Winston Churchill
Facts
Photo from the Nobel Foundation archive.
Sir Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill
The Nobel Prize in Literature 1953
Born: 30 November 1874, Woodstock, United Kingdom
Died: 24 January 1965, London, United Kingdom
Residence at the time of the award: United Kingdom
Prize motivation: “for his mastery of historical and biographical description as well as for brilliant oratory in defending exalted human values”
Language: English
Prize share: 1/1
Life
Winston Churchill was born in England and was educated at Harrow and Sandhurst. After a brief career in the army, he became a Conservative Member of Parliament in 1900. He held many high posts in Liberal and Conservative governments during the first three decades of the century. At the outbreak of the Second World War, he was appointed First Lord of the Admiralty. In May, 1940, he became Prime Minister and Minister of Defence and remained in office until 1945, and then again between 1951 and 1955. He was knighted in 1953.
Work
Winston Churchill, one of the 20th century’s most prominent statesmen, also left behind a large body of writing. His works include an autobiography in which he describes his adventurous years as an officer and war correspondent, a comprehensive biography of his ancestor, the first Duke of Marlborough, and a multivolume work about the First and Second World Wars. The books are characterized by colorful narration but also by objectivity. Churchill’s magnificent and epoch-making speeches during World War II also belong to his most important written works.
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