Prestigious Book Awards, Part 3: Nobel Prize in Literature
Juraj Púchlo
The Nobel Prize in Literature has been awarded since the beginning of the last century. No wonder that the history of this prestigious award is rich in information and interesting facts.
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The Nobel Prize in Literature is an impatiently awaited annual event. It is not only the selection of an author and a work that matters, but also a reflection of a wider context and socio-historical discourse. Then, it is not surprising that the last year prize was awarded to a woman and this year the prize went to an African writer who writes about migrants and the clash of cultures. The Nobel Prize in Literature has been awarded since the beginning of the last century. No wonder that the history of this prestigious award is rich in information and interesting facts.

From dynamite to literature

The Nobel Prize in Literature is one of the five Nobel Prizes. It is awarded to an author from any country, according to Alfred Nobel’s last will and testament which says: ‘for the most significant literary work in an ideal direction’. It has been awarded since 1901. 947 laureates and 28 organisations have received the Nobel Prize so far. Out of which 89 are the laureates of the prize for economics, which is not actually a Nobel Prize. We will write more about it below.

Alfred Nobel was the inventor of dynamite. This invention and patent made him fabulously wealthy. On November 27, 1895, he signed his last will and testament, in which he donated a large part of his estate to a fund from which prizes were to be paid out. The Nobel Prize winner receives a commemorative medal, a diploma and a monetary award, which was 10 million Swedish kronor (about 983 thousand euros) for 2021.

The medals have a portrait of Alfred Nobel on the obverse with the years of his birth and death in Latin: NAT-MDCCC XXXIII OB-MDCCC XCVI. On the reverse of the medal there is a symbol corresponding to the respective prize and the inscription Inventas vitam juvat excoluisse per artes, i.e., Let us improve life through science and art. This is a quotation from Virgil’s Aeneid. The medals of from 18 carat recycled gold are handmade. Equally unique is the diploma, which is a work by Swedish and Norwegian artists and calligraphers.

One Nobel Prize can be awarded to several persons in one year (in 1968, it was agreed that no more than three persons could receive the Nobel Prize). The Nobel Prize cannot be awarded in memoriam, except for a situation, in which the laureate dies between the time their name is announced and the award ceremony. Only few individuals and organizations have been awarded the prize more times than once. However, a situation like this may occur. For example, Marie Curie-Skłodowska, who won both the Nobel Prize in Physics (1903) and the Nobel Prize in Chemistry (1911).

In relation to the Nobel Prize in Literature, it can be argued that it reflects global gender, cultural, social, but also socio-political and historical topics. In a way, it attracts attention to issues which have been overlooked for a long time, e.g., oppression, genocide or – in the case of the current laureate – migration. Through the authors and their works, the award opens a wider social debate. It is a pity, though that such little space is devoted to the prize and the laureates’ works.

An 18-member jury and more than a year-long selection process

The jury that selects and announces the laureates is the 18-member Royal Swedish Academy. It is a person, not a team that can be nominated for the award, and only members of the Swedish Academy and other academies, institutions and societies that hold a similar position are eligible. These include professors of literature and linguistics at universities and colleges, previous Nobel Prize Laureates in literature, and presidents of the societies of authors who represent the literary production in their countries. No one can nominate themselves.

The Nobel Committee for Literature sends nomination forms to the above-mentioned individuals and organisations as early as in September, i.e., a full calendar year in advance. Then there is a pre-selection of candidates, followed by a shortlisting and reading of the works. Finally, again in September, the committee meets to select the laureate(s). In October, the actual physical prize- giving ceremony takes place. Of course, the ceremony was not held last year and this year, as anti-pandemic measures are still in force. Nomination and voting by the committee remain secret for 50 years. The committee also publishes a short justification why the prize in literature has been awarded to the particular laureate.

If the jury comes to a conclusion that “Alfred Nobel’s last will and testament has not been honoured”, it may cancel the decision of awarding the prize after three years. Ironically, the Nobel Prize was for example awarded to the inventors of lobotomy, DDT, chemical weapons, or in 1945, for the nuclear fission reaction, and the prize was not taken from them. Let us add that Alfred Nobel stated in his last will and testament that a prize should be awarded annually from his estate for outstanding achievements in five fields:

The Nobel Prize in Physics – awarded by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences

The Nobel Prize in Chemistry – awarded by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences

Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine – awarded by the Karolinska Institute

Nobel Prize in Literature – awarded by the Swedish Academy

Nobel Peace Prize – awarded by a committee of the Norwegian Parliament

Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences

In 1968, the Sveriges Riksbank (The Central Bank of Sweden) established a new award called the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in memory of Alfred Nobel. This prize is awarded by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. Since Nobel did not mention it in his last will and testament, the monetary award is not paid out from the Nobel fund. This prize is awarded at the Nobel Prize ceremony even though it is actually not a Nobel Prize. At the same time, in 1968, it was agreed that no other prizes would be established ‘in memory of Alfred Nobel’. The Nobel Prize is the most prestigious award one can receive in life, and there are a lot of other prizes which try to gain importance saying that the prize is “almost the Nobel Prize in the particular field”.

Who is Abdulrazak Gurnah?

This year the Nobel Prize in Literature was awarded to a 72-year-old Tanzanian writer, Abdulrazak Gurnah. The Zanzibar-born author received the prestigious prize for “his uncompromising and compassionate penetration of the effects of colonialism and the plight of the refugee in the gap between cultures and continents”. This is the jury’s official justification. Gurnah won the Nobel Prize in Literature, as the first Black African writer since 1994 when the laureate was a Nigerian novelist and playwright Wole Soyinka.

Gurnah’s native language is Swahili. He came to the Great Britain as a refugee in the late 1960s. It is the refugee experience that has a strong impact on his literary work, in which he describes clashes of cultures and the colonial past. His novels are full of autobiographical elements. Gurnah teaches English literature and writes about authors who deal with topics of migrants and colonialism. He began writing in English at the age of 21 while he was in exile. He attracted attention in Britain, especially with his fourth book, Paradise, which was shortlisted for the Booker Prize in 1994. His tenth and most recent novel is Afterlives, which is set in Africa after 1919. Gurnah’s works have not been translated into Slovak yet.

Not awarded Nobel Prize in Literature

Since 1901 when Sully Prudhomme of France was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature, 120 prizes should have been awarded so far. But it isn’t true. No prize was awarded in 1914 and the monetary award was given into a special fund of Nobel Prize in Literature. It happened again in 1918. In 1935, 1941, 1942 and 1943, 1/3 of the monetary award was put into the mutual fund of the Nobel Prize and 2/3 into the special fund of Nobel Prize in Literature. You don’t need encyclopedic knowledge of historical reasons to find out why no one was nominated. These were the years of World War I and World War II. But why 1935? The explanation is simple. During the selection process that year, the Norwegian Nobel Committee agreed on the fact that none of the nominations met the criteria of Alfred Nobel’s last will and testament.

The Nobel Prize in Literature was not awarded in 2018 either. Several members of the Royal Swedish Academy left the jury due to disagreements. However, two authors were awarded in 2019: the 2018 prize went to the Polish author Olga Tokarczuk and the 2019 prize to the Austrian writer Peter Handke. Books by both authors have also been published in Slovak translation, e.g., Drive Your Plough Over the Bones of the Dead (Tokarczuk) and Short Letter, Long Farewell (Handke).

Nobel Prize Laureates in Literature

An unexpected event happened in 1964 when the French writer Jean-Paul Sartre, author of books such as Nausea and The Wall, received the prize “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”. However, he declined to accept the prize. Another special situation occurred when Boris Pasternak, who accepted the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1958, but was subsequently forced by the Communist regime in the former Soviet Union to reject it.

One of the facts that has been repeatedly discussed in relation to the Nobel Prize is that out of the total of 947 laureates, only 48 are women. 16 women have been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize and 14 have been awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature. The media point out that women are still a minority in the scientific fields.

According to the rules, the Nobel Prize can be split between a maximum of 3 persons. In 1904, Frédéric Mistral and José Echegaray shared the monetary award for the Nobel Prize in Literature, in 1917 was the prize shared by Karl Gjellerup and Henrik Pontoppidan, in 1966 by Shmuel Agnon and Nelly Sachs and in 1974 by Eyvind Johnson and Harry Martinson.

Interesting facts about the Nobel Prize for Literature