Nobel Prize in Literature

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