Know All Nobel Prize Winners in English Literature

Founded in 1895 by the Swedish chemist and inventor of dynamite Alfred Bernhard Nobel, the Nobel Prize is an annual award acknowledging outstanding contributions to physics, chemistry, physiology or medicine, literature, economics, and peace. The Nobel Laureates are announced at the beginning of October each year. A couple of months later, on 10 December, the anniversary of Alfred Nobel's death, they receive their prizes from the Swedish King – a Nobel diploma, a medal, and 10 million Swedish crowns per prize. All Nobel Prizes are awarded in Stockholm, Sweden, except for the Nobel Peace Prize, which is awarded in Oslo, Norway.

Here is a list of some eminent literary personas that were awarded and adorned this Nobel Prize for their ornamental contribution in English Literature.

Rudyard Kipling

Name	Rudyard Kipling
Year	1907
Nationality	U.K. Indian Born
Languages	English
Why rewarded?	"in consideration of the power of observation, originality of imagination, virility of ideas and remarkable talent for narration that characterize the creations of this world-famous author"
Genre	novel, short story, poetry
Notable Works	The Jungle Book, Kim

Rabindranath Tagore

Name	Rabindranath Tagore
Year	1913
Nationality	Indian
Languages	Bengali & English
Why rewarded?	"because of his profoundly sensitive, fresh and beautiful verse, by which, with consummate skill, he has made his poetic thought, expressed in his own English words, a part of the literature of the West"
Genre	poetry, novel, drama, short story, music
Notable Works	Gitanjali, Nirjharer Swapanbhanga, Gora, Naibedya etc.

W. B. Yeats

Name	William Butler Yeats
Year	1923
Nationality	Ireland
Languages	English
Why rewarded?	"for his always inspired poetry, which in a highly artistic form gives expression to the spirit of a whole nation"
Genre	Poetry
Notable Works	A Vision, The Celtic Twilight, The Tower, The Wild Swan’s at Coole,

G. B. Shaw

Name	George Bernard Shaw
Year	1925
Nationality	Ireland
Languages	English
Why rewarded?	"for his work which is marked by both idealism and humanity, its stimulating satire often being infused with a singular poetic beauty"
Genre	Drama, literary criticism
Notable Works	Arms and the Man, Pygmalion, Man and Superman, Candida

Sinclair Lewis

Name	Sinclair Lewis
Year	1930
Nationality	United States
Languages	English
Why rewarded?	"for his vigorous and graphic art of description and his ability to create, with wit and humour, new types of characters"
Genre	novel, short story, drama
Notable Works	Babbitt, It Can’t Happen Here, Free Air, The Job: An American Novel, Arrowsmith, Mantrap

John Galsworthy

Name	John Galsworthy
Year	1932
Nationality	United Kingdom
Languages	English
Why rewarded?	"for his distinguished art of narration, which takes its highest form in The Forsyte Saga"
Genre	Novel
Notable Works	The White Monkey, The Apple Tree, Silver Box, Passers By, Loyalties, Justice etc.

Eugene O'Neill

Name	Eugene O’Neill
Year	1936
Nationality	United States
Languages	English
Why rewarded?	"for the power, honesty and deep-felt emotions of his dramatic works, which embody an original concept of tragedy"
Genre	Drama
Notable Works	Beyond the Horizon, Dynamo, Ah! Wilderness etc.

P. S. Buck

Name	Pearl S. Buck
Year	1938
Nationality	United States
Languages	English
Why rewarded?	"for her rich and truly epic descriptions of peasant life in China and for her biographical masterpieces"
Genre	Novel, biography
Notable Works	The Good Earth, Pavilion of Women, Peony, The Big Wave, Sons, Dragon Seed etc.

T. S. Eliot

Name	T.S. Eliot
Year	1948
Nationality	United Kingdom (Born in the United States)
Languages	English
Why rewarded?	"for his outstanding, pioneer contribution to present-day poetry”
Genre	Poetry
Notable Works	The Waste Land, The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock

William Faulkner

Name	William Faulkner
Year	1949
Nationality	United States
Languages	English
Why rewarded?	"for his powerful and artistically unique contribution to the modern American novel
Genre	Short story, novel
Notable Works	Abasalom, Abasalom!, The Sound and the Fury, As I Lay Dying etc.

Bertrand Russell

Name	Bertrand Russell
Year	1950
Nationality	United Kingdom
Languages	English
Why rewarded?	"in recognition of his varied and significant writings in which he champions humanitarian ideals and freedom of thought"
Genre	Philosophy, essay
Notable Works	Why I am not a Christian, The Problems of Philosophy, A History of Western Philosophy etc.

Winston Churchill

Name	Sir Winston Churchill
Year	1953
Nationality	United Kingdom
Languages	English
Why rewarded?	"for his mastery of historical and biographical description as well as for brilliant oratory in defending exalted human values”
Genre	history, essay, memoirs
Notable Works	My Early Life, The River War, The World Crisis, Savrola etc.

Earnest Hemingway

Name	Earnest Hemingway
Year	1954
Nationality	United States
Languages	English
Why rewarded?	"for his mastery of the art of narrative, most recently demonstrated in The Old Man and the Sea, and for the influence that he has exerted on contemporary style"
Genre	Novel, short story, screen play
Notable Works	The Old Man and the Sea, A Farewell to Arms, For Whom the Bell Tolls, The Sun Also Rises, To Have and Have Not etc.

John Steinbeck

Name	John Steinbeck
Year	1962
Nationality	United States
Languages	English
Why rewarded?	"for his realistic and imaginative writings, combining as they do sympathetic humour and keen social perception”
Genre	Novel, short story, screen play
Notable Works	Of Mice and Men, East of Eden, The Grapes of Wrath, The Pearl, Cannery Row etc.

Samuel Beckett

Name	Samuel Becket
Year	1969
Nationality	Ireland
Languages	English & French
Why rewarded?	"for his writing, which - in new forms for the novel and drama - in the destitution of modern man acquires its elevation"
Genre	Novel, drama, poetry
Notable Works	Waiting for Godot, Molloy, The Unnamable, Watt etc.

Patrick White

Name	Patrick White
Year	1973
Nationality	Australia(Born in the United Kingdom)
Languages	English
Why rewarded?	"for an epic and psychological narrative art, which has introduced a new continent into literature”
Genre	Novel, short story, drama
Notable Works	Voss, The Tree of Man, The Eye of the Storm, The Vivisector etc.

Saul Bellow

Name	Saul Bellow
Year	1976
Nationality	United States (Born in Canada)
Languages	English
Why rewarded?	"for the human understanding and subtle analysis of contemporary culture that are combined in his work”
Genre	Short story, novel
Notable Works	Humboldt’s Gift, Herzog, The Adventure of Augie March, Seize the Day etc.

William Golding

Name	William Golding
Year	1983
Nationality	United Kingdom
Languages	English
Why rewarded?	"for his novels, which with the perspicuity of realistic narrative art and the diversity and universality of myth, illuminate the human condition in the world of today”
Genre	Novel, poetry, drama
Notable Works	Lord of the Flies, Free Fall, The Inheritors, The Pyramid, The Spire etc.

Wole Soyinka

Name	Wole Soyinka
Year	1986
Nationality	Nigeria
Languages	English
Why rewarded?	"who in a wide cultural perspective and with poetic overtones fashions the drama of existence"
Genre	Drama, novel, poetry
Notable Works	The Interpreters, The Man Died: Prison Notes, Ake: The Years of Childhood etc.

Joseph Brodsky

Name	Joseph Brodsky
Year	1987
Nationality	United States (Born in the Soviet Union)
Languages	English & Russian
Why rewarded?	"for an all-embracing authorship, imbued with clarity of thought and poetic intensity"
Genre	Poetry
Notable Works	Less than One, To Urania, Watermark, So Forth etc.

Nadine Gordimer

Name	Nadine Gordimer
Year	1991
Nationality	South Africa
Languages	English
Why rewarded?	"who through her magnificent epic writing has - in the words of Alfred Nobel - been of very great benefit to humanity"
Genre	Novel, short story, essay
Notable Works	Burger’s Daughter, Le coservateur, The Pickup, No Time Like the Present, The Lying Days etc.

Derek Walcott

Name	Derek Walcott
Year	1992
Nationality	Saint Lucia
Languages	English
Why rewarded?	"for a poetic oeuvre of great luminosity, sustained by a historical vision, the outcome of a multicultural commitment
Genre	Poetry, drama
Notable Works	Omeros, White Egrets, Tiepolo’s Hound etc.

Toni Morrison

Name	Toni Morrison
Year	1993
Nationality	United States
Languages	English
Why rewarded?	"who in novels characterized by visionary force and poetic import, gives life to an essential aspect of American reality
Genre	Novel
Notable Works	Beloved, The Bluest Eye, Jazz, God Helps the Child, Tar baby, A Mercy, Sula, Songs of Solomon etc.

Seamus Heaney

Name	Seamus Heaney
Year	1995
Nationality	Ireland (Born in the United Kingdom)
Languages	English
Why rewarded?	"for works of lyrical beauty and ethical depth, which exalt everyday miracles and the living past”
Genre	Poetry
Notable Works	Death of Naturalist, Human Chain, North, Seeing Things etc.

V. S. Naipaul

Name	V. S. Naipaul
Year	2001
Nationality	United Kingdom (Born in Trinidad & Tobago)
Languages	English
Why rewarded?	"for having united perceptive narrative and incorruptible scrutiny in works that compel us to see the presence of suppressed histories”
Genre	Novel, essay
Notable Works	The Mimic Man, A House for Mr. Biswas, The Enigma of Arrival, A Bend in the River, An Area of Darkness, Miguel Street, Among the Believers etc.

J. M. Coetzee

Name	J. M. Coetzee
Year	2003
Nationality	South Africa
Languages	English
Why rewarded?	"who in innumerable guises portrays the surprising involvement of the outsider”
Genre	Novel, essay, translation
Notable Works	Disgrace, Foe, Waiting for the Barbarians, Slow Man, Age of Iron, The Childhood of Jesus, etc.

Harold Pinter

Name	Harold Pinter
Year	2005
Nationality	United Kingdom
Languages	English
Why rewarded?	"who in his plays uncovers the precipice under everyday prattle and forces entry into oppression's closed rooms”
Genre	Drama
Notable Works	The Room, The Birthday Party, The Caretaker, The Dumb Waiter, The Dwarf etc.

Doris Lessing

Name	Doris Lessing
Year	2007
Nationality	United Kingdom (Born in Iran)
Languages	English
Why rewarded?	"that epicist of the female experience, who with scepticism, fire and visionary power has subjected a divided civilisation to scrutiny
Genre	novel, drama, poetry, short story, memoirs
Notable Works	The Golden Notebook, The Grass is Singing, The Fifth Child, Shikasta, The Good Terrorist

Alice Munro

Name	Alice Munro
Year	2013
Nationality	Canada
Languages	English
Why rewarded?	"master of the contemporary short story”
Genre	Short story
Notable Works	Dear Life, Lives of Girls and Women, Who Do You Think You Are?, Dance of the Happy Shades, Too Much Happiness etc.

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