Nobel Prize

English Presentation Speech by Horace Engdahl, Permanent Secretary of the , Member of its Nobel Committee, 10 December 2008. Professor Horace Engdahl delivering the Presentation Speech for the 2008 Nobel Prize in Literature at the Stockholm Concert Hall. Your Majesties, Your Royal Highnesses, Ladies and Gentlemen, Of what use are characters to a…

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Jaroslav Seifert was born on 23 September 1901 into a working-class family living in Zizkov, a suburb of Prague. He attended secondary school and soon began devoting himself to writing poetry and to journalism. He made his debut in 1918; he published his first collection of poems in 192 1. He belonged to the extreme…

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Presentation Speech by Claes Annerstedt, President of the , on December 10, 1909 History tells us that there was a time when Sweden fought for a world prize on the field of martial honour. The time of arms has passed, but in the international competition for peaceful prizes our people have for a long time…

Presentation Speech by Anders Österling, Ph.D., of the (Translation) The recipient of this year’s Nobel Prize for Literature, the Japanese Yasunari Kawabata, was born in 1899 in the big industrial town of Osaka, where his father was a highly-cultured doctor with literary interests. At an early age, however, he was deprived of this favourable growing-up…

Swedish Academy The Permanent Secretary Press release October 1984 The Nobel Prize in Literature 1984 Jaroslav Seifert Jaroslav Seifert – a Czechoslovakian poet, 83 years young, 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,…

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…

English Biobibliographical Notes Harold Pinter was born on 10 October 1930 in the London borough of Hackney, son of a Jewish dressmaker. Growing up, Pinter was met with the expressions of anti-Semitism, and has indicated its importance for his becoming a dramatist. At the outbreak of the Second World War, he was evacuated from London…