RUSSIAN HISTORY
“Prix Nobel? Oui, ma belle "... So Brodsky joked long before receiving the Nobel Prize, which is the most important award for almost any writer. Despite the generous scattering of Russian literary geniuses, only five of them managed to receive the highest award. However, many, if not all of them, having received it, have suffered enormous losses in their lives.
1933 Nobel Prize "For the true artistic talent with which he recreated the typical Russian character in prose."
Bunin became the first Russian writer to receive the Nobel Prize. A special resonance to this event was given by the fact that Bunin had not even appeared in Russia for 13 years, even as a tourist. Therefore, when he was informed of the call from Stockholm, Bunin could not believe what had happened. In Paris, the news spread instantly. Every Russian, regardless of financial status and position, squandered his last pennies in a tavern, rejoicing that their compatriot turned out to be the best.
Once in the Swedish capital, Bunin was almost the most popular Russian person in the world, they stared at him for a long time, looked around, whispered. He was surprised, comparing his fame and honor with the fame of the famous tenor. 
Nobel Prize Ceremony.
I. A. Bunin in the first row on the far right.
Stockholm, 1933
1958 Nobel Prize "For significant achievements in modern lyric poetry, as well as for the continuation of the traditions of the great Russian epic novel"
Pasternak's candidacy for the Nobel Prize was discussed in the Nobel Committee annually, from 1946 to 1950. After a personal telegram from the head of the committee and notifying Pasternak of the award, the writer replied with the following words: "Grateful, glad, proud, embarrassed." But after a while, after a planned public persecution of the writer and his friends, public persecution, sowing an impartial and even hostile image among the masses, Pasternak refused the award, writing a letter of more voluminous content.
After the award of the prize, Pasternak carried the entire burden of the "persecuted poet" firsthand. Moreover, he did not wear this for his poems (although it was for them, for the most part, he was awarded the Nobel Prize), but for the "anti-Soviet" novel Doctor Zhivago. Nes, even having refused such an honorable award and a substantial amount of 250,000 crowns. According to the writer himself, he still would not have taken this money, sending it to another, more useful place than his own pocket.
On December 9, 1989, in Stockholm, Boris Pasternak's son, Eugene, at a gala reception timed to the Nobel Prize winners of that year, were awarded a diploma and the Nobel Medal of Boris Pasternak. 
Pasternak Evgeny Borisovich
1965 Nobel Prize "For the artistic power and integrity of the epic about the Don Cossacks at a crucial time for Russia".
Sholokhov, like Pasternak, repeatedly appeared in the field of vision of the Nobel Committee. Moreover, their paths, like their offspring, involuntarily, and voluntarily, too, crossed more than once. Their novels, without the participation of the authors themselves, "prevented" each other from winning the main award. It makes no sense to choose the best of two brilliant, but so different works. Moreover, the Nobel Prize was (and is) given in both cases not for individual works, but for the overall contribution as a whole, for a special component of all creativity. Once, in 1954, the Nobel Committee did not award Sholokhov an award only because a letter of recommendation from Academician of the USSR Academy of Sciences Sergeev-Tsensky arrived a couple of days later, and the committee did not have enough time to consider Sholokhov's candidacy. It is believed that the novel ("Quiet Don") at that time was not politically beneficial to Sweden, and the artistic value has always played a secondary role for the committee. In 1958, when the figure of Sholokhov looked like an iceberg in the Baltic Sea, the prize went to Pasternak. Already the gray-haired, sixty-year-old Sholokhov in Stockholm was awarded his well-deserved Nobel Prize, after which the writer read the speech as pure and honest as all his work. 
Mikhail Alexandrovich in the Golden Hall of the Stockholm City Hall
before the start of the Nobel Prize.
1970 Nobel Prize "For the moral strength gleaned in the tradition of the great Russian literature."
Solzhenitsyn learned about this prize while still in the camps. And in his heart he strove to become its laureate. In 1970, after being awarded the Nobel Prize, Solzhenitsyn replied that he would come for the award "in person, on a set date." However, like 12 years earlier, when Pasternak was also threatened with deprivation of citizenship, Solzhenitsin canceled his trip to Stockholm. It's hard to say that he regretted it too much. Reading the program of the gala evening, he now and then stumbled upon pompous details: what and how to say to him, a tuxedo or tailcoat to wear at one or another banquet. "... Why is it necessarily a white butterfly," he thought, "but you can't wear a camp jacket?" "And how to talk about the main business of all life at the" banquet table "when the tables are lined with food and everyone is drinking, eating, talking ...".
1987 Nobel Prize "For an all-encompassing literary activity distinguished by clarity of thought and poetic intensity."
Of course, it was much easier for Brodsky to receive the Nobel Prize than it was for Pasternak or Solzhenitsyn. At that time, he was already a persecuted emigrant, deprived of citizenship and the right to enter Russia. Brodsky had the news of the Nobel Prize being awarded lunch at a Chinese restaurant not far from London. The news practically did not change the expression on the face of the writer. He only joked to the first reporters that now he would have to use his tongue for a whole year. One journalist asked Brodsky who he considered himself to be: Russian or American? “I am a Jew, a Russian poet and an English essayist,” Brodsky replied.
Known for his indecisive nature, Brodsky took two versions of the Nobel Lecture to Stockholm: in Russian and in English. Until the last moment, no one knew in which language the writer would read the text. Brodsky settled on Russian.
On December 10, 1987, the Russian poet Joseph Brodsky was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature "for an all-encompassing work imbued with clarity of thought and poetic intensity."
These works represent more than the thousands of other books that fill the shelves of bookstores. Everything is beautiful in them - from the laconic language of talented writers to the topics that the authors raise.
Scenes from Provincial Life by John Maxwell Coetzee
South African John Maxwell Coetzee is the first writer to be twice awarded the Booker Prize (in 1983 and 1999). In 2003, he won the Nobel Prize in Literature "for creating countless guises of amazing situations involving outsiders." Coetzee's novels are characterized by well-thought-out composition, rich dialogues and analytical skill. He mercilessly criticizes the cruel rationalism and artificial morality of Western civilization. At the same time, Coetzee is one of those writers who rarely speaks about his work, and even less often about himself. However, Scenes from Provincial Life, an astonishing autobiographical novel, is an exception. Here Coetzee is extremely frank with the reader. He talks about the painful, suffocating love of his mother, about the hobbies and mistakes that followed him for years, and about the path that he had to go through to finally start writing.
The Modest Hero by Mario Vargas Llosa
Mario Vargas Llosa is an eminent Peruvian novelist and playwright who received the 2010 Nobel Prize in Literature "for cartography of the structure of power and vivid images of resistance, rebellion and defeat of the individual." Continuing the line of great Latin American writers such as Jorge Luis Borges, García Márquez, Julio Cortazar, he creates amazing novels balancing on the brink of reality and fiction. In the new book by Vargas Llosa "The Modest Hero", two parallel storylines masterfully twist in the graceful rhythm of the mariners. The hard worker Felicito Yanache, decent and trusting, falls prey to strange blackmailers. At the same time, a successful businessman Ismael Carrera, at the end of his life, seeks revenge on his two sons-idlers who yearn for his death. And Ismael and Felicito, of course, are not heroes at all. However, where others faint-heartedly agree, the two engage in a quiet riot. Old acquaintances - the characters of the world created by Vargas Llosa - flicker on the pages of the new novel.
The Moons of Jupiter by Alice Munro
Canadian writer Alice Munroe is a master of contemporary short storytelling and a 2013 Nobel Prize winner in Literature. Critics constantly compare Munro to Chekhov, and this comparison is not without reason: like a Russian writer, she knows how to tell a story in such a way that readers, even those belonging to a completely different culture, recognize themselves in the heroes. So these twelve stories, presented, at first glance, in an ingenuous language, reveal amazing plot abysses. On some twenty pages, Munroe manages to create a whole world - alive, tangible and incredibly attractive.
Sweetheart by Toni Morrison
Toni Morrison won the 1993 Nobel Prize for Literature as the writer "who brought an important aspect of American reality to life in her novels full of dreams and poetry." Her most famous novel, Beloved, came out in 1987 and won the Pulitzer Prize. The book is based on real events that took place in Ohio in the 80s of the nineteenth century: this is an amazing story of a black slave Satie, who decided on a terrible act - to give freedom, but take life. Sety kills her daughter to save her from slavery. A novel about how difficult it is at times to wrest the memory of the past from the heart, about a difficult choice that changes fate, and people who remain loved forever.
"A Woman from Nowhere" by Jean-Marie Gustave Leclezio
Jean-Marie Gustave Leclezio, one of the largest living French writers, won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2008. He is the author of thirty books, including novels, stories, essays and articles. In the presented book, for the first time in Russian, two stories by Leclezio are published at once: "The Tempest" and "A Woman from Nowhere". The first action takes place on an island lost in the Sea of Japan, the second - in Cote d'Ivoire and the Parisian suburbs. However, despite such a vast geography, the heroines of both stories are somewhat similar - these are teenage girls who desperately strive to find their place in an inhospitable, hostile world. The Frenchman Leclezio, who has lived for a long time in the countries of South America, Africa, Southeast Asia, Japan, Thailand and on his home island of Mauritius, writes about how a person who grew up in the bosom of pristine nature feels himself in the oppressive space of modern civilization.
"My Strange Thoughts", Orhan Pamuk
Turkish prose writer Orhan Pamuk received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2006 "for finding new symbols for the clash and intertwining of cultures in his search for the melancholic soul of his hometown." "My Strange Thoughts" is the author's last novel, on which he worked for six years. The main character, Mevlut, works on the streets of Istanbul, watching the streets fill with new people, and the city gains and loses new and old buildings. Before his eyes, coups take place, the authorities replace each other, and Mevlut still wanders the streets on winter evenings, wondering what distinguishes him from other people, why strange thoughts about everything in the world visit him, and who he really is the beloved to whom he has been writing letters for the past three years.
“Legends of our time. Occupation essays ", Czeslaw Milos
Czeslaw Milosz is a Polish poet and essayist who won the 1980 Nobel Prize for Literature "for showing with fearless clairvoyance the vulnerability of man in a world torn apart by conflict." “Legends of the Present” is the first translated into Russian “Confession of the Son of the Century”, written by Milos on the ruins of Europe in 1942–1943. It includes essays on outstanding literary (Defoe, Balzac, Stendhal, Tolstoy, Zhide, Witkiewicz) and philosophical (James, Nietzsche, Bergson) texts, and polemical correspondence between C. Milos and E. Andzheevsky. Exploring modern myths and prejudices, appealing to the tradition of rationalism, Milos is trying to find support points for the European culture humiliated by the two world wars.
Photo: Getty Images, Press Services Archive
Briton Kazuo Ishiguro.
According to the testament of Alfred Nobel, the award is given to "the creator of the most significant literary work of an idealistic orientation."
The editorial staff of TASS-DOSSIER prepared material on the procedure for awarding this prize and its laureates.
Awarding the Prize and Nominating Candidates
The prize is awarded by the Swedish Academy in Stockholm. It includes 18 academicians who hold this post for life. The preparatory work is carried out by the Nobel Committee, whose members (four to five people) are elected by the Academy from among its members for a three-year period. Candidates can be nominated by members of the Academy and similar institutions in other countries, professors of literature and linguistics, prize winners and chairmen of writers' organizations who have received special invitations from the committee.
The nomination process runs from September to January 31 of the following year. In April, the committee draws up a list of 20 most worthy writers, then it is reduced to five candidates. The laureate is determined by the academicians at the beginning of October by a majority vote. The writer is informed about the awarding of the award half an hour before the announcement of his name. In 2017, 195 people were nominated.
Five Nobel Prize winners are announced during Nobel Week, which begins on the first Monday in October. Their names are announced in the following order: Physiology and Medicine; physics; chemistry; literature; Peace Prize. The winner of the State Bank of Sweden prize for economics in memory of Alfred Nobel is named next Monday. In 2016, the order was violated, the name of the awarded writer was made public last. According to the Swedish media, despite the delay in the start of the laureate election procedure, there was no disagreement within the Swedish Academy.
Laureates
Over the entire existence of the award, 113 writers, including 14 women, have become its laureates. Among the awardees are such world famous authors as Rabindranath Tagore (1913), Anatole France (1921), Bernard Shaw (1925), Thomas Mann (1929), Hermann Hesse (1946), William Faulkner (1949), Ernest Hemingway (1954), Pablo Neruda (1971), Gabriel García Márquez (1982).
In 1953, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill was honored with this award "for the high skill of works of historical and biographical character, as well as for the brilliant oratory, with the help of which the highest human values were defended." Churchill was repeatedly nominated for this prize, in addition, he was twice nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize, but never won it.
Typically, writers receive an award for a combination of accomplishments in the field of literature. However, nine people were awarded for a particular piece. For example, Thomas Mann was noted for the novel Buddenbrooks; John Galsworthy, The Forsyte Saga (1932); Ernest Hemingway, for The Old Man and the Sea; Mikhail Sholokhov - in 1965 for the novel "Quiet Don" ("for the artistic power and integrity of the epic about the Don Cossacks at a crucial time for Russia").
In addition to Sholokhov, there are our other compatriots among the laureates. So, in 1933 Ivan Bunin received the prize "for the strict skill with which he develops the traditions of Russian classical prose", and in 1958 - Boris Pasternak "for outstanding services in modern lyric poetry and in the field of great Russian prose."
However, Pasternak, who was criticized in the USSR for his novel Doctor Zhivago, published abroad, under pressure from the authorities refused the award. The medal and diploma were presented to his son in Stockholm in December 1989. In 1970, Alexander Solzhenitsyn became a laureate of the prize ("for the moral strength with which he followed the immutable traditions of Russian literature"). In 1987, the prize was awarded to Joseph Brodsky "for an all-encompassing work, imbued with clarity of thought and passion for poetry" (he emigrated to the United States in 1972).
In 2015, the Belarusian writer Svetlana Aleksievich was awarded for "polyphonic compositions, a monument to suffering and courage in our time."
In 2016, the American poet, composer and performer Bob Dylan became a laureate for "creating poetic imagery in the great American songwriting tradition."
Statistics
The Nobel website notes that out of 113 laureates, 12 wrote under pseudonyms. This list includes French writer and literary critic Anatole France (real name François Anatole Thibault) and Chilean poet and politician Pablo Neruda (Ricardo Elieser Neftali Reyes Basoalto).
The relative majority of awards (28) went to literary men who wrote in English. For books in French, 14 writers were awarded, in German - 13, in Spanish - 11, in Swedish - seven, in Italian - six, in Russian - six (including Svetlana Alexievich), in Polish - four, in Norwegian and Danish - each three people, and in Greek, Japanese and Chinese - two each. Authors of works in Arabic, Bengali, Hungarian, Icelandic, Portuguese, Serbo-Croatian, Turkish, Occitan (Provençal dialect of French), Finnish, Czech, as well as in Hebrew were awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature once.
Most often, the awards were given to writers working in the genre of prose (77), in second place - poetry (34), in third - drama (14). For their works in the field of history, the prize was awarded to three writers, in philosophy - two. Moreover, one author can be awarded for works in several genres. For example, Boris Pasternak received the prize as a prose writer and as a poet, and Maurice Maeterlinck (Belgium; 1911) - as a prose writer and playwright.
In 1901-2016, the prize was awarded 109 times (in 1914, 1918, 1935, 1940-1943, the academicians could not determine the best writer). Only four times the award has been split between two writers.
The median age of the laureates is 65, the youngest is Rudyard Kipling, who won the prize at 42 (1907), and the oldest is 88-year-old Doris Lessing (2007).
The second writer (after Boris Pasternak) to refuse the award was the French novelist and philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre in 1964. He said that he "did not want to be turned into a public institution," and expressed dissatisfaction with the fact that, when awarding the prize, academics "ignore the merits of revolutionary writers of the 20th century."
Notable Writer Candidates Not Award Winning
Many great writers who have been nominated for the award never received it. Among them is Leo Tolstoy. Our writers such as Dmitry Merezhkovsky, Maxim Gorky, Konstantin Balmont, Ivan Shmelev, Evgeny Evtushenko, Vladimir Nabokov were not awarded. Outstanding prose writers from other countries also did not become laureates - Jorge Luis Borges (Argentina), Mark Twain (USA), Henrik Ibsen (Norway).
Only five Russian writers have been awarded the prestigious international Nobel Prize. For three of them, this brought not only worldwide fame, but also widespread persecution, repression and exile. Only one of them was approved by the Soviet government, and the last owner was “forgiven” and invited to return to their homeland.
Nobel Prize is one of the most prestigious awards that is awarded annually for outstanding scientific research, significant inventions and significant contribution to the culture and development of society. One comic, but not accidental story is connected with its establishment. It is known that the founder of the award, Alfred Nobel, is also famous for the fact that it was he who invented dynamite (pursuing, nevertheless, pacifist goals, since he believed that opponents armed to the teeth would understand all the stupidity and senselessness of war and end the conflict). When his brother Ludwig Nobel died in 1888, and the newspapers mistakenly “buried” Alfred Nobel, calling him a “merchant in death,” the latter seriously thought about how his society would remember him. As a result of these reflections, in 1895 Alfred Nobel changed his will. And it said the following:
“All my movable and immovable property should be converted by my executors into liquid values, and the capital collected in this way should be placed in a reliable bank. The income from investments should belong to the fund, which will annually distribute them in the form of bonuses to those who, during the previous year, brought the greatest benefit to humanity ... The indicated percentages must be divided into five equal parts, which are intended: one part - to the one who makes the most important discovery or invention in the field of physics; the other is to the one who will make the most important discovery or improvement in the field of chemistry; third - to the one who will make the most important discovery in the field of physiology or medicine; the fourth - to the one who creates the most outstanding literary work of the idealistic trend; fifth - to the one who will make the most significant contribution to the rallying of nations, the elimination of slavery or the reduction of the existing armies and the promotion of peace conventions ... My special desire is that the nationality of candidates is not taken into account when awarding prizes ... "
Medal awarded to the Nobel laureate
After conflicts with the "deprived" relatives of Nobel, the executors of his will - a secretary and a lawyer - established the Nobel Foundation, whose responsibilities included organizing the presentation of bequeathed prizes. A separate institution has been set up to award each of the five prizes. So, Nobel Prize in literature came under the competence of the Swedish Academy. Since then, the Nobel Prize in Literature has been awarded annually since 1901, except for 1914, 1918, 1935 and 1940-1943. Interestingly, upon delivery Nobel Prize only the names of the laureates are announced, all other nominations have been kept secret for 50 years.
Swedish Academy building
Despite the seeming unbiasedness Nobel Prize dictated by the philanthropic instructions of Nobel himself, many "left" political forces still see in the award of the prize an obvious politicization and a certain Western cultural chauvinism. It is hard not to notice that the overwhelming majority of Nobel laureates come from the USA and European countries (more than 700 laureates), while the number of laureates from the USSR and Russia is much less. Moreover, there is a point of view that most of the Soviet laureates were awarded the prize only for criticism of the USSR.
Nevertheless, here are the five Russian writers - laureates Nobel Prize on literature:
Ivan Alekseevich Bunin- Laureate of 1933. The prize was awarded "For the strict skill with which he develops the traditions of Russian classical prose." Bunin received the award while in exile.
Boris Leonidovich Pasternak- Laureate of 1958. The prize was awarded "For significant achievements in contemporary lyric poetry, as well as for the continuation of the traditions of the great Russian epic novel." This award is associated with the anti-Soviet novel Doctor Zhivago, therefore, in the face of harsh persecution, Pasternak is forced to refuse it. The medal and diploma were awarded to the writer's son Eugene only in 1988 (the writer died in 1960). Interestingly, in 1958, this was the seventh attempt to present Pasternak with the prestigious prize.
Mikhail Alexandrovich Sholokhov- Laureate of 1965. The prize was awarded "For the artistic strength and integrity of the epic about the Don Cossacks at a crucial time for Russia." This award has a long history. Back in 1958, a delegation from the USSR Writers' Union that visited Sweden opposed the European popularity of Pasternak to the international popularity of Sholokhov, and a telegram to the Soviet ambassador in Sweden dated April 7, 1958 said:
“It would be desirable, through cultural workers close to us, to make it clear to the Swedish public that the Soviet Union would highly appreciate the award Nobel Prize Sholokhov ... It is also important to make it clear that Pasternak as a writer does not enjoy recognition from Soviet writers and progressive writers of other countries. "
Contrary to this recommendation, Nobel Prize in 1958, it was nevertheless awarded to Pasternak, which entailed harsh disapproval of the Soviet government. But in 1964 from Nobel Prize Jean-Paul Sartre refused, explaining this, among other things, by personal regret that the prize was not awarded to Sholokhov. It was this gesture of Sartre that predetermined the choice of the laureate in 1965. Thus, Mikhail Sholokhov became the only Soviet writer who received Nobel prize with the consent of the top leadership of the USSR.
Alexander Isaevich Solzhenitsyn- Laureate of 1970. The prize was awarded "For the moral strength with which he followed the immutable traditions of Russian literature." It took only 7 years from the beginning of Solzhenitsyn's career to the award of the prize - this is the only such case in the history of the Nobel Committee. Solzhenitsyn himself spoke about the political aspect of awarding him the prize, but the Nobel Committee denied this. Nevertheless, after Solzhenitsyn received the prize, a propaganda campaign was organized against him in the USSR, and in 1971 - an attempt at physical destruction, when he was injected with a poisonous substance, after which the writer survived, but was ill for a long time.
Joseph Alexandrovich Brodsky- Laureate of 1987. The prize was awarded "For an all-encompassing creativity imbued with clarity of thought and passion of poetry." The awarding of the Prize to Brodsky no longer caused such controversy as many other decisions of the Nobel Committee, since Brodsky by that time was known in many countries. In his very first interview after being awarded the prize, he himself said: "It was received by Russian literature, and it was received by a citizen of America." And even the weakened Soviet government, shaken by perestroika, began to establish contacts with the famous exile.
What is a Nobel Prize?
Since 1901, the Nobel Prize in Literature (Swedish: Nobelpriset i litteratur) has been awarded annually to an author from any country who, according to the testament of Alfred Nobel, has created "the most outstanding literary work of idealistic orientation" (Swedish source: den som inom litteraturen harrat produce det mest framstående verket i en idealisk riktning). While individual works are sometimes noted as particularly noteworthy, “work” here refers to the author's entire legacy. The Swedish Academy decides every year who will receive the prize, if any at all. The Academy announces the name of the selected laureate in early October. The Nobel Prize for Literature is one of five established by Alfred Nobel in his will in 1895. Other prizes: Nobel Prize in Chemistry, Nobel Prize in Physics, Nobel Peace Prize, and Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.
Despite the fact that the Nobel Prize in Literature has become the most prestigious literary prize in the world, the Swedish Academy has received significant criticism for its awarding procedures. Many of the award-winning authors have retired from writing, while others who have been denied awards by the jury remain widely studied and read. The prize "has come to be widely regarded as a political prize - a peace prize in literary guise." Judges discriminate against authors with political views that differ from their own. Tim Parks remarked skeptically that "Swedish professors ... allow themselves to compare a poet from Indonesia, possibly translated into English, to a novelist from Cameroon, whose work is probably only available in French, and another who writes in Afrikaans. but published in German and Dutch ... ". As of 2016, 16 of the 113 laureates were of Scandinavian descent. The Academy has often been accused of preferring European, and in particular Swedish, authors. Some notable personalities, such as the Indian academician Sabari Mitra, have noted that while the Nobel Prize in Literature is significant and tends to overshadow other awards, it "is not the only benchmark for literary excellence."
The "vague" wording that Nobel gave to the criteria for evaluating the award, leads to ongoing controversy. The original Swedish word for idealisk is translated as either "idealistic" or "ideal". The interpretation of the Nobel Committee has changed over the years. In recent years, there has been a kind of idealism in advocating human rights on a large scale.
History of the Nobel Prize
Alfred Nobel stipulated in his will that his money should be used to establish a number of prizes for those who bring "the greatest benefit to humanity" in physics, chemistry, peace, physiology or medicine, as well as literature. of his life, the latter was written just over a year before his death, and signed at the Swedish-Norwegian Club in Paris on November 27, 1895. Nobel bequeathed 94% of his total assets, that is, 31 million SEK (198 million US dollars, or 176 million euros as of 2016), for the establishment and presentation of five Nobel Prizes.Due to the high level of skepticism surrounding his will, it was not enacted until April 26, 1897, when the Storting (Norwegian parliament) approved it. his wills were Ragnar Sulman and Rudolf Liliequist, who established the Nobel Foundation to take care of the Nobel's fortune and organize prizes.
The members of the Norwegian Nobel Committee, who were to award the Peace Prize, were appointed shortly after the will was approved. They were followed by the awarding organizations: the Karolinska Institute on June 7, the Swedish Academy on June 9, and the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences on June 11. The Nobel Foundation then reached an agreement on the basic principles according to which the Nobel Prize should be awarded. In 1900, King Oscar II promulgated the newly established statutes of the Nobel Foundation. According to Nobel's will, the Royal Swedish Academy was to award the prize in the field of literature.
Candidates for the Nobel Prize in Literature
Every year, the Swedish Academy sends out requests for nominations for the Nobel Prize in Literature. Academy members, members of literary academies and communities, professors of literature and language, former Nobel Prize winners in literature, and presidents of writers' organizations all have the right to nominate a candidate. You are not allowed to nominate yourself.
Thousands of requests are sent every year, and as of 2011, about 220 offers have been rejected. These proposals must be received at the Academy by February 1, after which they are considered by the Nobel Committee. Until April, the Academy is reducing the number of candidates to about twenty. By May, the Committee will approve the final list of five names. The next four months are spent reading and reviewing the papers of these five candidates. In October, the members of the Academy vote and the candidate with more than half of the votes is declared the Nobel Prize Laureate in Literature. No one can win an award without being on the list at least twice, so many of the authors are reviewed multiple times over the years. The academy is fluent in thirteen languages, but if a shortlisted candidate is working in an unfamiliar language, they will hire sworn translators and experts to provide samples of that writer’s work. The rest of the process is the same as in other Nobel Prizes.
The size of the Nobel Prize
The laureate of the Nobel Prize in Literature receives a gold medal, a diploma with a quote, and a sum of money. The amount of the prize awarded depends on the income of the Nobel Foundation this year. If the prize is awarded to more than one laureate, the money is either divided in half between them, or, if there are three laureates, it is divided in half, and the other half is divided into two quarters of the amount. If a prize is awarded jointly to two or more laureates, the money is split between them.
The prize fund for the Nobel Prize has fluctuated since its inception, but as of 2012 it stood at 8,000,000 kroons (about 1,100,000 USD), up from 10,000,000 kroons previously. This was not the first time the prize money had been diminished. Starting with a par value of 150,782 kronor in 1901 (equivalent to 8,123,951 kronor in 2011), the par value was only 121,333 kronor (equivalent to 2,370,660 kronor in 2011) in 1945. But since then, the amount has grown or has been stable, peaking at SEK 11,659,016 in 2001.
Nobel Prize medals
The Nobel Prize medals, minted by the mints of Sweden and Norway since 1902, are registered trademarks of the Nobel Foundation. The obverse (obverse) of each medal shows the left profile of Alfred Nobel. The Nobel Prize medals in physics, chemistry, physiology and medicine, literature have the same obverse with the image of Alfred Nobel and the years of his birth and death (1833-1896). The Nobel portrait is also depicted on the obverse of the Nobel Peace Prize medal and the Prize in Economics medal, but the design is slightly different. The depiction on the reverse of the medal varies depending on the awarding institution. The reverse sides of the Nobel Prize medals in chemistry and physics have the same design. The design of the Nobel Prize in Literature Medal was developed by Eric Lindbergh.
Nobel Prize Diplomas
Nobel laureates receive their diplomas directly from the hands of the King of Sweden. Each diploma is specially designed by the institution that awards the prize to the laureate. The diploma contains an image and text, which indicates the name of the laureate, and as a rule it is cited for which he received the award.
Nobel Prize Winners in Literature
Selection of candidates for the Nobel Prize
Potential recipients of the Nobel Prize in Literature are difficult to predict, since the nominations are kept secret for fifty years, until the database of the nominees for the Nobel Prize in Literature is freely available. Currently, only nominations submitted between 1901 and 1965 are available for public viewing. Such secrecy leads to speculation about the next Nobel laureate.
What about rumors circulating around the world about certain people allegedly nominated for the Nobel Prize this year? - Well, either these are just rumors, or one of the invited persons, proposing nominees, leaked information. Since the nominations have been kept secret for 50 years, you will have to wait until you know for sure.
According to Professor Göran Malmqvist of the Swedish Academy, Chinese writer Shen Tsongwen should have been awarded the 1988 Nobel Prize in Literature if he hadn't died suddenly that year.
Criticism of the Nobel Prize
Controversy over the selection of Nobel Prize winners
From 1901 to 1912, a committee headed by the conservative Karl David af Wiersen evaluated the literary value of the work in comparison with its contribution to humanity's pursuit of "the ideal." Tolstoy, Ibsen, Zola, and Mark Twain were rejected in favor of authors that few people read today. In addition, many believe that Sweden's historical antipathy towards Russia is the reason why neither Tolstoy nor Chekhov were awarded the prize. During and immediately after World War I, the Committee adopted a policy of neutrality, favoring authors from non-belligerent countries. The committee has repeatedly bypassed August Strindberg. However, he received a special honor in the form of the Antinobel Prize, awarded to him in the wake of stormy national recognition in 1912 by future Prime Minister Karl Hjalmar Branting. James Joyce wrote books that took 1 and 3 places in the list of the 100 best novels of our time - "Ulysses" and "Portrait of an artist in his youth", but Joyce was never awarded the Nobel Prize. As his biographer Gordon Bowker wrote, "This award was simply beyond Joyce's reach."
The academy found the novel War with the Salamanders by the Czech writer Karel Czapek too offensive for the German government. In addition, he refused to provide any non-controversial publication of his that could be referred to when evaluating his work, saying: "Thanks for the favor, but I have already written my doctoral dissertation." Thus, he was left without a prize.
The first woman to receive the Nobel Prize in Literature only in 1909 was Selma Lagerlöf (Sweden 1858-1940) for "the high idealism, vivid imagination and spiritual insight that distinguish all her works."
French novelist and intellectual André Malraux was seriously considered a candidate for the prize in the 1950s, according to the archives of the Swedish Academy studied by Le Monde since its opening in 2008. Malraux competed with Camus, but was turned down several times, notably in 1954 and 1955, "until he returned to the novel." Thus, Camus was awarded a prize in 1957.
Some believe that W.H. Auden was not awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature due to errors in his 1961 translation of Nobel Peace Prize laureate Dag Hammarskjöld's book Vägmärken / Markings, and the statements Oden made during his a lecture tour of Scandinavia, suggesting that Hammarskjold, like Auden himself, was homosexual.
In 1962, John Steinbeck received the Nobel Prize in Literature. The selection was heavily criticized and was called "one of the Academy's biggest mistakes" in a Swedish newspaper. The New York Times wondered why the Nobel Committee had given the prize to an author whose "limited talent even in his best books is diluted with the most shoddy philosophies," adding: the influence and perfect literary heritage have already had a deeper influence on the literature of our time. " Steinbeck himself, when asked on the day of the announcement of the results, whether he deserved the Nobel Prize, replied: "Honestly, no." In 2012 (50 years later), the Nobel Committee opened its archives, and it was revealed that Steinbeck was a "compromise option" among the nominees on the final list, such as Steinbeck himself, British authors Robert Graves and Laurence Darrell, French playwright Jean Anouil, and also Danish writer Karen Blixen. Declassified documents indicate that he was chosen as the lesser of evils. "There are no clear candidates for the Nobel Prize, and the award committee is in an unenviable position," writes committee member Henry Olson.
In 1964, Jean-Paul Sartre was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature, but declined it, stating that “There is a difference between the signature“ Jean-Paul Sartre, ”or“ Jean-Paul Sartre, Nobel Prize winner. ”A writer must not allow to turn oneself into an institution, even if it takes the most honorable forms. "
Soviet dissident writer Alexander Solzhenitsyn, laureate of 1970, did not attend the Nobel Prize ceremony in Stockholm for fear that the USSR would prevent his return after the trip (his work there was distributed through samizdat - an underground form of printing). After the Swedish government refused to honor Solzhenitsyn with an award ceremony and a lecture at the Swedish embassy in Moscow, Solzhenitsyn refused the award altogether, noting that the conditions set by the Swedes (who preferred a private ceremony) were "an insult to the Nobel Prize itself." Solzhenitsyn accepted the award and cash prize only on December 10, 1974, when he was deported from the Soviet Union.
In 1974, Graham Greene, Vladimir Nabokov, and Saul Bellow were considered candidates for the prize, but were rejected in favor of a joint prize awarded to Swedish authors Eyvind Yunson and Harry Martinson, members of the Swedish Academy at the time, unknown outside their home country. Bellow received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1976. Neither Green nor Nabokov were awarded the prize.
Argentine writer Jorge Luis Borges has been nominated for the award several times, but according to Edwin Williamson, Borges's biographer, the Academy did not present him with the award, most likely due to his support for some Argentine and Chilean right-wing military dictators, including Augusto Pinochet. whose social and personal connections were highly convoluted, according to Colm Toybin's review of Williamson's Borges in Life. Borges's denial of the Nobel Prize for supporting these right-wing dictators contrasts with the Committee's recognition of writers who openly supported controversial left-wing dictatorships, including Joseph Stalin in the cases of Sartre and Pablo Neruda. In addition, the moment with Gabriel García Márquez's support for the Cuban revolutionary and President Fidel Castro was controversial.
The awarding of Italian playwright Dario Fo in 1997 was initially considered "rather superficial" by some critics, as he was primarily viewed as a performer, and Catholic organizations considered the award to Fo controversial, as he had previously been condemned by the Roman Catholic Church. The Vatican newspaper L "Osservatore Romano" expressed surprise at Fo's choice, noting that "Giving an award to someone who is also the author of questionable works is unthinkable." Salman Rushdie and Arthur Miller were clear candidates for the prize, but Nobel organizers, as later was quoted as saying they would be "too predictable, too popular."
Camilo José Cela willingly offered his services as an informant for the Franco regime and voluntarily moved from Madrid to Galicia during the Spanish Civil War to join the rebel forces there. Miguel ngel Vilhena's article Between Fear and Impunity, which collected comments from Spanish novelists about the remarkable silence of the older generation of Spanish novelists about the past of public intellectuals during the Franco dictatorship, appeared under a photograph of Cela during his Nobel Prize ceremony in Stockholm in 1989 ...
The choice of the 2004 laureate, Elfrida Jelinek, was contested by a member of the Swedish Academy, Knut Anlund, who had not been an active member of the Academy since 1996. Anlund resigned, arguing that Jelinek's choice caused "irreparable damage" to the prize's reputation.
The announcement of Harold Pinter as a 2005 winner was delayed by several days, apparently due to the resignation of Anlund, and this led to renewed speculation that there was a "political element" in the presentation of the Prize by the Swedish Academy. Although Pinter was unable to deliver his controversial Nobel Lecture in person due to ill health, he broadcast it from a television studio and it was video-broadcast in front of an audience at the Swedish Academy in Stockholm. His comments have become the source of a great deal of interpretation and discussion. Their "political stance" was also raised in response to the Nobel Prize in Literature to Orhan Pamuk and Doris Lessing in 2006 and 2007, respectively.
The choice of 2016 fell on Bob Dylan, and it was the first time in history that a musician and songwriter received the Nobel Prize for Literature. The award sparked some controversy, particularly among writers, who argued that Dylan's literary merit was not equal to that of some of his colleagues. Lebanese novelist Rabih Alameddin tweeted that "Bob Dylan, winning the Nobel Prize for Literature, is the same as if Mrs. Fields' cookies received 3 Michelin stars." French-Moroccan writer Pierre Assulin called this decision "contempt for writers." During a live web chat hosted by The Guardian, Norwegian writer Karl Uwe Knausgaard said: “I am very discouraged. fine. But knowing that Dylan is from the same generation as Thomas Pynchon, Philip Roth, Cormac McCarthy, I find it very difficult to accept. " Scottish writer Irwin Welch said: "I'm a Dylan fan, but this award is just a poorly balanced nostalgia expelled by the old rotten prostates of mumbling hippies." Dylan's songwriter and friend Leonard Cohen said no awards were needed to recognize the greatness of the man who transformed pop music with records such as Highway 61 Revisited. "For me," Cohen said, "[being awarded the Nobel Prize] is like hanging a medal on Mount Everest for being the tallest mountain." Writer and columnist Will Self wrote that the award "devalued" Dylan when he hoped the laureate would "follow Sartre's example and reject the award."
Controversial Nobel Prize awards
The focus of the award on Europeans, and Swedes in particular, has been the subject of criticism, even in Swedish newspapers. Most of the laureates were Europeans, and Sweden received more awards than all of Asia together with Latin America. In 2009, Horace Engdahl, later permanent secretary of the Academy, stated that “Europe is still the center of the literary world,” and that “the United States is too isolated, too withdrawn. They don’t translate enough works, and they don’t take an active part in the big literary dialogue. "
In 2009, Peter Englund, who replaced Engdahl, rejected this opinion (“In most language areas ... there are authors who really deserve and could receive the Nobel Prize, and this applies to both the United States and the Americas in overall ") and acknowledged the Eurocentric nature of the award, stating:" I think this is a problem. We tend to be more responsive to literature written in Europe and in the European tradition. " American critics are known to have objected that their compatriots like Philip Roth, Thomas Pynchon and Cormac McCarthy have been overlooked, as have Hispanics like Jorge Luis Borges, Julio Cortazar, and Carlos Fuentes, while the Europeans, lesser known on this continent, were victorious. The 2009 award, retired by Gerte Müller, formerly little known outside Germany, but many times named the favorite of the Nobel Prize, renewed the view that the Swedish Academy was biased and Eurocentric.
However, the 2010 prize went to Mario Vargas Llosa, who was originally from Peru in South America. When the prize was awarded to the distinguished Swedish poet Tumas Tranströmer in 2011, the permanent secretary of the Swedish Academy Peter Englund said the prize was not awarded on a political basis, describing the term “literature for dummies”. The next two awards were presented by the Swedish Academy to non-Europeans, the Chinese author Mo Yan and the Canadian writer Alice Munro. The victory of French writer Modiano in 2014 revived the issue of Eurocentrism. Asked by The Wall Street Journal, "So, again without Americans this year? Why?"
Undeservedly received Nobel Prizes
In the history of the Nobel Prize in Literature, many literary achievements have been overlooked. Literary historian Kjell Espmark admits that “when it comes to early prizes, bad choices and egregious omissions are often justified. For example, instead of Sully Prudhomme, Aiken, and Heise, it was worth rewarding Tolstoy, Ibsea, and Henry James. "There are omissions that are outside the control of the Nobel Committee, for example, due to the untimely death of the author, as was the case with Marcel Proust, Italo Calvino, and Roberto Bolagno. According to Kjell Espmark, "the main works of Kafka, Cavafy and Pessoa were published only after their death, and the world learned about the true greatness of Mandelstam's poetry primarily from unpublished poems that his wife saved from oblivion long after his death in Siberian exile." British novelist Tim Parks attributed the endless controversy surrounding the Nobel committee's decisions to "the prize's principled frivolity and our own stupidity in taking it seriously," and also noted that "eighteen (or sixteen) Swedish citizens will have a certain amount of authority when evaluating Swedish literature. but which group could ever truly embrace their m mind the infinitely varied work of dozens of different traditions? And why should we ask them to do this? "
Equivalents to the Nobel Prize in Literature
The Nobel Prize in Literature is not the only literary prize for which authors of all nationalities are eligible. Other notable international literary awards include the Neustadt Literary Prize, the Franz Kafka Prize, and the International Booker Prize. Unlike the Nobel Prize in Literature, the Franz Kafka Prize, the International Booker Prize, and the Neustadt Prize for Literature are awarded every two years. Journalist Hepzibah Anderson noted that the International Booker Prize "is rapidly becoming a more significant award, serving as an increasingly competent alternative to the Nobel." The Booker International Prize "focuses on the overall contribution of a single writer to fiction on the world stage" and "focuses on literary excellence only." Since it was only established in 2005, it is not yet possible to analyze the importance of its impact on potential future Nobel Prize winners in literature. Only Alice Munroe (2009) has been honored with both. However, some International Booker Prize winners such as Ismail Kadare (2005) and Philip Roth (2011) are considered nominees for the Nobel Prize in Literature. The Neustadt Literary Prize is considered one of the most prestigious international literary awards, and is often referred to as the American equivalent of the Nobel Prize. Like the Nobel or Booker Prize, it is awarded not for any work, but for the entire work of the author. The prize is often seen as an indicator that a particular author may be awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature. Gabriel García Márquez (1972 - Neustadt, 1982 - Nobel), Czeslaw Milos (1978 - Neustadt, 1980 - Nobel), Octavio Paz (1982 - Neustadt, 1990 - Nobel), Tranströmer (1990 - Neustadt, 2011 - Nobel) were initially awarded Neustadt International Literary Prize before being awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature.
Another noteworthy award is the Princess of Asturias Prize (formerly the Prize of the Irinsky of Asturias) for Literature. In its early years, it was almost exclusively awarded to writers who wrote in Spanish, but later the prize was also awarded to writers working in other languages. Among the writers who have received both the Princess of Asturias Prize for Literature and the Nobel Prize for Literature are Camilo José Cela, Gunther Grass, Doris Lessing, and Mario Vargas Llosa.
The American Prize for Literature, which does not provide a cash prize, is an alternative to the Nobel Prize for Literature. To date, Harold Pinter and Jose Saramago are the only writers to have received both literary awards.
There are also prizes that honor the lifetime achievement of writers in specific languages, such as the Miguel de Cervantes Prize (for authors writing in Spanish, established in 1976) and the Camões Prize (for Portuguese-speaking authors, established in 1989). Nobel laureates who were also awarded the Cervantes Prize: Octavio Paz (1981 - Cervantes, 1990 - Nobel), Mario Vargas Llosa (1994 - Cervantes, 2010 - Nobel), and Camilo José Cela (1995 - Cervantes, 1989 - Nobel). Jose Saramago is, to date, the only author to have received both the Camões Prize (1995) and the Nobel Prize (1998).
The Hans Christian Andersen Award is sometimes called the "Little Nobel". The award deserves its name because, like the Nobel Prize in Literature, it takes into account the lifetime achievements of writers, although the Andersen Prize focuses on one category of literary work (children's literature).