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). 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. 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". 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. 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. 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.

A Nobel Committee is the working body responsible for the most of the work involved in selecting Nobel Prize laureates. There are five Nobel Committees, one for each Nobel Prize.

The Nobel Committees for four of the prizes, physics, chemistry, physiology or medicine, and literature, are working bodies within their prize awarding institutions, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, Karolinska Institutet, and the Swedish Academy. These four Nobel Committees only propose laureates, while the final decision is taken in a larger assembly: the entire academy for the prizes in physics, chemistry, and literature, and the 50 members of the Nobel Assembly at the Karolinska Institute for the prize in physiology or medicine.

The fifth Nobel Committee, the Norwegian Nobel Committee responsible for the Nobel Peace Prize, has a different status since it is both the working body and the deciding body for its prize.

The work involved in selecting laurates for the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel, is done in the same way as for the five Nobel Prizes. The corresponding committee is called the Committee for the Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel.

After his death in 1896, the will of Swedish industrialist Alfred Nobel established the Nobel Prizes. This specified that annual prizes are to be awarded for service to humanity in the fields of physics, chemistry, physiology or medicine, literature, and peace. Similarly, the Bank of Sweden Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel is awarded along with the Nobel Prizes. Since the first award in 1901, the prizes have engendered criticism and controversy.

Nobel sought to reward "those who, during the preceding year, shall have conferred the greatest benefit on mankind". One prize, he stated, should be given "to the person who shall have made the most important 'discovery' or 'invention' within the field of physics". Awards committees have historically rewarded discoveries over inventions: 77% of Nobel Prizes in physics have been given to discoveries, compared with only 23% to inventions. In addition, the scientific prizes typically reward contributions over an entire career rather than a single year.