Nobel Prize

Presentation Speech by Harald Hjärne, Chairman of the Nobel Committee of the , on December 10, 1913 In awarding the Nobel Prize in Literature to the Anglo-Indian poet, Rabindranath Tagore, the Academy has found itself in the happy position of being able to accord this recognition to an author who, in conformity with the express…

Presentation Speech by Per Hallström, Chairman of the Nobel Committee of the , on December 10, 1926 George Bernard Shaw showed in the novels of his youth the same conception of the world and the same attitude to social problems that he has maintained ever since. This provides a better defence for him than anything…

Presentation Speech by Anders Österling, Member of the Nobel Committee of the , on December 10, 1932 When we survey John Galsworthy’s authorship, it seems to develop unusually smoothly, pushed on by a conscientious and indefatigable creative impulse. Yet he is not one of those who have turned to the literary career rapidly and without…

Presentation Speech by Per Hallström, Permanent Secretary of the , on December 10, 1933 Ivan Bunin’s literary career has been clear and uncomplicated. He came from a family of country squires and grew up in the literary tradition of the times in which that social class dominated Russian culture, created a literature occupying a place…

Presentation Speech by Per Hallström, Permanent Secretary of the , at its regular meeting on December 14, 1939 The diploma of a Nobel Prize has just been given to you and you have heard the reasons which led the Swedish Academy to accord this distinction to your literary work. These reasons are very briefly stated…

Presentation Speech by Hjalmar Gullberg, Member of the , on December 10, 1945 One day a mother’s tears caused a whole language, disdained at that time in good society, to rediscover its nobility and gain glory through the power of its poetry. It is said that when , the first of the two poets bearing…

Presentation Speech by Anders Österling, Permanent Secretary of the The student of François Mauriac’s works will be struck from the very first by the insistence with which Mauriac devotes himself to describing a precise milieu, a corner of land one can point to on a map of France. The action of his novels nearly always…

Announcement by Anders Österling, Permanent Secretary of the Your Majesties, Your Royal Highnesses, Ladies and Gentlemen: This year’s Nobel Prize for Literature has been awarded by the Swedish Academy to the Soviet-Russian writer Boris Pasternak for his notable achievement in both contemporary poetry and the field of the great Russian narrative tradition. As is well…

Presentation Speech by Anders Österling, Permanent Secretary of the The Nobel Prize laureate in literature for this year bears a name of unusual sound, which he chose at first to protect himself from the curious. Saint-John Perse is the poet’s name that was to be made internationally famous by a private man who in civil…

Presentation Speech by Anders Österling, Permanent Secretary of the John Steinbeck, the author awarded this year’s Nobel Prize in Literature, was born in the little town of Salinas, California, a few miles from the Pacific coast near the fertile Salinas Valley. This locality forms the background for many of his descriptions of the common man’s…