize for Literature 2000
14. Leonard Cohen (born September 21, 1934, Canadian)^[126]
15. Thomas Keneally (born October 7, 1935, Australian)
16. Ismail Kadare (born January 28, 1936, Albanian), Man Booker International Prize 2005
17. Assia Djebar (born June 30, 1936, Algerian), Neustadt International Prize for Literature 1996
18. Don DeLillo (born November 20, 1936, American)
19. A. B. Yehoshua (born December 19, 1936, Israeli)
20. Thomas Pynchon (born May 8, 1937, American)
21. Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o (born January 5, 1938, Kenyan)
22. Charles Simic (born May 9, 1938, Serbian-American)
23. Joyce Carol Oates (born June 16, 1938, American)
24. Les Murray (born October 17, 1938, Australian)
25. Claudio Magris (born April 10, 1939, Italian)
26. Amos Oz (born May 4, 1939, Israeli)
27. Margaret Atwood (born November 18, 1939, Canadian)

Born between 1940-1949[link]

1. João Ubaldo Ribeiro (born January 23, 1941, Brazilian), Camões Prize 2008
2. Bob Dylan (born May 24, 1941, American)^[127]
3. António Lobo Antunes (born September 1, 1942, Portuguese), Camões Prize 2007
4. Péter Nádas (born October 14, 1942, Hungarian), Franz Kafka Prize 2003
5. Peter Handke (born December 6, 1942, Austrian), Franz Kafka Prize 2009
6. Peter Carey (born May 7, 1943, Australian)
7. Michael Ondaatje (born September 12, 1943, Sri Lankan-Canadian)
8. Bernhard Schlink (born July 6, 1944, German)
9. Tahar Ben Jelloun (born December 1, 1944, Moroccan)
10. Adam Zagajewski (born June 21, 1945, Polish), Neustadt International Prize for Literature 2004
11. Patrick Modiano (born July 30, 1945, French)
12. Nuruddin Farah (born November 24, 1945, Somali), Neustadt International Prize for Literature 1998
13. John Banville (born December 8, 1945, Irish)^{[128][129][130]}, Franz Kafka Prize 2011
14. Paul Auster (born February 3, 1947, American)
15. Salman Rushdie (born June 19, 1947, British-Indian)
16. Ian McEwan (born June 21, 1948, British)
17. Haruki Murakami (born January 12, 1949, Japanese), Franz Kafka Prize 2006
18. César Aira (born February 23, 1949, Argentine)^[131]
19. Amin Maalouf (born February 25, 1949, Lebanese-French)
20. Patrick Süskind (born March 26, 1949, German)
21. Bei Dao (born August 2, 1949, Chinese)^[132][133]

Born between 1950-1959[link]

1. Péter Esterházy (born April 14, 1950, Hungarian)^[134]
2. Javier Marías (born September 20, 1951, Spanish)^[135]
3. Mo Yan (born February 17, 1955, Chinese)^[136]

See also[link]

• List of literary awards
• List of Nobel laureates
• List of Nobel laureates in Literature
• Nobel Library
• Swedish Academy Nordic Prize

References[link]