14 Nobel Laureates in Literature

Since 1901, the Swedish Academy has been presenting the Nobel Prize in Literature. In 2022, the award went to French author Annie Ernaux, “for the courage and clinical acuity with which she uncovers the roots, estrangements, and collective restraints of personal memory.” Here are a few of the distinguished winners whose works you may wish to delve into.

1. Pearl S. Buck

The 1938 Nobel Prize in Literature was awarded to the author of The Good Earth for her vivid and genuinely epic portrayal of peasant life in China, as well as for her outstanding biographical works. In her acceptance speech, Buck spoke on behalf of herself and America, stating, “I should not be truly myself if I did not, in my own wholly unofficial way, speak also of the people of China, whose life has for so many years been my life also, whose life, indeed, must always be a part of my life. The minds of my own country and of China, my foster country, are alike in many ways, but above all, alike in our common love of freedom. And today more than ever, this is true, now when China’s whole being is engaged in the greatest of all struggles, the struggle for freedom.”

2. Toni Morrison

Toni Morrison made history in 1993 as the first Black woman to win the Nobel Prize in Literature. The committee described her as an author “who in novels characterized by visionary force and poetic import, gives life to an essential aspect of American reality.”

When Toni Morrison received the news of her Nobel win via a phone call from a friend, the author of The Bluest Eye and Beloved initially thought it was a prank. “I thought, ‘what?’ I thought she was seeing things,” Morrison recalled in a 2012 Interview magazine conversation. “So I hung up on her! … Because I thought, ‘how would she know something that I wouldn’t know?’ She called me right back and said, ‘what’s the matter with you?’ I said, ‘where’d you hear that?’ And she said, ‘I heard it from Bryant Gumbel on the Today show.’ So then I had to think, ‘well … maybe?’ But there had been so many moments—as I later learned, more than I thought—when people believed they were going to get it, and journalists were beginning to circle, and they didn’t get it.”

3. Kazuo Ishiguro

In 2017, Never Let Me Go and The Remains of the Day author Kazuo Ishiguro—who has also been knighted, and whose portrait was displayed in 10 Downing Street during Tony Blair's time as prime minister—won the Nobel Prize in Literature for being an author “who, in novels of great emotional force, has uncovered the abyss beneath our illusory sense of connection with the world.”

This wasn't the future Kazuo Ishiguro had envisioned for himself as a young man. As he shared in his Nobel acceptance speech [PDF], when he started a creative writing course in 1979, “I’d written little else of note in the way of prose fiction, having earned my place on the course with a radio play rejected by the BBC. In fact, having previously made firm plans to become a rock star by the time I was 20, my literary ambitions had only recently made themselves known to me.”

4. Albert Camus

Three years before his tragic car accident in 1960, Albert Camus, author of The Stranger, was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature “for his important literary production, which with clear-sighted earnestness illuminates the problems of the human conscience in our times.”

Upon hearing the news of his Nobel win, Camus, who had grown up in poverty, wrote to Louis Germain, the teacher who had helped him secure a scholarship to high school:

“I don’t make too much of this sort of honor. But at least it gives me the opportunity to tell you what you have been and still are for me, and to assure you that your efforts, your work, and the generous heart you put into it still live in one of your little schoolboys who, despite the years, has never stopped being your grateful pupil. I embrace you with all my heart.”

After Albert Camus's final novel, The First Man, was finally translated into English more than thirty years following his death, his daughter, Catherine, remarked in an interview that “throughout the world, there are Monsieur Germains everywhere.”

5. Mo Yan

Mo Yan—who first published his novel Red Sorghum as a serial in 1986 before it was released as a full book the following year—was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2012 for being a writer “who with hallucinatory realism merges folk tales, history, and the contemporary.”

Born Guan Moye in 1955 in a village in China’s Shandong Province, Yan's passion for writing grew from reading the books left behind by his older brother, a university student. “I think all writers start as keen readers,” he said in an interview after his Nobel win. “We develop a desire to write while reading. We like to learn how to write.” Inspiration, he said, often stems from childhood: “All writers start by writing about their childhood, especially childhood memories … The experiences I had in my childhood have been crucial to my writing. I wrote about all kinds of animals and plants in my novels. I wrote about the close and mysterious relationship between children and nature. This is all inseparable from my personal experiences.”

Even his pen name reflects his youth. “In Chinese, Mo Yan means don’t speak,” the author shared with Humanities in 2011. “I was born in 1955. At that time in China, people’s lives were not normal. So my father and mother told me not to speak outside. If you speak outside, and say what you think, you will get into trouble. So I listened to them and I did not speak. When I started to write, I thought every great writer had to have a pen name. I remembered my mom and my dad telling me do not speak. So I took Mo Yan for my pen name. It is ironic that I have this name because I now speak everywhere.”

6. Günter Grass

The author of The Tin Drum—who grew up in the Free City of Danzig (now Gdańsk, Poland) and first attempted novel writing at 13 in response to an ad in a Hitler Youth magazine—won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1999, the same year he published My Century. The committee wrote that Grass’s “frolicsome black fables” “portray the forgotten face of history.”

At the close of World War II, when Grass was just 17, he was drafted into the Waffen-SS, a fact he only disclosed shortly before the release of his memoir, Peeling the Onion, in 2006. The book explores his past and the silence and shame that followed. Although he faced severe criticism—along with calls to revoke his Nobel Prize—he also received significant support from fellow writers, including John Irving, whose novel A Prayer for Owen Meany was influenced by The Tin Drum.

7. Nadine Gordimer

The South African author of ten novels, including The Conservationist and My Son’s Story, Gordimer published her first work at just 15. She was a key figure in the anti-apartheid movement, which deeply influenced her writing. (Her outspoken criticism even led the regime to ban some of her books.) In 1991, she was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature “for being an author who through her magnificent epic writing has—in the words of Alfred Nobel—been of very great benefit to humanity.”

Speaking with The Paris Review in 1979 and 1980, Gordimer reflected on her first trip outside Africa, to England and America, at age 30, after publishing two novels. She described how it helped her understand herself and shed the last remnants of colonialism: 'I didn’t know I was a colonial, but then I had to realize that I was. Even though my mother was only six when she came to South Africa from England, she still spoke of people “going home.” But after my first trip, I realized that “home” was certainly and exclusively—Africa. It could never be anywhere else.'

8. Hermann Hesse

Hermann Hesse, the author of Siddhartha and Narcissus and Goldmund, received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1946 'for his inspired writings which, while growing in boldness and penetration, exemplify the classical humanitarian ideals and high qualities of style.'

Born in Germany and residing in Switzerland from 1914, Hesse despised the Nazis. Due to illness, he couldn’t personally attend the Nobel ceremony, so the Swiss minister read his speech, which included these words: 'May diversity in all shapes and colors live long on this dear Earth of ours. How wonderful it is that there are many races, many peoples, many languages, and a variety of attitudes and outlooks! If I feel hatred and irreconcilable enmity toward wars, conquests, and annexations, I do so for many reasons, but also because so many organically grown, highly individual, and richly differentiated achievements of human civilization have fallen victim to these dark powers.'

9. Doris Lessing

Doris Lessing sold her first short stories at the age of 15, and she went on to write numerous works throughout her life. She was working in a lawyer’s office when she had a moment of realization. 'I said: Enough now, I’m going to write this novel,' she recalled in 2008. 'I went to see my boss, Mr. Hill, and said: “Mr. Hill, I’m going to leave you and I’m going to write a novel,” at which, of course, he burst into laughter.'

It took her several years to complete The Grass Is Singing, which was published in 1950. When she was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2007, the committee described her as 'that epicist of the female experience, who with scepticism, fire, and visionary power has subjected a divided civilization to scrutiny.'

Lessing, born in Iran in 1919 and later moving with her British parents to what is now Zimbabwe, was not one to embrace awards or honors. She famously turned down an OBE in 1977 and a damehood in 1993. Referring to the latter, she remarked, 'There is something ruritannical about honors given in the name of a non-existent empire,' adding that during her youth, she had sought to 'undo that bit of the British empire I found myself in: that is, old Southern Rhodesia … surely there is something unlikeable about a person, when old, accepting honors from an institution she attacked when young?' Instead, she accepted a Companion of Honour, explaining, 'you're not called anything—and it's not demanding. I like that.'

This may shed light on why, upon hearing of her Nobel win, Lessing—at the age of 88, the oldest writer to win the award—responded with a simple, 'Oh Christ.'

10. Naguib Mahfouz

The author of Adrift on the Nile wrote over 30 novels and 350 short stories, often setting his narratives in Cairo, his birthplace. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1988 for being 'an author who, through works rich in nuance—sometimes sharply realistic, sometimes ambiguously evocative—has developed an Arabian narrative art that resonates universally with all of humanity.'

Mahfouz, who was unable to attend the 1988 Nobel ceremony, reflected in a 2006 interview with journalist Mohamed Salmawy, saying the honor 'encouraged me to continue writing.' However, he also revealed the other side of the accolade: 'On a personal level, winning the Nobel imposed a lifestyle on me that I was not accustomed to and would not have preferred. I accepted the media interviews and meetings that came with it, but I would have preferred to work in peace.'

11. Jean-Paul Sartre

Jean-Paul Sartre, the existentialist philosopher and author of The Age of Reason, was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1964 'for his work, rich in ideas and imbued with the spirit of freedom and the pursuit of truth, which has had a profound impact on our era.' However, Sartre refused to accept the prize, becoming the first person to willingly do so. 'My refusal is not a rash decision, I have always turned down official honors,' he later wrote. 'A writer who takes political, social, or literary stances must act only through his own means—that is, the written word.'

12. Isaac Bashevis Singer

Isaac Bashevis Singer, author of The Family Moskat, was a journalist who immigrated to the United States just before the Nazis rose to power. Writing almost exclusively in Yiddish, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1978 'for his passionate narrative art, which, grounded in the Polish-Jewish cultural tradition, brings universal human experiences to life.'

Upon accepting the Nobel Prize, Singer expressed, 'The prestigious honor given to me by the Swedish Academy is also a recognition of the Yiddish language—a language born of exile, without a homeland, no borders, and unsupported by any government, a language that lacks terms for weapons, ammunition, military drills, or war tactics; a language that was scorned both by non-Jews and liberated Jews. ... In the Yiddish language and spirit, one can discover expressions of religious joy, a passion for life, longing for the Messiah, patience, and a profound respect for human individuality,' adding, 'Yiddish has not yet uttered its final word. It holds treasures yet to be unveiled to the world.'

13. Wole Soyinka

Wole Soyinka, a renowned author and political activist, refuses to limit himself to a single genre of writing. He has crafted plays (including A Dance of the Forests), poetry (Indare, and Other Poems), novels (such as The Interpreters), and more. Soyinka, born in Nigeria in 1934, has said, 'There was never a specific moment when I thought, now I’m a writer. I’ve always been a writer.'

During Nigeria’s civil war, Soyinka was imprisoned for nearly two years after advocating for a cease-fire in 1967. The Nigerian government accused him of collaborating with Biafran rebels and even fabricated a confession. Despite the harsh conditions, Soyinka continued to write, using homemade ink and writing on toilet paper and cigarette packs. His experience led to the publication of The Man Died: Prison Notes of Wole Soyinka in 1972. In 1986, he became the first Black author to receive the Nobel Prize in Literature. The Nobel committee recognized him as a writer 'who in a broad cultural context and with poetic nuances creates the drama of human existence.'

Upon releasing his third novel, Chronicles from the Land of the Happiest People on Earth, in 2021, Soyinka reflected on the challenges of writing a novel as opposed to a play. In an interview with The New Yorker, he said, 'What the novel does for me is satisfy the masochist within because it’s so demanding—tempting you to explore many different directions. Theatre, on the other hand, is more focused. As a narrator, I juggle various characters who often veer off in directions I never planned for, making it hard to keep track of them. I deeply admire novelists who specialize in that form. I struggle with it.'

14. Gabriel García Márquez

Gabriel García Márquez, the Colombian author behind iconic works such as One Hundred Years of Solitude and Love in the Time of Cholera, was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1982. The Swedish Academy recognized his ability to intertwine the fantastical with the real in his novels and short stories, creating a richly imagined world that mirrors the life and struggles of a continent.

It is fitting, then, that in his Nobel acceptance lecture, titled 'The Solitude of Latin America,' Márquez chose to delve into the region’s mythical legends—such as the fountain of youth and the fabled city of El Dorado—while also highlighting its real challenges, including dictatorships, civil wars, death, oppression, and imprisonment.

'If these hardships, which we all share, impede us, it is understandable that the rational thinkers from the other side of the world, who exalt their own cultures, should struggle to interpret us,' he reflected. 'It’s natural for them to measure us by their own standards, forgetting that the ravages of life are not the same for everyone. Our quest for identity is as difficult and bloody as it was for them. When we’re interpreted through foreign lenses, we become more alienated, more constrained, more isolated. Perhaps Europe would better understand us if it looked at us through the lens of its own past.'