Literature

Award ceremony speech

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…

more

Award ceremony speech

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…

more

Poetry

Lightenings viii The annals say: when the monks of Clonmacnoise Were all at prayers inside the oratory A ship appeared above them in the air. The anchor dragged along behind so deep It hooked itself into the altar rails And then, as the big hull rocked to a standstill, A crewman shinned and grappled down…

more

Biographical

Henryk Sienkiewicz (1846-1916), the most outstanding and prolific Polish writer of the second half of the nineteenth century, was born in Wola Okrzejska, in the Russian part of Poland. His father’s family was actively engaged in the revolutionary struggles for Polish independence, which accounts for the strong patriotic element in Sienkiewicz’ work. Historical scholarship on…

more

Biographical

Boris Leonidovich Pasternak (1890-1960), born in Moscow, was the son of talented artists: his father a painter and illustrator of Tolstoy’s works, his mother a well-known concert pianist. Pasternak’s education began in a German Gymnasium in Moscow and was continued at the University of Moscow. Under the influence of the composer Scriabin, Pasternak took up…

more

Bibliography

Works in German Liederbuch dreier Freunde / Theodor Mommsen, Theodor Storm, Tycho Mommsen. – Kiel, 1843 Oskische Studien. – Berlin : Nicolai, 1845-1846. – 2 vol. Die Grundrechte des deutschen Volkes, mit Belehrungen und Erläuterungen. – Leipzig : Wigand, 1849. – Rev. ed., Frankfurt am Main: Klostermann, 1969 Die unteritalischen Dialekte. – Leipzig : Wigand, 1850…

more