Literature
- Key People:
- Alfred Nobel
- George E. Smith
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The table provides a chronological list of recipients of the Nobel Prize for Literature.
| year | name | country* | literary area |
|---|---|---|---|
| *Nationality given is the citizenship of the recipient at the time the award was made. Prizes may be withheld or not awarded in years when no worthy recipient can be found or when the world situation (e.g., World Wars I and II) prevents the gathering of information needed to reach a decision. | |||
| **Prize awarded in 2019. | |||
| 1901 | Sully Prudhomme | France | poet |
| 1902 | Theodor Mommsen | Germany | historian |
| 1903 | Bjørnstjerne Martinius Bjørnson | Norway | novelist, poet, dramatist |
| 1904 | José Echegaray y Eizaguirre | Spain | dramatist |
| Frédéric Mistral | France | poet | |
| 1905 | Henryk Sienkiewicz | Poland | novelist |
| 1906 | Giosuè Carducci | Italy | poet |
| 1907 | Rudyard Kipling | U.K. | poet, novelist |
| 1908 | Rudolf Christoph Eucken | Germany | philosopher |
| 1909 | Selma Lagerlöf | Sweden | novelist |
| 1910 | Paul Johann Ludwig von Heyse | Germany | poet, novelist, dramatist |
| 1911 | Maurice Maeterlinck | Belgium | dramatist |
| 1912 | Gerhart Hauptmann | Germany | dramatist |
| 1913 | Rabindranath Tagore | India | poet |
| 1915 | Romain Rolland | France | novelist |
| 1916 | Verner von Heidenstam | Sweden | poet |
| 1917 | Karl Gjellerup | Denmark | novelist |
| Henrik Pontoppidan | Denmark | novelist | |
| 1918 | Erik Axel Karlfeldt (declined) | Sweden | poet |
| 1919 | Carl Spitteler | Switzerland | poet, novelist |
| 1920 | Knut Hamsun | Norway | novelist |
| 1921 | Anatole France | France | novelist |
| 1922 | Jacinto Benavente y Martínez | Spain | dramatist |
| 1923 | William Butler Yeats | Ireland | poet |
| 1924 | Władysław Stanisław Reymont | Poland | novelist |
| 1925 | George Bernard Shaw | Ireland | dramatist |
| 1926 | Grazia Deledda | Italy | novelist |
| 1927 | Henri Bergson | France | philosopher |
| 1928 | Sigrid Undset | Norway | novelist |
| 1929 | Thomas Mann | Germany | novelist |
| 1930 | Sinclair Lewis | U.S. | novelist |
| 1931 | Erik Axel Karlfeldt (posthumous award) | Sweden | poet |
| 1932 | John Galsworthy | U.K. | novelist |
| 1933 | Ivan Alekseyevich Bunin | U.S.S.R. | poet, novelist |
| 1934 | Luigi Pirandello | Italy | dramatist |
| 1936 | Eugene O'Neill | U.S. | dramatist |
| 1937 | Roger Martin du Gard | France | novelist |
| 1938 | Pearl Buck | U.S. | novelist |
| 1939 | Frans Eemil Sillanpää | Finland | novelist |
| 1944 | Johannes V. Jensen | Denmark | novelist |
| 1945 | Gabriela Mistral | Chile | poet |
| 1946 | Hermann Hesse | Switzerland | novelist |
| 1947 | André Gide | France | novelist, essayist |
| 1948 | T.S. Eliot | U.K. | poet, critic |
| 1949 | William Faulkner | U.S. | novelist |
| 1950 | Bertrand Russell | U.K. | philosopher |
| 1951 | Pär Lagerkvist | Sweden | novelist |
| 1952 | François Mauriac | France | poet, novelist, dramatist |
| 1953 | Sir Winston Churchill | U.K. | historian, orator |
| 1954 | Ernest Hemingway | U.S. | novelist |
| 1955 | Halldór Laxness | Iceland | novelist |
| 1956 | Juan Ramón Jiménez | Spain | poet |
| 1957 | Albert Camus | France | novelist, dramatist |
| 1958 | Boris Leonidovich Pasternak (declined) | U.S.S.R. | novelist, poet |
| 1959 | Salvatore Quasimodo | Italy | poet |
| 1960 | Saint-John Perse | France | poet |
| 1961 | Ivo Andric | Yugoslavia | novelist |
| 1962 | John Steinbeck | U.S. | novelist |
| 1963 | George Seferis | Greece | poet |
| 1964 | Jean-Paul Sartre (declined) | France | philosopher, dramatist |
| 1965 | Mikhail Aleksandrovich Sholokhov | U.S.S.R. | novelist |
| 1966 | S.Y. Agnon | Israel | novelist |
| Nelly Sachs | Sweden | poet | |
| 1967 | Miguel Ángel Asturias | Guatemala | novelist |
| 1968 | Kawabata Yasunari | Japan | novelist |
| 1969 | Samuel Beckett | Ireland | novelist, dramatist |
| 1970 | Aleksandr Isayevich Solzhenitsyn | U.S.S.R. | novelist |
| 1971 | Pablo Neruda | Chile | poet |
| 1972 | Heinrich Böll | West Germany | novelist |
| 1973 | Patrick White | Australia | novelist |
| 1974 | Eyvind Johnson | Sweden | novelist |
| Harry Martinson | Sweden | novelist, poet | |
| 1975 | Eugenio Montale | Italy | poet |
| 1976 | Saul Bellow | U.S. | novelist |
| 1977 | Vicente Aleixandre | Spain | poet |
| 1978 | Isaac Bashevis Singer | U.S. | novelist |
| 1979 | Odysseus Elytis | Greece | poet |
| 1980 | Czesław Miłosz | U.S. | poet |
| 1981 | Elias Canetti | Bulgaria | novelist, essayist |
| 1982 | Gabriel García Márquez | Colombia | novelist, journalist, social critic |
| 1983 | Sir William Golding | U.K. | novelist |
| 1984 | Jaroslav Seifert | Czechoslovakia | poet |
| 1985 | Claude Simon | France | novelist |
| 1986 | Wole Soyinka | Nigeria | dramatist, poet |
| 1987 | Joseph Brodsky | U.S. | poet, essayist |
| 1988 | Naguib Mahfouz | Egypt | novelist |
| 1989 | Camilo José Cela | Spain | novelist |
| 1990 | Octavio Paz | Mexico | poet, essayist |
| 1991 | Nadine Gordimer | South Africa | novelist |
| 1992 | Derek Walcott | Saint Lucia | poet |
| 1993 | Toni Morrison | U.S. | novelist |
| 1994 | Oe Kenzaburo | Japan | novelist |
| 1995 | Seamus Heaney | Ireland | poet |
| 1996 | Wisława Szymborska | Poland | poet |
| 1997 | Dario Fo | Italy | dramatist, actor |
| 1998 | José Saramago | Portugal | novelist |
| 1999 | Günter Grass | Germany | novelist |
| 2000 | Gao Xingjian | France | novelist, dramatist |
| 2001 | Sir V.S. Naipaul | Trinidad | novelist |
| 2002 | Imre Kertész | Hungary | novelist |
| 2003 | J.M. Coetzee | South Africa | novelist |
| 2004 | Elfriede Jelinek | Austria | novelist, dramatist |
| 2005 | Harold Pinter | U.K. | dramatist |
| 2006 | Orhan Pamuk | Turkey | novelist |
| 2007 | Doris Lessing | U.K. | novelist |
| 2008 | Jean-Marie Gustave Le Clézio | France | novelist, essayist |
| 2009 | Herta Müller | Germany | novelist |
| 2010 | Mario Vargas Llosa | Peru | novelist, dramatist |
| 2011 | Tomas Tranströmer | Sweden | poet |
| 2012 | Mo Yan | China | novelist, short-story writer |
| 2013 | Alice Munro | Canada | short-story writer |
| 2014 | Patrick Modiano | France | novelist |
| 2015 | Svetlana Alexievich | Belarus | journalist, prose writer |
| 2016 | Bob Dylan | U.S. | singer, songwriter |
| 2017 | Kazuo Ishiguro | U.K. | novelist |
| 2018** | Olga Tokarczuk | Poland | novelist, poet, essayist |
| 2019 | Peter Handke | Austria | novelist, poet, essayist, playwright |
| 2020 | Louise Glück | U.S. | poet |
| 2021 | Abdulrazak Gurnah | Tanzania | novelist |
| 2022 | Annie Ernaux | France | novelist, memoirist |
| 2023 | Jon Fosse | Norway | novelist, playwright, poet |
| 2024 | Han Kang | South Korea | novelist |