List of Nobel laureates in Literature

Horace Engdahl, the former permanent secretary of the Swedish Academy, announcing that Jean-Marie Gustave Le Clézio was awarded the 2008 Nobel Prize in Literature

The Nobel Prize in Literature (Swedish: Nobelpriset i litteratur) is awarded annually by the Swedish Academy to authors for outstanding contributions in the field of literature. It is one of the five Nobel Prizes established by the 1895 will of Alfred Nobel, which are awarded for outstanding contributions in chemistry, physics, literature, peace, and physiology or medicine. As dictated by Nobel's will, the award is administered by the Nobel Foundation and awarded by the Swedish Academy. The first Nobel Prize in Literature was awarded in 1901 to Sully Prudhomme of France. Each recipient receives a medal, a diploma and a monetary award prize that has varied throughout the years. In 1901, Prudhomme received 150,782 SEK, which is equivalent to 8,823,637.78 SEK in January 2018. The award is presented in Stockholm at an annual ceremony on December 10, the anniversary of Nobel's death.

As of 2022, the Nobel Prize in Literature has been awarded to 119 individuals. The youngest laureate was Rudyard Kipling, who was 41 years old when he was awarded in 1907. The oldest laureate to receive the prize was Doris Lessing, who was 88 when she was awarded in 2007. It has been awarded posthumously once, to Erik Axel Karlfeldt in 1931. When he received the award in 1958, Russian-born Boris Pasternak was forced to publicly reject the award under pressure from the government of the Soviet Union. In 1964, Jean-Paul Sartre made known that he did not wish to accept the Nobel Prize in Literature, as he had consistently refused all official honors in the past. However the Nobel committee does not acknowledge refusals, and includes Pasternak and Sartre in its list of Nobel laureates.

Seventeen women have been awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature, the second highest number of any of the Nobel Prizes behind the Nobel Peace Prize. There have been four instances in which the award was given to two people (1904, 1917, 1966, 1974). There have been seven years in which the Nobel Prize in Literature was not awarded (1914, 1918, 1935, 1940–1943). There have been three years for which the Nobel Prize in Literature was delayed one year: the prizes for 1915, 1949 and 2018 were each awarded together with that of the following year in October of the following year. As of 2022, there have been 29 English-speaking laureates of the Nobel Prize in Literature, followed by French with 16 laureates and German with 14 laureates and France has the highest number of Nobel laureates.

Laureates

Year	Picture	Laureate	Country	Language(s)	Age Awarded	Citation	Genre(s)
1901	75px	Sully Prudhomme (1839–1907)	France	French	62	"in special recognition of his poetic composition, which gives evidence of lofty idealism, artistic perfection and a rare combination of the qualities of both heart and intellect"	poetry, essay
1902	75px	Theodor Mommsen (1817–1903)	Germany	German	85	"the greatest living master of the art of historical writing, with special reference to his monumental work A History of Rome"	history, law
1903	75px	Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson (1832–1910)	Norway	Norwegian	71	"as a tribute to his noble, magnificent and versatile poetry, which has always been distinguished by both the freshness of its inspiration and the rare purity of its spirit"	poetry, novel, drama
1904	75px	Frédéric Mistral (1830–1914)	France	Provençal	74	"in recognition of the fresh originality and true inspiration of his poetic production, which faithfully reflects the natural scenery and native spirit of his people, and, in addition, his significant work as a Provençal philologist"	poetry, philology
	75px	José Echegaray (1832–1916)	Spain	Spanish	72	"in recognition of the numerous and brilliant compositions which, in an individual and original manner, have revived the great traditions of the Spanish drama"	drama
1905		Henryk Sienkiewicz (1846–1916)	Poland (Russian Empire)	Polish	59	"because of his outstanding merits as an epic writer"	novel
1906	75px	Giosuè Carducci (1835–1907)	Italy	Italian	71	"not only in consideration of his deep learning and critical research, but above all as a tribute to the creative energy, freshness of style, and lyrical force which characterize his poetic masterpieces"	poetry
1907		Rudyard Kipling (1865–1936)	United Kingdom	English	42	"in consideration of the power of observation, originality of imagination, virility of ideas and remarkable talent for narration that characterize the creations of this world-famous author"	novel, short story, poetry
1908		Rudolf Christoph Eucken (1846–1926)	Germany	German	62	"in recognition of his earnest search for truth, his penetrating power of thought, his wide range of vision, and the warmth and strength in presentation with which in his numerous works he has vindicated and developed an idealistic philosophy of life"	philosophy
1909	75px	Selma Lagerlöf (1858–1940)	Sweden	Swedish	51	"in appreciation of the lofty idealism, vivid imagination and spiritual perception that characterize her writings"	novel, short story
1910	75px	Paul von Heyse (1830–1914)	Germany	German	80	"as a tribute to the consummate artistry, permeated with idealism, which he has demonstrated during his long productive career as a lyric poet, dramatist, novelist and writer of world-renowned short stories"	poetry, drama, novel, short story
1911	75px	Maurice Maeterlinck (1862–1949)	Belgium	French	49	"in appreciation of his many-sided literary activities, and especially of his dramatic works, which are distinguished by a wealth of imagination and by a poetic fancy, which reveals, sometimes in the guise of a fairy tale, a deep inspiration, while in a mysterious way they appeal to the readers' own feelings and stimulate their imaginations"	drama, poetry, essay
1912		Gerhart Hauptmann (1862–1946)	Germany	German	50	"primarily in recognition of his fruitful, varied and outstanding production in the realm of dramatic art"	drama, novel
1913		Rabindranath Tagore (1861–1941)	British India (British Empire)	Bengali and English	52	"because of his profoundly sensitive, fresh and beautiful verse, by which, with consummate skill, he has made his poetic thought, expressed in his own English words, a part of the literature of the West"	poetry, novel, drama, short story, essay, translation
1914	Not awarded
1915	75px	Romain Rolland (1866–1944)	France	French	49	"as a tribute to the lofty idealism of his literary production and to the sympathy and love of truth with which he has described different types of human beings"	novel
1916	75px	Verner von Heidenstam (1859–1940)	Sweden	Swedish	56	"in recognition of his significance as the leading representative of a new era in our literature"	poetry, novel
1917		Karl Adolph Gjellerup (1857–1919)	Denmark	Danish and German	60	"for his varied and rich poetry, which is inspired by lofty ideals"	poetry
		Henrik Pontoppidan (1857–1943)	Denmark	Danish	60	"for his authentic descriptions of present-day life in Denmark"	novel
1918	Not awarded
1919		Carl Spitteler (1845–1924)	Switzerland	German	74	"in special appreciation of his epic, Olympian Spring"	poetry
1920	75px	Knut Hamsun (1859–1952)	Norway	Norwegian	61	"for his monumental work, Growth of the Soil"	novel
1921	75px	Anatole France (1844–1924)	France	French	77	"in recognition of his brilliant literary achievements, characterized as they are by a nobility of style, a profound human sympathy, grace, and a true Gallic temperament"	novel, poetry
1922		Jacinto Benavente (1866–1954)	Spain	Spanish	56	"for the happy manner in which he has continued the illustrious traditions of the Spanish drama"	drama
1923		William Butler Yeats (1865–1939)	Ireland	English	58	"for his always inspired poetry, which in a highly artistic form gives expression to the spirit of a whole nation"	poetry
1924		Władysław Reymont (1867–1925)	Poland	Polish	57	"for his great national epic, The Peasants"	novel
1925		George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950)	United Kingdom Ireland	English	69	"for his work which is marked by both idealism and humanity, its stimulating satire often being infused with a singular poetic beauty"	drama, essay
1926		Grazia Deledda (1871–1936)	Italy	Italian	55	"for her idealistically inspired writings, which with plastic clarity picture the life on her native island and with depth and sympathy deal with human problems in general"	poetry, novel
1927		Henri Bergson (1859–1941)	France	French	68	"in recognition of his rich and vitalizing ideas and the brilliant skill with which they have been presented"	philosophy
1928		Sigrid Undset (1882–1949)	Norway Denmark	Norwegian	46	"principally for her powerful descriptions of Northern life during the Middle Ages"	novel
1929		Thomas Mann (1875–1955)	Germany	German	54	"principally for his great novel, Buddenbrooks, which has won steadily increased recognition as one of the classic works of contemporary literature"	novel, short story, essay
1930		Sinclair Lewis (1885–1951)	United States	English	45	"for his vigorous and graphic art of description and his ability to create, with wit and humour, new types of characters"	novel, short story, drama
1931		Erik Axel Karlfeldt (1864–1931)	Sweden	Swedish	67	"The poetry of Erik Axel Karlfeldt"	poetry
1932		John Galsworthy (1867–1933)	United Kingdom	English	65	"for his distinguished art of narration, which takes its highest form in The Forsyte Saga"	novel
1933		Ivan Bunin (1870–1953)	Stateless (Born in Russian Empire)	Russian	63	"for the strict artistry with which he has carried on the classical Russian traditions in prose writing"	short story, poetry, novel
1934		Luigi Pirandello (1867–1936)	Italy	Italian	67	"for his bold and ingenious revival of dramatic and scenic art"	drama, novel, short story
1935	Not awarded
1936		Eugene O'Neill (1888–1953)	United States	English	48	"for the power, honesty and deep-felt emotions of his dramatic works, which embody an original concept of tragedy"	drama
1937		Roger Martin du Gard (1881–1958)	France	French	56	"for the artistic power and truth with which he has depicted human conflict as well as some fundamental aspects of contemporary life in his novel cycle Les Thibault"	novel
1938		Pearl Buck (1892–1973)	United States	English	46	"for her rich and truly epic descriptions of peasant life in China and for her biographical masterpieces"	novel, biography
1939		Frans Eemil Sillanpää (1888–1964)	Finland	Finnish	51	"for his deep understanding of his country's peasantry and the exquisite art with which he has portrayed their way of life and their relationship with Nature"	novel
1940	Not awarded
1941	Not awarded
1942	Not awarded
1943	Not awarded
1944		Johannes Vilhelm Jensen (1873–1950)	Denmark	Danish	71	"for the rare strength and fertility of his poetic imagination with which is combined an intellectual curiosity of wide scope and a bold, freshly creative style"	novel, short story
1945		Gabriela Mistral (1889–1957)	Chile	Spanish	56	"for her lyric poetry, which inspired by powerful emotions, has made her name a symbol of the idealistic aspirations of the entire Latin American world"	poetry
1946		Hermann Hesse (1877–1962)	Germany Switzerland	German	69	"for his inspired writings, which while growing in boldness and penetration, exemplify the classical humanitarian ideals and high qualities of style"	novel, poetry
1947		André Gide (1869–1951)	France	French	78	"for his comprehensive and artistically significant writings, in which human problems and conditions have been presented with a fearless love of truth and keen psychological insight"	novel, essay, drama, memoir
1948		Thomas Stearns Eliot (1888–1965)	United Kingdom (Born in the United States)	English	60	"for his outstanding, pioneer contribution to present-day poetry"	poetry, essay, drama
1949	75px	William Faulkner (1897–1962)	United States	English	52	"for his powerful and artistically unique contribution to the modern American novel"	novel, short story
1950	75px	Bertrand Russell (1872–1970)	United Kingdom	English	78	"in recognition of his varied and significant writings in which he champions humanitarian ideals and freedom of thought"	philosophy, essay
1951		Pär Lagerkvist (1891–1974)	Sweden	Swedish	60	"for the artistic vigour and true independence of mind with which he endeavours in his poetry to find answers to the eternal questions confronting mankind"	poetry, novel, short story, drama
1952	75px	François Mauriac (1885–1970)	France	French	67	"for the deep spiritual insight and the artistic intensity with which he has in his novels penetrated the drama of human life"	novel, short story
1953		Winston Churchill (1874–1965)	United Kingdom	English	79	"for his mastery of historical and biographical description as well as for brilliant oratory in defending exalted human values"	history, essay, memoir
1954		Ernest Hemingway (1899–1961)	United States	English	55	"for his mastery of the art of narrative, most recently demonstrated in The Old Man and the Sea, and for the influence that he has exerted on contemporary style"	novel, short story, screenplay
1955		Halldór Laxness (1902–1998)	Iceland	Icelandic	53	"for his vivid epic power, which has renewed the great narrative art of Iceland"	novel, short story, drama, poetry
1956		Juan Ramón Jiménez (1881–1958)	Spain	Spanish	75	"for his lyrical poetry, which in Spanish language constitutes an example of high spirit and artistical purity"	poetry, novel
1957	75px	Albert Camus (1913–1960)	France (Born in Algeria)	French	44	"for his important literary production, which with clear-sighted earnestness illuminates the problems of the human conscience in our times"	novel, short story, drama, philosophy, essay
1958	75px	Boris Pasternak (1890–1960)	Soviet Union	Russian	70	"for his important achievement both in contemporary lyrical poetry and in the field of the great Russian epic tradition"	novel, poetry, translation
1959		Salvatore Quasimodo (1901–1968)	Italy	Italian	58	"for his lyrical poetry, which with classical fire expresses the tragic experience of life in our own times"	poetry
1960		Saint-John Perse (1887–1975)	France (Born in Guadeloupe)	French	73	"for the soaring flight and the evocative imagery of his poetry, which in a visionary fashion reflects the conditions of our time"	poetry
1961		Ivo Andrić (1892–1975)	Yugoslavia (Born in Austria-Hungary)	Serbian	69	"for the epic force with which he has traced themes and depicted human destinies drawn from the history of his country"	novel, short story
1962	75px	John Steinbeck (1902–1968)	United States	English	60	"for his realistic and imaginative writings, combining as they do sympathetic humour and keen social perception"	novel, short story, screenplay
1963		Giorgos Seferis (1900–1971)	Turkey (Born in the Ottoman Empire)	Greek	63	"for his eminent lyrical writing, inspired by a deep feeling for the Hellenic world of culture"	poetry, essay, memoir
1964	75px	Jean-Paul Sartre (1905–1980)	France	French	59	"for his work, which rich in ideas and filled with the spirit of freedom and the quest for truth, has exerted a far-reaching influence on our age"	philosophy, novel, drama, essay, short story, screenplay
1965	75px	Mikhail Sholokhov (1905–1984)	Soviet Union	Russian	60	"for the artistic power and integrity with which, in his epic of the Don, he has given expression to a historic phase in the life of the Russian people"	novel
1966		Shmuel Yosef Agnon (1888–1970)	Israel (Born in Austria-Hungary)	Hebrew	79	"for his profoundly characteristic narrative art with motifs from the life of the Jewish people"	novel, short story
		Nelly Sachs (1891–1970)	Germany Sweden	German	75	"for her outstanding lyrical and dramatic writing, which interprets Israel's destiny with touching strength"	poetry, drama
1967	75px	Miguel Ángel Asturias (1899–1974)	Guatemala	Spanish	68	"for his vivid literary achievement, deep-rooted in the national traits and traditions of Indian peoples of Latin America"	novel, poetry
1968	75px	Yasunari Kawabata (1899–1972)	Japan	Japanese	69	"for his narrative mastery, which with great sensibility expresses the essence of the Japanese mind"	novel, short story
1969	75px	Samuel Beckett (1906–1989)	Ireland	French and English	63	"for his writing, which – in new forms for the novel and drama – in the destitution of modern man acquires its elevation"	novel, drama, poetry
1970		Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn (1918–2008)	Soviet Union	Russian	52	"for the ethical force with which he has pursued the indispensable traditions of Russian literature"	novel, essay, short story
1971		Pablo Neruda (1904–1973)	Chile	Spanish	67	"for a poetry that with the action of an elemental force brings alive a continent's destiny and dreams"	poetry
1972	75px	Heinrich Böll (1917–1985)	West Germany	German	55	"for his writing, which through its combination of a broad perspective on his time and a sensitive skill in characterization has contributed to a renewal of German literature"	novel, short story
1973		Patrick White (1912–1990)	Australia (Born in the United Kingdom)	English	61	"for an epic and psychological narrative art, which has introduced a new continent into literature"	novel, short story, drama
1974		Eyvind Johnson (1900–1976)	Sweden	Swedish	74	"for a narrative art, farseeing in lands and ages, in the service of freedom"	novel
	75px	Harry Martinson (1904–1978)	Sweden	Swedish	70	"for writings that catch the dewdrop and reflect the cosmos"	poetry, novel, drama
1975	75px	Eugenio Montale (1896–1981)	Italy	Italian	79	"for his distinctive poetry, which, with great artistic sensitivity, has interpreted human values under the sign of an outlook on life with no illusions"	poetry
1976	75px	Saul Bellow (1915–2005)	United States (Born in Canada)	English	61	"for the human understanding and subtle analysis of contemporary culture that are combined in his work"	novel, short story
1977		Vicente Aleixandre (1898–1984)	Spain	Spanish	79	"for a creative poetic writing, which illuminates man's condition in the cosmos and in present-day society, at the same time representing the great renewal of the traditions of Spanish poetry between the wars"	poetry
1978	75px	Isaac Bashevis Singer (1902–1991)	United States Poland	Yiddish	76	"for his impassioned narrative art which, with roots in a Polish-Jewish cultural tradition, brings universal human conditions to life"	novel, short story, memoir
1979	75px	Odysseas Elytis (1911–1996)	Greece	Greek	68	"for his poetry, which, against the background of Greek tradition, depicts with sensuous strength and intellectual clear-sightedness modern man's struggle for freedom and creativeness"	poetry, essay
1980	75px	Czesław Miłosz (1911–2004)	Poland (Born in Russian Empire)	Polish	69	"who with uncompromising clear-sightedness voices man's exposed condition in a world of severe conflicts"	poetry, essay
1981	75px	Elias Canetti (1905–1994)	United Kingdom Bulgaria	German	76	"for writings marked by a broad outlook, a wealth of ideas and artistic power"	novel, drama, memoirs, essay
1982	75px	Gabriel García Márquez (1927–2014)	Colombia	Spanish	55	"for his novels and short stories, in which the fantastic and the realistic are combined in a richly composed world of imagination, reflecting a continent's life and conflicts"	novel, short story, screenplay
1983	75px	William Golding (1911–1993)	United Kingdom	English	72	"for his novels, which with the perspicuity of realistic narrative art and the diversity and universality of myth, illuminate the human condition in the world of today"	novel, poetry, drama
1984	75px	Jaroslav Seifert (1901–1986)	Czechoslovakia (Born in Austria-Hungary)	Czech	83	"for his poetry, which endowed with freshness, and rich inventiveness provides a liberating image of the indomitable spirit and versatility of man"	poetry
1985	75px	Claude Simon (1913–2005)	France (Born in French Madagascar)	French	72	"who in his novel combines the poet's and the painter's creativeness with a deepened awareness of time in the depiction of the human condition"	novel, essay
1986	75px	Wole Soyinka (b. 1934)	Nigeria	English	52	"who in a wide cultural perspective and with poetic overtones fashions the drama of existence"	drama, novel, poetry, screenplay
1987	75px	Joseph Brodsky (1940–1996)	United States Soviet Union	Russian and English	47	"for an all-embracing authorship, imbued with clarity of thought and poetic intensity"	poetry, essay
1988	75px	Naguib Mahfouz (1911–2006)	Egypt	Arabic	77	"who, through works rich in nuance – now clear-sightedly realistic, now evocatively ambiguous – has formed an Arabian narrative art that applies to all mankind"	novel, short story
1989	75px	Camilo José Cela (1916–2002)	Spain	Spanish	73	"for a rich and intensive prose, which with restrained compassion forms a challenging vision of man's vulnerability"	novel, short story, essay, poetry
1990	75px	Octavio Paz (1914–1998)	Mexico	Spanish	76	"for impassioned writing with wide horizons, characterized by sensuous intelligence and humanistic integrity"	poetry, essay
1991	75px	Nadine Gordimer (1923–2014)	South Africa	English	68	"who through her magnificent epic writing has – in the words of Alfred Nobel – been of very great benefit to humanity"	novel, short story, essay, drama
1992		Derek Walcott (1930–2017)	Saint Lucia	English	62	"for a poetic oeuvre of great luminosity, sustained by a historical vision, the outcome of a multicultural commitment"	poetry, drama
1993	75px	Toni Morrison (1931–2019)	United States	English	62	"who in novels characterized by visionary force and poetic import, gives life to an essential aspect of American reality"	novel, essay
1994	75px	Kenzaburō Ōe (1935-2023)	Japan	Japanese	59	"who with poetic force creates an imagined world, where life and myth condense to form a disconcerting picture of the human predicament today"	novel, short story, essay
1995	75px	Seamus Heaney (1939–2013)	Ireland	English	56	"for works of lyrical beauty and ethical depth, which exalt everyday miracles and the living past"	poetry, drama, translation, essay
1996	75px	Wisława Szymborska (1923–2012)	Poland	Polish	64	"for poetry that with ironic precision allows the historical and biological context to come to light in fragments of human reality"	poetry, essay, translation
1997	75px	Dario Fo (1926–2016)	Italy	Italian	71	"who emulates the jesters of the Middle Ages in scourging authority and upholding the dignity of the downtrodden"	drama, song lyrics
1998	75px	José Saramago (1922–2010)	Portugal	Portuguese	76	"who with parables sustained by imagination, compassion and irony continually enables us once again to apprehend an elusory reality"	novel, drama, poetry
1999	75px	Günter Grass (1927–2015)	Germany	German	72	"whose frolicsome black fables portray the forgotten face of history"	novel, drama, poetry, essay
2000	75px	Gao Xingjian (b. 1940)	France (since 1998) China (1940–1998)	Chinese	60	"for an oeuvre of universal validity, bitter insights and linguistic ingenuity, which has opened new paths for the Chinese novel and drama"	novel, drama, essay
2001	75px	Vidiadhar Surajprasad Naipaul (1932–2018)	United Kingdom Trinidad and Tobago	English	69	"for having united perceptive narrative and incorruptible scrutiny in works that compel us to see the presence of suppressed histories"	novel, essay
2002	75px	Imre Kertész (1929–2016)	Hungary	Hungarian	73	"for writing that upholds the fragile experience of the individual against the barbaric arbitrariness of history"	novel
2003	75px	John Maxwell Coetzee (b. 1940)	South Africa	English	63	"who in innumerable guises portrays the surprising involvement of the outsider"	novel, essay, translation
2004	75px	Elfriede Jelinek (b. 1946)	Austria	German	58	"for her musical flow of voices and counter-voices in novels and plays that with extraordinary linguistic zeal reveal the absurdity of society's clichés and their subjugating power"	novel, drama
2005	75px	Harold Pinter (1930–2008)	United Kingdom	English	75	"who in his plays uncovers the precipice under everyday prattle and forces entry into oppression's closed rooms"	drama, screenplay, poetry
2006	75px	Orhan Pamuk (b. 1952)	Turkey	Turkish	54	"who in the quest for the melancholic soul of his native city has discovered new symbols for the clash and interlacing of cultures"	novel, screenplay, autobiography, essay
2007	75px	Doris Lessing (1919–2013)	United Kingdom Zimbabwe (born in Iran)	English	88	"that epicist of the female experience, who with scepticism, fire and visionary power has subjected a divided civilisation to scrutiny"	novel, short story, memoir/autobiography, drama, poetry, essay
2008	75px	Jean-Marie Gustave Le Clézio (b. 1940)	France Mauritius	French	68	"author of new departures, poetic adventure and sensual ecstasy, explorer of a humanity beyond and below the reigning civilization"	novel, short story, essay, translation
2009	75px	Herta Müller (b. 1953)	Germany Romania	German	56	"who, with the concentration of poetry and the frankness of prose, depicts the landscape of the dispossessed"	novel, short story, poetry, essay
2010	75px	Mario Vargas Llosa (b. 1936)	Peru Spain	Spanish	74	"for his cartography of structures of power and his trenchant images of the individual's resistance, revolt, and defeat"	novel, short story, essay, drama, memoir
2011	75px	Tomas Tranströmer (1931–2015)	Sweden	Swedish	80	"because, through his condensed, translucent images, he gives us fresh access to reality"	poetry, translation
2012	75px	Mo Yan (b. 1955)	China	Chinese	57	"who with hallucinatory realism merges folk tales, history and the contemporary"	novel, short story
2013	75px	Alice Munro (b. 1931)	Canada	English	82	"master of the contemporary short story"	short story
2014	75px	Patrick Modiano (b. 1945)	France	French	69	"for the art of memory with which he has evoked the most ungraspable human destinies and uncovered the life-world of the Occupation"	novel, screenplay
2015	75px	Svetlana Alexievich (b. 1948)	Belarus (Born in the Soviet Union)	Russian	67	"for her polyphonic writings, a monument to suffering and courage in our time"	history, essay
2016	75px	Bob Dylan (b. 1941)	United States	English	75	"for having created new poetic expressions within the great American song tradition"	poetry, song lyrics
2017	75px	Kazuo Ishiguro (b. 1954)	United Kingdom (Born in Japan)	English	63	"who, in novels of great emotional force, has uncovered the abyss beneath our illusory sense of connection with the world"	novel, screenplay, short story
2018	75px	Olga Tokarczuk (b. 1962)	Poland	Polish	56	"for a narrative imagination that with encyclopedic passion represents the crossing of boundaries as a form of life"	novel, short story, poetry, essay, screenplay
2019	75px	Peter Handke (b. 1942)	Austria	German	77	"for an influential work that with linguistic ingenuity has explored the periphery and the specificity of human experience"	novel, short story, drama, essay, translation, screenplay
2020	75px	Louise Glück (b. 1943)	United States	English	77	"for her unmistakable poetic voice that with austere beauty makes individual existence universal"	poetry, essay
2021	75px	Abdulrazak Gurnah (b. 1948)	Tanzania United Kingdom (Born in the Sultanate of Zanzibar)	English	72	"for his uncompromising and compassionate penetration of the effects of colonialism and the fate of the refugee in the gulf between cultures and continents"	novel, short story, essay
2022	75px	Annie Ernaux (b. 1940)	France	French	82	"for the courage and clinical acuity with which she uncovers the roots, estrangements and collective restraints of personal memory"	autobiography, novel

Nobel laureates by country

The 119 Nobel laureates in literature from 1901 to 2022 have come from the following countries:

Country	Number
France	16
United States	13
United Kingdom	13
Germany	9
Sweden	8
Poland	6
Spain	6
Italy	6
Ireland	4
Russia/USSR	5
Denmark	3
Norway	3
Austria	2
Chile	2
Greece	2
Japan	2
South Africa	2
Switzerland	2
Australia	1
Belarus	1
Belgium	1
Bulgaria	1
Canada	1
China	1
Colombia	1
Czechoslovakia	1
Egypt	1
Finland	1
Guatemala	1
Hungary	1
Iceland	1
India	1
Israel	1
Mauritius	1
Mexico	1
Nigeria	1
Peru	1
Portugal	1
Romania	1
Saint Lucia	1
Tanzania	1
Turkey	1
Yugoslavia	1

Nobel laureates by language

Language	Number
English	29 (32)1
French	16
German	14 (15)2
Spanish	11
Swedish	7
Italian	6
Russian	6
Polish	5
Danish	3
Norwegian	3
Chinese	2
Greek	2
Japanese	2
Arabic	1
Bengali	1
Czech	1
Finnish	1
Hebrew	1
Hungarian	1
Icelandic	1
Provençal (Occitan)	1
Portuguese	1
Serbo-Croatian	1
Turkish	1
Yiddish	1

¹Rabindranath 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.

²Karl Adolph Gjellerup (Nobel Prize in Literature 1917) wrote in Danish and German.

Nobel laureates by sex

The 119 Nobel laureates in literature from 1901 to 2022 were from the following sexes:

Decade	Male	Female
1900–1909	9	1
1910–1919	9	0
1920–1929	8	2
1930–1939	8	1
1940–1949	5	1
1950–1959	10	0
1960–1969	10	1
1970–1979	11	0
1980–1989	10	0
1990–1999	7	3
2000–2009	7	3
2010–2019	7	3
2020–2029	1	2
Total	102	17

References

Notes

^ A. The information in the country column is according to nobelprize.org, the official website of the Nobel Foundation. This information may not necessarily reflect the recipient's birthplace or citizenship.