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Nobel Prize for Literature

2024 Winner - Han Kang

Han Kang was born in 1970 in South Korea. She is the author of The Vegetarian, winner of the International Booker Prize, as well as Human ActsThe White BookGreek Lessons, and We Do Not Part. In 2024, she was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature.

Past Winners

2023 Jon Fosse, Norway

2022 Annie Ernaux, France

2021 Abdulrazak Gurnah, England

2020 Louise Glück, U.S.

2019 Peter Handke, Austria

2018 Olga Tokarczuk, Poland

2017 Kazuo Ishiguro, England

2016 Bob Dylan, U.S.

2015 Svetlana Alexievich, Belarus

2014 Patrick Modiano, France

2013 Alice Munro, Canada

2012 Mo Yan, China

2011 Tomas Tranströmer, Sweden

2010 Mario Vargas Llosa, Peru

2009 Herta Müller, Romania/Germany

2008 Jean-Marie Gustave Le Clezio, France

2007 Doris Lessing, England

2006 Orhan Pamuk, Turkey

2005 Harold Pinter, England

2004 Elfriede Jelinek, Austria

2003 J. M. Coetzee, South Africa

2002 Imre Kertesz, Hungary

2001 V. S. Naipaul, England

2000 Gao Xingjian, China

1999 Gunter Grass, Germany

1998 Jose Saramago, Portugal

1997 Dario Fo, Italy

1996 Wislawa Szymborska, Poland

1995 Seamus Heaney, Ireland

1994 Kenzaburo Oe, Japan

1993 Toni Morrison, U.S.

1992 Derek Walcott, The Antilles/US

1991 Nadine Gordimer, South Africa

1990 Octavio Paz, Mexico

1989 Camilo Jose Cela, Spain

1988 Naguib Mahfouz, Egypt

1987 Joseph Brodsky, U.S.

1986 Wole Soyinka, Nigeria

1985 Claude Simon, France

1984 Jaroslav Seifert, Czechoslovakia

1983 William Golding, England

1982 Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Colombia

1981 Elias Canetti, Bulgaria

1980 Czeslaw Milosz, U.S.

1979 Odysseus Elytis, Greece

1978 Isaac Bashevis Singer, U.S.

1977 Vicente Aleixandre, Spain

1976 Saul Bellow, U.S.

1975 Eugenio Montale, Italy

1974 Harry Martinson, Sweden

1974 Eyvind Johnson, Sweden

1973 Patrick White, Australia

1972 Heinrich Boll, Germany

1971 Pablo Neruda, Chile

1970 Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, U.S.S.R.

1969 Samuel Beckett, France

1968 Yasunari Kawabata, Japan

1967 Miguel Angel Asturias, Guatemala

1966 Shmuel Yosef Agnon, Israel

1966 Nelly Sachs, Sweden

1965 Mikhail Sholokhov, U.S.S.R.

1964 Jean-Paul Sartre, France

1963 Giorgos Seferis, Greece

1962 John Steinbeck, U.S.

1961 Ivo Andric, Yugoslavia

1960 St.-John Perse, France

1959 Salvatore Quasimodo, Italy

1958 Boris Pasternak, U.S.S.R.

1957 Albert Camus, France

1956 Juan Ramon Jimenez, Spain

1955 Halldor Kiljan Laxness, Iceland

1954 Ernest Hemingway, U.S.

1953 Winston Churchill, England

1952 Francois Mauriac, France

1951 Par Lagerkvist, Sweden

1950 Bertrand Russell, England

1949 William Faulkner, U.S.

1948 T. S. Eliot, England

1947 Andre Gide, France

1946 Hermann Hesse, Switzerland

1945 Gabriela Mistral, Chile

1944 Johannes V. Jensen, Denmark

1943 No award was given

1942 No award was given

1941 No award was given

1940 No award was given

1939 Frans Eemil Sillanpaa, Finland

1938 Pearl S. Buck, U.S.

1937 Roger Martin Du Gard, France

1936 Eugene O'Neill, U.S.

1935 No award was given

1934 Luigi Pirandello, Italy

1933 Ivan Bunin, Russia

1932 John Galsworthy, England

1931 Erik Karlfeldt, Sweden

1930 Sinclair Lewis, U.S.

1929 Thomas Mann, Germany

1928 Sigrid Undset, Norway

1927 Henri Bergson, France

1926 Grazia Deledda, Italy

1925 George Bernard Shaw, England

1924 Wladyslaw Reymont, Poland

1923 William Butler Yeats, Ireland

1922 Jacinto Benavente, Spain

1921 Anatole France, France

1920 Knut Hamsun, Norway

1919 Carl Spitteler, Switzerland

1918 No award was given

1917 Karl Gjeilerup, Denmark

1917 Henrik Pontoppidan, Denmark

1916 Verner Von Heidenstam, Sweden

1915 Romain Rolland, France

1914 No award was given

1913 Rabindranath Tagore, India

1912 Gerhart Hauptmann, Germany

1911 Maurice Maeterlinck, Belgium

1910 Paul Von Heyse, Germany

1909 Selma Lagerlof, Sweden

1908 Rudolf Eucken, Germany

1907 Rudyard Kipling, England

1906 Giosue Carducci, Italy

1905 Henryk Sienkiewicz, Poland

1904 Jose Echegaray, Spain

1904 Frederic Mistral, France

1903 Bjornstjerne Bjornson, Norway

1902 Theodor Mommsen, Germany

1901 Rene F.A.S. Prudhomme, France