The Nobel Prize in Literature (Swedish: Nobelpriset i litteratur) is a prize given each year to an author from any country. The prize is awarded to someone who, as Alfred Nobel stated, has created the most remarkable work in literature that inspires or benefits others. While some of an author’s individual works may be especially important, the prize is based on their complete body of work. The Swedish Academy chooses the winner, or decides not to give the prize that year.
The academy announces the winner’s name in early October. This prize is one of five Nobel Prizes created by Alfred Nobel’s will in 1895. The Nobel Prize in Literature is usually the last award given during the Nobel Prize ceremony. Occasionally, the award is delayed until the next year, most recently in 2018.
Background
Alfred Nobel said in his final will and testament that his money should be used to create a series of prizes for people who provide the "greatest benefit to humanity" in physics, chemistry, peace, physiology or medicine, and literature. Although Nobel wrote several wills during his life, the last one was written more than a year before his death. It was signed at the Swedish-Norwegian Club in Paris on November 27, 1895. Nobel left 94% of his total wealth, 31 million Swedish kronor (equivalent to about $198 million or €176 million in 2016), to create and fund the five Nobel Prizes. Because many people doubted the will, it was not approved by the Storting (Norwegian Parliament) until April 26, 1897. The people in charge of carrying out his will, Ragnar Sohlman and Rudolf Lilljequist, formed the Nobel Foundation to manage his money and organize the prizes.
Members of the Norwegian Nobel Committee, who would later award the Peace Prize, were chosen soon after the will was approved. Other organizations responsible for awarding the prizes were also selected: the Karolinska Institutet on June 7, the Swedish Academy on June 9, and the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences on June 11. The Nobel Foundation then created rules about how the Nobel Prizes should be given. In 1900, the new rules of the Nobel Foundation were officially announced by King Oscar II. According to Nobel’s will, the literature prize should be decided by "the Academy in Stockholm," which the Nobel Foundation’s rules later clarified to mean the Swedish Academy.
Nomination and award procedure
Each year, the Swedish Academy asks people to suggest names for the Nobel Prize in Literature. People who can nominate include members of the Academy, members of literature groups, professors of literature and language, former Nobel Prize winners, and leaders of writers’ organizations. A person cannot nominate themselves.
From 1901 to 1950, about 20 to 35 nominations were received each year. Since then, thousands of requests are sent out yearly. By 2011, about 220 nominations were received. These must reach the Academy by February 1. After that, a group called the Nobel Committee, made up of four to five members, reviews the nominations. By April, the committee shortens the list to about 20 names. By May, the Academy approves a shortlist of five names. For the next four months, members of the Academy read and study the works of these five candidates. In October, the Academy votes, and the person who gets more than half the votes becomes the Nobel laureate. To win, a person must appear on the shortlist at least twice. This means some authors are reviewed many times over the years.
If a candidate’s work is in a language no Academy member knows, translators and experts are asked to provide samples. Other steps in the process are similar to those for other Nobel Prizes. The Swedish Academy has 18 members who are elected for life. Until 2018, members could not leave the Academy. In 2018, rules changed to allow members to resign. Members who are inactive for more than two years can also be asked to leave. Nobel Committee members are chosen from the Academy and work with special advisers.
The prize is usually announced in October. Sometimes, it is announced the next year. For example, the 2018 prize was announced in 2019 because of problems with the Academy. In 1949, no candidate got enough votes, so the prize was given the next year.
Between 1901 and 1970, some nominations were removed or not saved in the Academy’s records. In 1911, a nomination for August Strindberg was late and not saved. In 1904, nominations for José Echegaray and Rudyard Kipling were delayed, but the Nobel Committee kept them for 1904 instead of moving them to 1905.
Nine times, nominations were declared invalid. Names like Pedro Pablo Figueroa, Max Haushofer Jr., William Booth, and Armando Alvares Pedroso were removed because their nominators were not allowed to nominate. Other names, such as Ernest Lavisse (1911) and Teixeira de Pascoaes (1945), were also removed. A self-nomination by John Macmillan Brown, using the name "Godfrey Sweven," was invalid because people cannot nominate themselves.
In 1944, the Permanent Secretary of the Swedish Academy, Anders Österling, told the New York Times that Willa Cather, along with others, was considered for the prize. However, her name was not in the Academy’s records. The prize that year went to Johannes V. Jensen.
Over time, the names of writers nominated between 1901 and 1975 have revealed interesting facts about the Nobel Prize in Literature.
Prizes
A Nobel Prize winner in Literature receives a gold medal, a diploma with a special message, and a cash prize. The amount of money depends on how much the Nobel Foundation earns each year. The Literature Prize can be shared between two people, but not three. If two people share the prize, they each receive the same amount of money.
The prize money has changed over time. In 2012, it was about 8,000,000 Swedish kronor (about 1,100,000 US dollars). Before that, it was 10,000,000 kronor. This was not the first time the amount was reduced. When the prize started in 1901, the value was 150,782 kronor (equivalent to 8,123,951 kronor in 2011). In 1945, the value dropped to 121,333 kronor (equivalent to 2,370,660 kronor in 2011). However, since then, the prize money has increased or stayed the same, reaching a high of 11,659,016 kronor in 2001 (equivalent to 2011 kronor).
The winner is invited to speak during "Nobel Week" in Stockholm. The most important event is the ceremony and banquet on December 10. The Literature Prize is the third wealthiest literary award in the world.
The medal has a portrait of Alfred Nobel on one side, created by Erik Lindberg. The other side shows a young man sitting under a laurel tree, listening to a Muse and writing down her song. The medal has the Latin phrase "Inventas vitam iuvat excoluisse per artes," which means "It is beneficial to have improved life through discovered arts." This phrase is based on a line from the Roman poet Virgil’s Aeneid. The medal also includes the winner’s name and the words "ACAD. SUEC." to show it is made by the Swedish Academy.
From 1902 to 2010, the medals were made by the Swedish royal mint, Myntverket, in Eskilstuna. In 2011, the medals were produced by Det Norske Myntverket in Kongsberg. Since 2012, Svenska Medalj in Eskilstuna has made the medals.
Each winner receives a diploma directly from the King of Sweden. The diploma is designed by the awarding institution and includes a picture and text that lists the winner’s name and usually explains why they received the prize.
Laureates
The Nobel Prize in Literature has been given 116 times between 1901 and 2024 to 121 people: 103 men and 18 women. The prize has been shared between two people on four occasions. It was not given on seven occasions. The winners have written in 25 languages. The youngest winner was Rudyard Kipling, who was 41 years old when he received the prize in 1907. The oldest winner was Doris Lessing, who was 88 when she received the prize in 2007. The prize was given to one person after they died: Erik Axel Karlfeldt in 1931. At times, the awarding group, the Swedish Academy, gave 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 to Eyvind Johnson and Harry Martinson in 1974. Selma Lagerlöf became a member of the Swedish Academy in 1914, five years after she won the prize in 1909. Three writers refused the prize: Erik Axel Karlfeldt in 1919, Boris Pasternak in 1958 (who was pressured by his country’s government to decline), and Jean-Paul Sartre in 1964.
Alfred Nobel’s rules for the prize stated that the winner should have helped people the most and written in a way that promotes good ideas. In the early years, Nobel’s “idealism” was seen as “a strong and sound idealism.” The rules, which valued traditions like church, state, and family, led to prizes for Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson, Rudyard Kipling, and Paul Heyse. During World War I, the prize avoided taking sides, which explains why many winners were from Scandinavian countries. In the 1920s, “idealistic direction” was interpreted as “kindness to all people,” leading to prizes for Anatole France, George Bernard Shaw, and Thomas Mann. In the 1930s, “the greatest benefit on mankind” was seen as writers who could reach many people, including Sinclair Lewis and Pearl Buck. In 1946, the Academy changed focus and began giving prizes to literary pioneers like Hermann Hesse, André Gide, T. S. Eliot, and William Faulkner. During this time, “the greatest benefit on mankind” was interpreted both narrowly and broadly. Since the 1970s, the Academy has often recognized important but unknown writers, such as Elias Canetti and Jaroslav Seifert.
Starting in 1986, the Academy followed Alfred Nobel’s wish to ignore the nationality of candidates and gave prizes to writers worldwide, including Wole 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 winner), Kenzaburo Oe from Japan, and Gao Xingjian (the first winner who wrote in Chinese). In the 2000s, V. S. Naipaul, Mario Vargas Llosa, and Chinese writer Mo Yan won, but the Academy mostly continued to award European and English-language writers. In 2015, a rare prize was given to a non-fiction writer, Svetlana Alexievich.
The Nobel Prize in Literature can be shared between two people. However, the Academy rarely gives shared prizes, as they might seem like compromises. Shared prizes given in 1904 (Frédéric Mistral and José Echegaray) and 1917 (Karl Gjellerup and Henrik Pontoppidan) were compromises. Shared prizes are rare, with only two more in recent years: Shmuel Yosef Agnon and Nelly Sachs in 1966, and Eyvind Johnson and Harry Martinson in 1974.
Nobel Prize winners are honored for their lifetime work, but sometimes the Academy highlights a specific book. For example, Knut Hamsun won in 1920 for his book Growth of the Soil; Thomas Mann in 1929 for Buddenbrooks; John Galsworthy in 1932 for The Forsyte Saga; Roger Martin du Gard in 1937 for Les Thibault; Ernest Hemingway in 1954 for The Old Man and the Sea; and Mikhail Sholokhov in 1965 for his work about Russian history.
Nominations for the prize are kept secret for at least 50 years before being made public. As of 2025, only nominations from 1901 to 1973 are available for viewing.
Rumors about people being nominated for the prize this year are either false or based on leaked information. Since nominations are secret for 50 years, the truth will not be known until then.
Nominated candidates are usually considered for years, but some have won after just one nomination. These include Sully Prudhomme (1901), Theodor Mommsen (1902), Rudolf Eucken (1908), Paul Heyse (1910), Rabindranath Tagore (1913), Sinclair Lewis (1930), Luigi Pirandello (1934), Pearl Buck (1938), William Faulkner (1950), and Bertrand Russell (1950).
Former winners can nominate others, and some of their suggestions have won. For example, Gerhart Hauptmann nominated Verner von Heidenstam (1
Media attention
The Nobel Prize in Literature has always received a lot of attention from newspapers and other media. The first prize, given in 1901, was reported in hundreds of newspapers around the world. The prizes awarded to Rudyard Kipling in 1907 and Rabindranath Tagore in 1913 helped make the prize an important part of world literature. After World War II, the prize received even more intense media coverage, with dramatic news reports and detailed comments from people around the globe. This further strengthened its role in the world of literature. Before the announcement of the Nobel laureate in Literature each year, the media often guesses who might win. Choices that cause controversy or surprise have frequently led to a lot of discussion in the media.
Criticism
The Nobel Prize in Literature is considered one of the most important literary awards in the world. However, the Swedish Academy, which selects the winners, has faced many criticisms. Some famous authors who have won the prize are no longer well-known, while others who were not chosen are still widely read and studied. Joseph Epstein, writing in the Wall Street Journal, noted that many great writers, such as Leo Tolstoy, Henry James, Anton Chekhov, and Mark Twain, were never awarded the prize. Other important writers from non-Western countries, like Sri Aurobindo and Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan, were nominated multiple times but never won. Some people believe the prize has become more political than literary, with judges favoring authors who share their views. Tim Parks has questioned whether Swedish professors can fairly compare works from different languages and cultures. As of 2021, only 16 of the 118 Nobel Prize winners were from Scandinavian countries. The Swedish Academy has often been accused of favoring European and especially Swedish authors.
The prize’s rules, written by Alfred Nobel, are unclear, leading to debates over what "ideal" means. Originally, the word "idealisk" in Swedish translates to "ideal." Over time, the committee has interpreted this term differently, often focusing on works that promote human rights. From 1901 to 1912, the committee, led by Carl David af Wirsén, chose winners based on how their work helped humanity reach the "ideal." Writers like Leo Tolstoy and Mark Twain were not chosen, while other authors who are not widely read today were awarded the prize.
In later years, the Nobel Prize has been controversial due to the Swedish Academy’s choices, which often favor European authors or are influenced by politics. This happened in 1970, 2005, and 2019. In 1974, the Academy was criticized for awarding the prize to its own members. Most winners have been European, with Sweden receiving more prizes than all of Asia and Latin America combined. In 2009, Horace Engdahl, then the Academy’s leader, said Europe is still the center of the literary world and that the United States is too isolated. His successor, Peter Englund, later admitted the prize has a Eurocentric bias, saying the Academy relates more easily to European literature. American and Latin American writers, such as Philip Roth, Jorge Luis Borges, and Julio Cortázar, have been overlooked, while less-known European authors have won.
In 2010, the prize was awarded to Mario Vargas Llosa, a Peruvian writer, which was generally seen as a good choice. In 2011, the prize went to Tomas Tranströmer, a Swedish poet. Peter Englund said the decision was not based on politics. The next two prizes were given to non-Europeans: Mo Yan from China and Alice Munro from Canada. When Patrick Modiano won in 2014, questions about Eurocentrism arose again. Englund reminded critics that the Academy focuses on literary quality and cannot reward every deserving writer.
Similar international prizes
The Nobel Prize in Literature is not the only literary prize open to all nationalities. Other important international literary prizes include the Neustadt International Prize for Literature, the Jerusalem Prize, the Franz Kafka Prize, the International Booker Prize, and the Formentor Prix International. A journalist named Hephzibah Anderson said the International Booker Prize "is becoming more important, serving as a strong alternative to the Nobel." Since 2016, the International Booker Prize recognizes a book of fiction translated into English each year. Past winners of the International Booker Prize who later won the Nobel Prize in Literature include Alice Munro, Olga Tokarczuk, and Han Kang. The Neustadt International Prize for Literature is considered one of the most important international literary prizes. It is often called the American version of the Nobel Prize. Like the Nobel Prize, it is given not for one work but for an entire body of work. It is often seen as a sign that someone might later win the Nobel Prize in Literature. Writers who won the Neustadt Prize before receiving the Nobel Prize include Gabriel García Márquez (1972 Neustadt, 1982 Nobel), Czesław Miłosz (1978 Neustadt, 1980 Nobel), Octavio Paz (1982 Neustadt, 1990 Nobel), and Tomas Tranströmer (1990 Neustadt, 2011 Nobel).
Another notable award is the Spanish Princess of Asturias Award in Letters (formerly the Prince of Asturias Award). In its early years, it was mostly given to writers who wrote in Spanish. Recently, it has also been awarded to writers in other languages. Writers who have won both the Asturias Award in Letters and the Nobel Prize in Literature include Camilo José Cela, Günter Grass, Doris Lessing, and Mario Vargas Llosa.
The non-monetary America Award in Literature is presented as an alternative to the Nobel Prize. Only a few writers have won both the America Award and the Nobel Prize in Literature. These writers are Peter Handke, Harold Pinter, José Saramago, and Mario Vargas Llosa.
There are also prizes that honor the lifetime achievements of writers in specific languages. For example, the Miguel de Cervantes Prize (for Spanish language, established in 1976) and the Camões Prize (for Portuguese language, established in 1989). Nobel laureates who also won the Miguel de Cervantes Prize include Octavio 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 have won both the Camões Prize (1995) and the Nobel Prize (1998).
The Hans Christian Andersen Award is sometimes called "the Little Nobel." It earned this name because, like the Nobel Prize in Literature, it recognizes a writer's lifetime achievements. However, the Andersen Award focuses on one category of literary works: children's literature.