Announcement of the Nobel Prize in Literature 2020, presented by Mats Malm, Permanent Secretary of the Swedish Academy, on 8 October 2020.
The Nobel Prize in Literature for 2020 is awarded to the American poet Louise Glück “for her unmistakable poetic voice that with austere beauty makes individual existence universal”.
The American poet Louise Glück was born 1943 in New York and lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Apart from her writing she is a professor of English at Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut. She made her debut in 1968 with Firstborn, and was soon acclaimed as one of the most prominent poets in American contemporary literature. She has received several prestigious awards, among them the Pulitzer Prize (1993) and the National Book Award (2014).
On 27 November 1895, Alfred Nobel signed his last will and testament, giving the largest share of his fortune to a series of prizes, the Nobel Prizes. As described in Nobel’s will one part was dedicated to “the person who shall have produced in the field of literature the most outstanding work in an ideal direction”. Learn more about the Nobel Prize in Literature from 1901 to 2020.
113 Nobel Prizes in Literature have been awarded since 1901. It was not awarded on seven occasions: in 1914, 1918, 1935, 1940, 1941, 1942, and 1943.
117 individuals have been awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature 1901-2020.
Shared Nobel Prizes in Literature
The Nobel Prize in Literature has been shared between two individuals on four occasions only. Sharing the Nobel Prize is a more common phenomenon within the other Nobel Prize categories.
1904 РFr̩d̩ric Mistral, Jos̩ Echegaray
1917 – Karl Gjellerup, Henrik Pontoppidan
1966 – Shmuel Agnon, Nelly Sachs
1974 – Eyvind Johnson, Harry Martinson
The youngest Literature Laureate is Rudyard Kipling, best known for The Jungle Book, who was 41 years old when he was awarded the Literature Prize in 1907.
The oldest Nobel Laureate in Literature to date is Doris Lessing, who was 88 years old when she was awarded the Prize in 2007.
Female Nobel Laureates in Literature
16 women have been awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature. Swedish author Selma Lagerlöf (1858-1940) was the first woman to be awarded in 1909. Selma Lagerlöf was awarded five years before she was elected to the Swedish Academy, the Nobel Prize awarding institution responsible for selecting Nobel Laureates in Literature.
1909 РSelma Lagerl̦f
1926 – Grazia Deledda
1928 – Sigrid Undset
1938 – Pearl Buck
1945 – Gabriela Mistral
1966 – Nelly Sachs
1991 – Nadine Gordimer
1993 – Toni Morrison
1996 – Wislawa Szymborska
2004 – Elfriede Jelinek
2007 – Doris Lessing
2009 – Herta Müller
2013 – Alice Munro
2015 – Svetlana Alexievich
2018 – Olga Tokarczuk
2020 - Louise Glück
Two people have declined the Nobel Prize in Literature
Boris Pasternak, the 1958 Nobel Prize in Literature, “Accepted first, later caused by the authorities of his country (Soviet Union) to decline the Prize”.
Jean Paul Sartre, the 1964 Nobel Prize in Literature, declined the prize because he had consistently declined all official honours.
No one has been awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature more than once.
Rabindranath Tagore (Nobel Prize in Literature 1913) wrote in Bengali and English, Samuel Beckett (Nobel Prize in Literature 1969) wrote in French and English and Joseph Brodsky (Nobel Prize in Literature 1987) wrote poetry in Russian and prose in English. These three Nobel Laureates have been sorted under Bengali, French and Russian, respectively.
Sully Prudhomme, Rudolf Eucken, Paul Heyse, Rabindranath Tagore, Sinclair Lewis, Theodor Mommsen, Luigi Pirandello, Pearl Buck, Bertrand Russell and William Faulkner are some of the authors who were awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature after being nominated in one year only.
Winston Churchill was awarded the 1953 Nobel Prize in Literature. Between 1945 and 1953, Winston Churchill got 21 nominations for the Literature Prize and two for the Nobel Peace Prize.
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