Christchurch City Libraries lists literary prize winners and links to catalogue searches, but we may not hold copies of titles by all authors.
The Nobel Prize is an international award administered by the Nobel Foundation in Stockholm, Sweden. Every year since 1901 the Nobel Prize has been awarded for achievements in physics, chemistry, physiology or medicine, literature and for peace. This page lists the winners of the literature category. For the other categories and for some history of the Nobel Prize, browse our Nobel Prizes page.
See more literary prize winners.
2022
Annie Ernaux France
The Nobel Prize in Literature 2022 was awarded to Annie Ernaux "for the courage and clinical acuity with which she uncovers the roots, estrangements and collective restraints of personal memory"
Find books by Annie Ernaux in our collection
2021
Abdulrazak Gurnah, Zanzibar; Tanzania; United Kingdom
Biobibliographical notes
2020
-
Louise Glück, U. S. A
2019
- Peter Handke, Austria
2018
(This award was postponed and announced at the same time of the 2019 winner.)
-
Olga Tokarczuk, Poland
2017
-
Kazuo Ishiguro, United Kingdom
2016
- Bob Dylan, U.S.A.
2015
- Svetlana Aleksievich, 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, Germany
2008
- Jean-Marie Gustave Le Clézio, France
2007
-
Doris Lessing, United Kingdom
2006
- Orhan Pamuk, Turkey
2005
- Harold Pinter, United Kingdom
2004
-
Elfriede Jelinek, Austria
2003
- John Maxwell Coetzee, South Africa
2002
- Imre Kertész, Hungary
2001
-
V. S. Naipaul, Great Britain
2000
- Gao Xingjian, China
1999
- Günter Grass, Germany
1998
-
José Saramago, Portugal
1997
- Dario Fo, Italy
1996
- Wislawa Szymborska, Poland
1995
-
Seamus Heaney, Ireland
1994
- Kenzaburo Oe, Japan
1993
- Toni Morrison, U.S.A.
1992
- Derek Walcott, Trinidad
1991
-
Nadine Gordimer, South Africa
1990
- Octavio Paz, Mexico
1989
- Camilo José Cela, Spain
1988
-
Naguib Mahfouz, Egypt
1987
- Joseph Brodsky, U.S.S.R.
1986
- Wole Soyinka, Nigeria
1985
-
Claude Simon, France
1984
- Jaroslav Seifert, Czechoslavakia
1983
- William Golding, United Kingdom
1982
-
Gabriel García Márquez, Colombia
1981
- Elias Canetti, United Kingdom
1980
- Czeslaw Milosz, Poland/U.S.A.
1979
- Odysseus Elytis, Greece
1978
- Isaac Bashevis Singer, U.S.A
1977
- Vicente Aleixandre, Spain
1976
-
Saul Bellow, U.S.A.
1975
- Eugenio Montale, Italy
1974
- Eyvind Johnson, Sweden
- Harry Martinson, Sweden
1973
- Patrick White, Australia
1972
- Heinrich Böll, Federal Republic of Germany
1971
-
Pablo Neruda, Chile
1970
- Aleksandr I. Solzhenitsyn, U.S.S.R.
1969
- Samuel Beckett, Ireland
1968
-
Yasunari Kawabata, Japan
1967
- Miguel A. Asturias, Guatemala
1966
- Shmuel Yosef Agnon, Israel
- Nelly Sachs, Germany
1965
- Mikhail Aleksandrovich Sholokhov, U.S.S.R.
1964
-
Jean-Paul Sartre, France (declined)
1963
- Giorgos Seferis, Greece
1962
- John Steinbeck, U.S.A.
1961
-
Ivo Andric, Yugoslavia
1960
- Saint-John Perse, France
1959
- Salvatore Quasimodo, Italy
1958
- Boris Leonidovich Pasternak, U.S.S.R.
1957
-
Albert Camus, France
1956
- Juan Ramón Jiménez, Spain
1955
- Halldór Laxness, Iceland
1954
-
Ernest Hemingway, U.S.A.
1953
- Winston Churchill, United Kingdom
1952
- François Mauriac, France
1951
- Pär Lagerkvist, Sweden
1950
- Bertrand Russell, United Kingdom
1949
-
William Faulkner, U.S.A.
1948
- T. S. Eliot, United Kingdom
1947
- André Gide, France
1946
-
Hermann Hesse, Switzerland
1945
- Gabriela Mistral, Chile
1944
- Johannes V. Jensen, Denmark
1943
- No Award
1942
- No Award
1941
- No Award
1940
- No Award
1939
- Frans Eemil Sillanpää, Finland
1938
-
Pearl S. Buck, U.S.A.
1937
- Roger Martin du Gard, France
1936
- Eugene O’Neill, U.S.A.
1935
- No Award
1934
- Luigi Pirandello, Italy
1933
- Ivan Alekseevich Bunin, Stateless
1932
-
John Galsworthy, United Kingdom
1931
- Erik Axel Karlfeldt, Sweden
1930
- Sinclair Lewis, U.S.A.
1929
- Thomas Mann, Germany
1928
- Sigrid Undset, Norway
1927
-
Henri Bergson, France
1926
- Grazia Deledda, Italy
1925
- George Bernard Shaw, United Kingdom
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
1917
- Karl Gjellerup, Denmark
- Henrik Pontoppidan, Denmark
1916
- Verner von Heidenstam, Sweden
1915
- Romain Rolland, France
1914
- No Award
1913
- Rabindranath Tagore, India
1912
- Gerhart Hauptmann, Germany
1911
- Maurice Maeterlinck, Belgium
1910
- Paul Heyse, Germany
1909
- Selma Lagerlöf, Sweden
1908
- Rudolf Eucken, Germany
1907
-
Rudyard Kipling, United Kingdom
1906
- Giosuè Carducci, Italy
1905
- Henryk Sienkiewicz, Poland
1904
- José Echegaray, Spain
- Frédéric Mistral, France
1903
- Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson, Norway
1902
- Theodor Mommsen, Germany
1901
- Sully Prudhomme, France