Nobel Prize in Literature

The Nobel Prize for Literature is one of five donated by Alfred Nobel Prizes, which " will be allocated to those who [ ... ] have made mankind the greatest benefit ." On behalf of the Nobel Foundation, founded in 1900, he is awarded annually by the Swedish Academy in Stockholm since 2012 and is endowed with eight million Swedish kronor (about 893,000 Euros ).

According to Nobel's will, which is based on the statutes of the Nobel Foundation, is to be awarded the prize for literature, who " has created the most outstanding work in an ideal direction ". The announcement of the award shall be made annually in early to mid October, the formal presentation of the award by the Swedish king on December 10, the anniversary of the death of the award sponsor.

Selection process and award ceremony

Nobel laid down in his will that the Swedish Academy is responsible for the allocation of the Literature Prize. The selection of delegates this in part to a Nobel Committee, whose members are elected for three years from the ranks of the Academy. Currently (as of September 2012) is the Nobel Committee from

Back in September of last year the Nobel Committee asks six or seven hundred selected individuals and institutions worldwide to nominations for the Nobel Prize in Literature for the coming year. Among them, according to the statutes,

  • Previous winners of the Nobel Prize for Literature;
  • Members of the Swedish Academy and of other academies, societies or institutions that are similar in their objectives and in their construction with this;
  • University and college professors of literature or linguistics;
  • President of writers' associations, which are representative of the literary production in their respective countries.

The addressees can make their proposals - only survivors are allowed - submit by January 31, when the Nobel Committee. Usually go a around 350 proposals. The committee reviews all proposals and compiles a list of the Swedish Academy. Is this list of candidates accepted by the Academy, the committee extracted in the next step, first a 15 to 20 names comprehensive selection. After confirming this selection list by the Academy, the committee prepares to May of each year a shortlist of five names. After their final determination by the Academy whose members have in the summer months opportunity to familiarize themselves with the work of the five candidates familiar with before they debate the candidates and their work in September and finally vote early / mid-October, the Nobel Prize winner; this must represent more than half of the votes. Only the winners will be announced, subject to the names of the other candidates, as well as information on the entire selection process, a 50 - year vesting period.

The winners will be invited along with the medicine, physics, chemistry and economics laureates to Stockholm, where on December 10, Nobel's death, the solemn presentation of the awards by the Swedish king takes place. In addition to the Nobel medal and a personal diploma of the winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature will receive a prize from the current (2012 ) eight million Swedish crowns (until 2011 the prize money amounted to ten million Swedish crowns); the price several persons under this sum is divided.

The division, however, may only be distributed to up to two different services provided, three different winners. Therefore, it may be in a year, only three winners if at least two of the winners for the same award-winning performance will be honored. This is common in other categories, but came at the Nobel Prize for literature never before. Also, the separation of the price on two equivalent winners with corresponding separate services is rare. So far, the literature prize was only four times divided. This happened in 1904 ( Frédéric Mistral, José Echegaray ), 1917 ( Karl Gjellerup, Henrik Pontoppidan ), 1966 ( Samuel Agnon, Nelly Sachs) and 1974 ( Eyvind Johnson, Harry Martinson ).

The winner is stopped by the statutes of the Nobel Foundation to keep if possible a lecture on his work. This usually takes place two days before the award ceremony in the Swedish Academy held and is not accessible to the general public as opposed to the other in Stockholm held lectures price, but can be followed in the media. When Nobel Prize for Literature is frequently to talk with political influence. Various winners who could not be present in person, sent their lecture in written form or as a video message.

Criticism of the Nobel Prize for Literature

Despite its importance, the Nobel Prize was never able to escape completely to the criticism. This is because is especially evident that the majority of the award winners until well into the last quarter of the 20th century came mainly from the northern and central European languages ​​. One explanation is that the jury until now only consists of Scandinavians and many literary masterpieces from other parts of the world were in his lifetime of their authors simply too unknown. The proportion of non - European writers among the winners has increased markedly in recent decades. But most of all North American authors still nothing. The fact that this system was confirmed by the then secretary of the Swedish Academy, Horace Engdahl, in 2008. In an interview he claimed that the American literature is " isolated ", and occupied himself too much with trends. Critics accused him for these statements Eurocentrism and anti-Americanism.

Arno Schmidt mocked in an authored in the 1950s polemic against the honor of Henryk Sienkiewicz ( " then you could have him just as well give Karl May " ), Paul Heyse ( " sugar water") and Winston Churchill ( " an outspoken journalist mediocrity " ), where he faced significant writers who did not get the price: Rainer Maria Rilke, Theodor Däubler, Franz Kafka, Alfred Doblin, Hans Henny Jahnn, August Stramm, Georg Trakl, James Joyce, Ezra Pound, Francis Ponge and Samuel Beckett ( the latter was awarded the prize a few years later, after all). Criterion for the award is not the linguistically outstanding performance of the honorees, but rather literary simplicity: " What can be translated well, kriegt'n price! " Therefore, the price meant for its wearer a " stigma of mediocrity ".

Another common pre- mounted gripe is that the awardees are often better known for their ( socio-) political commitment as for their literary works. Nobel ordered the jury expressly in the will to use the idealism of the author or his work as a benchmark.

In 1938 the U.S. American Pearl S. Buck was awarded the Literature Prize. This award was then added with incomprehension and is still often seen as a bad decision, because Bucks works have little literary value. From this criticism out the so-called " Lex Buck " was born. It is the unwritten rule only reward authors who had been nominated at least once before. According to the former Permanent Secretary of the Swedish Academy, Horace Engdahl, this policy is applied. How often it is complied with, however, is definitively determine because of the closure periods of the Nobel Foundation at the earliest 50 years after award. From the previously published data of the Nobel Foundation, which reach up to 1950, can be read that both William Faulkner (1949 ) and Bertrand Russell ( 1950) received their Nobel Prizes after only a single nomination. However, these related to an unusual situation: According to the statutes, the price may be deferred one year if there is no suitable winners. This was in 1949, despite 35 nominations apparently the case. Had one among the 54 nominations from 1950 - until then a record - found a worthy recipient for 1949, the price had gone back to the Foundation.

Award winners

Since it was first awarded in 1901 to the French poet and philosopher Sully Prudhomme, the Nobel Prize for Literature has been (until 2013) awarded to 110 people. Four times (1904, 1917, 1966 and 1974) the distinction between two persons was divided. In the years 1914, 1918, 1935 and 1940 to 1943 the Nobel Prize in Literature was not awarded.

The English -speaking attributable authors represent the largest number among the winners, followed by authors from the French, the German, Spanish, Swedish, Italian and Russian speaking countries.

So far, 13 German -language authors were awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature. 1902, at the second ceremony, the historian Theodor Mommsen was excellent. This was followed by the philosopher Rudolf Eucken (1908), the writer Paul Heyse (1910 ), Gerhart Hauptmann ( 1912), Thomas Mann ( 1929), Heinrich Böll (1972 ), Günter Grass ( 1999) and Herta Müller ( 2009). In 1966, living in Sweden exile poet Nelly Sachs, the award that she had to share with Samuel Agnon. In addition to the long time living in Switzerland German-born Hermann Hesse ( 1946) was the most only Swiss winners Carl Spitteler (1919). The also often living in Switzerland Elias Canetti (1981) and Elfriede Jelinek (2004) have so far been the only winners of the Austrian literature.

The author once have been excellent, written in the following languages ​​: Occitan ( Frédéric Mistral, 1904), Bengali ( Tagore, 1913), Finnish (Frans Eemil Sillanpää, 1939), Icelandic ( Halldór Laxness; 1955), Serbo-Croatian ( Ivo Andrić, 1961), Hebrew ( Samuel Josef Agnon, 1966), Yiddish ( Isaac Singer, 1978), Czech ( Jaroslav Seifert, 1984), Arabic ( Naguib Mahfouz, 1988), Portuguese ( José Saramago, 1998), Hungarian ( Kertész; 2002) and Turkish ( Orhan Pamuk, 2006).

On two occasions, the award went to writers who work in Chinese: Gao Xingjian, 2000 and Mo Yan, in 2012.

13 times women have been awarded: The first was in 1909 Selma Lagerlöf, followed by Grazia Deledda in 1926, 1928 Sigrid Undset, 1938 Pearl S. Buck, 1945 Gabriela Mistral, 1966 Nelly Sachs, 1991 Nadine Gordimer, Toni Morrison in 1993, 1996 Wislawa Szymborska, 2004 Elfriede Jelinek, 2007 Doris Lessing, 2009 Herta Müller and 2013 Alice Munro.

Twice it happened that a writer rejected the price: 1958 Boris Pasternak to pressure the Soviet leadership; The award was posthumously presented to Pasternak's son in 1989. 1964 did not take Jean -Paul Sartre (France ) to the ceremony in order to preserve its independence. U.K. Shaw, where the first prize, awarded in 1925 was not allocated a year later in 1926, according to the statutes, leaning Price from initially, but decided to later. He donated the prize money of the newly founded this foundation, the " Anglo - Swedish Literary Foundation ", the cultural cooperation between Sweden and the United Kingdom dedicated to.

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