Nobel Prize

Swedish Academy The Permanent Secretary Press release October 19, 1989 The Nobel Prize in Literature 1989 Camilo José Cela This year’s Nobel Prize for literature goes to the Spanish writer Camilo José Cela. With him is rewarded the leading figure in Spain’s literary renewal during the postwar era. The background of Cela’s experience is the…

Swedish Academy The Permanent Secretary Press release October 7, 1993 The Nobel Prize in Literature 1993 Toni Morrison “who, in novels characterized by visionary force and poetic import, gives life to an essential aspect of American reality.” “My work requires me to think about how free I can be as an African-American woman writer in…

Swedish Academy The Permanent Secretary Press release October 13, 1994 The Nobel Prize in Literature 1994 Kenzaburo Oe “who with poetic force creates an imagined world, where life and myth condense to form a disconcerting picture of the human predicament today” Kenzaburo Oe, now 59 years old, is Japanese, the scion of a prominent samurai…

English The Permanent Secretary Press release 12 October 2000 The Nobel Prize for Literature 2000 Gao Xingjian The Nobel Prize in Literature for 2000 goes to the Chinese writer Gao Xingjian “for an œuvre of universal validity, bitter insights and linguistic ingenuity, which has opened new paths for the Chinese novel and drama”. In the…

Presentation Speech by Anders Österling, of the Translation from the Swedish text Your Majesties, Your Royal Highnesses, Ladies and Gentlemen, As we all know, this year’s Nobel Prize for Literature has been awarded to Eugenio Montale, from Italy. He comes from Eastern Liguria, a coastal landscape whose harsh character is reflected in his poetry. In…

Presentation Speech by Karl Ragnar Gierow, of the Translation from the Swedish text Your Majesties, Your Royal Highnesses, Ladies and Gentlemen, When Saul Bellow published his first book, the time had come for a change of climate and generation in American narrative art. The so-called hard-boiled style, with its virile air and choppy prose, had…

  Presentation Speech by Professor Lars Gyllensten of the Translation from the Swedish text Your Majesties, Your Royal Highnesses, Ladies and Gentlemen, With this year’s Nobel Prize in Literature to Gabriel García Márquez the Swedish Academy cannot be said to bring forward an unknown writer. García Márquez achieved unusual success as a writer with his…

Presentation Speech by Professor Lars Gyllensten, of the Translation from the Swedish text Your Majesties, Your Royal Highnesses, Ladies and Gentlemen, Jaroslav Seifert can look back upon a career of more than 60 years which shows many signs of being likely to continue. With almost thirty volumes of collected poems behind him he stands out…

  Presentation Speech by Professor Knut Ahnlund, of the December 10, 1989 Translation from the Swedish text Your Majesties, Your Royal Highnesses, Ladies and Gentlemen, Camilo José Cela has written upwards of a hundred books, a veritable library in itself, filled with the most astounding contrasts, popular, crudely humorous tales side by side with some…

  Speech by Professor Sture Allén, Permanent Secretary of the Translation from the Swedish text Your Majesties, Your Royal Highnesses, Ladies and Gentlemen, The Nobel Prize awarded by the Swedish Academy is, as we know, a literary prize. This year it has been granted to Toni Morrison, making her the ninetieth Nobel Laureate in Literature.…