Nobel Prize 2025 in Literature, Winner Name, Contribution

2025

László Krasznahorkai

For his compelling and visionary oeuvre that, in the midst of apocalyptic terror, reaffirms the power of art

2024

Han Kang

For her intense poetic prose that confronts historical traumas and exposes the fragility of human life.

2023

Jon Fosse

For his innovative plays and prose which give voice to the unsayable.

2022

Annie Ernaux

For the courage and clinical acuity with which she uncovers the roots, estrangements and collective restraints of personal memory.

2021

Abdulrazak Gurnah

For his uncompromising and compassionate penetration of the effects of colonialism and the fate of the refugee in the gulf between cultures and continents.

2020

Louise Glück

For her unmistakable poetic voice that with austere beauty makes individual existence universal.

2019

Peter Handke

For an influential work that with linguistic ingenuity has explored the periphery and the specificity of human experience.

2018

Olga Tokarczuk

For a narrative imagination that with encyclopedic passion represents the crossing of boundaries as a form of life.

2017

Kazuo Ishiguro

Who, in novels of great emotional force, has uncovered the abyss beneath our illusory sense of connection with the world.

2016

Bob Dylan

For having created new poetic expressions within the great American song tradition.

2015

Svetlana Alexievich

For her polyphonic writings, a monument to suffering and courage in our time.

2014

Patrick Modiano

For the art of memory with which he has evoked the most ungraspable human destinies and uncovered the life-world of the occupation.

2013

Alice Munro

Master of the contemporary short story.

2012

Mo Yan

Who with hallucinatory realism merges folk tales, history and the contemporary.

2011

Tomas Tranströmer

Because, through his condensed, translucent images, he gives us fresh access to reality.

2010

Mario Vargas Llosa

For his cartography of structures of power and his trenchant images of the individual’s resistance, revolt, and defeat.

2009

Herta Müller

Who, with the concentration of poetry and the frankness of prose, depicts the landscape of the dispossessed.

2008

Jean-Marie Gustave Le Clézio

Author of new departures, poetic adventure and sensual ecstasy, explorer of a humanity beyond and below the reigning civilization.

2007

Doris Lessing

That epicist of the female experience, who with scepticism, fire and visionary power has subjected a divided civilisation to scrutiny.

2006

Orhan Pamuk

Who in the quest for the melancholic soul of his native city has discovered new symbols for the clash and interlacing of cultures.

2005

Harold Pinter

Who in his plays uncovers the precipice under everyday prattle and forces entry into oppression’s closed rooms.

2004

Elfriede Jelinek

For her musical flow of voices and counter-voices in novels and plays that reveal the absurdity of society’s clichés and their subjugating power.

2003

J. M. Coetzee

Who in innumerable guises portrays the surprising involvement of the outsider.

2002

Imre Kertész

For writing that upholds the fragile experience of the individual against the barbaric arbitrariness of history.

2001

V. S. Naipaul

For having united perceptive narrative and incorruptible scrutiny in works that compel us to see the presence of suppressed histories.

2000

Gao Xingjian

For an œuvre of universal validity, bitter insights and linguistic ingenuity, which has opened new paths for the Chinese novel and drama.

1999

Günter Grass

Whose frolicsome black fables portray the forgotten face of history.

1998

José Saramago

Who with parables sustained by imagination, compassion and irony continually enables us once again to apprehend an elusory reality.

1997

Dario Fo

Who emulates the jesters of the Middle Ages in scourging authority and upholding the dignity of the downtrodden.

1996

Wisława Szymborska

For poetry that with ironic precision allows the historical and biological context to come to light in fragments of human reality.

1995

Seamus Heaney

For works of lyrical beauty and ethical depth, which exalt everyday miracles and the living past.

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.

1993

Toni Morrison

Who in novels characterized by visionary force and poetic import, gives life to an essential aspect of American reality.

1992

Derek Walcott

For a poetic oeuvre of great luminosity, sustained by a historical vision, the outcome of a multicultural commitment.

1991

Nadine Gordimer

Who through her magnificent epic writing has been of very great benefit to humanity.

1990

Octavio Paz

For impassioned writing with wide horizons, characterized by sensuous intelligence and humanistic integrity.

1989

Camilo José Cela

For a rich and intensive prose, which with restrained compassion forms a challenging vision of man’s vulnerability.

1988

Naguib Mahfouz

Who, through works rich in nuance, has formed an Arabian narrative art that applies to all mankind.

1987

Joseph Brodsky

For an all-embracing authorship, imbued with clarity of thought and poetic intensity.

1986

Wole Soyinka

Who in a wide cultural perspective and with poetic overtones fashions the drama of existence.

1985

Claude Simon

Who in his novel combines the poet’s and the painter’s creativeness with a deepened awareness of time in the depiction of the human condition.

1984

Jaroslav Seifert

For his poetry which endowed with freshness, sensuality and rich inventiveness provides a liberating image of the indomitable spirit of man.

1983

William Golding

For his novels which illuminate the human condition in the world of today.

1982

Gabriel García Márquez

For his novels and short stories, in which the fantastic and the realistic are combined in a richly composed world of imagination.

1981

Elias Canetti

For writings marked by a broad outlook, a wealth of ideas and artistic power.

1980

Czesław Miłosz

Who with uncompromising clear-sightedness voices man’s exposed condition in a world of severe conflicts.

1979

Odysseus Elytis

For his poetry, which, against the background of Greek tradition, depicts modern man’s struggle for freedom and creativity.

1978

Isaac Bashevis Singer

For his impassioned narrative art rooted in Polish-Jewish cultural tradition.

1977

Vicente Aleixandre

For creative poetic writing that represents the renewal of Spanish poetry traditions.

1976

Saul Bellow

For the human understanding and subtle analysis of contemporary culture combined in his work.

1975

Eugenio Montale

For his distinctive poetry interpreting human values under an outlook on life with no illusions.

1974

Eyvind Johnson / Harry Martinson

For narrative art serving freedom / For writings that catch the dewdrop and reflect the cosmos.

1973

Patrick White

For an epic and psychological narrative art introducing a new continent into literature.

1972

Heinrich Böll

For his writing which renews German literature with sensitivity and broad perspective.

1971

Pablo Neruda

For a poetry that brings alive a continent’s destiny and dreams.

1970

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

For the ethical force with which he pursued indispensable traditions of Russian literature.

1969

Samuel Beckett

For his writing that, in new forms for novel and drama, elevates the destitution of modern man.

1968

Yasunari Kawabata

For his narrative mastery expressing the essence of the Japanese mind.

1967

Miguel Ángel Asturias

For his vivid literary achievement deep-rooted in Latin American Indian traditions.

1966

Shmuel Agnon / Nelly Sachs

For his narrative art with motifs from Jewish life / For lyrical and dramatic writing interpreting Israel’s destiny.

1965

Mikhail Sholokhov

For the artistic power and integrity of his epic of the Don.

1964

Jean-Paul Sartre

For his work rich in ideas and filled with the spirit of freedom and truth.

1963

Giorgos Seferis

For his eminent lyrical writing inspired by a deep feeling for the Hellenic world.

1962

John Steinbeck

For his realistic and imaginative writings with sympathetic humour and social perception.

1961

Ivo Andrić

For the epic force with which he depicted human destinies from his country’s history.

1960

Saint-John Perse

For the soaring flight and evocative imagery of his visionary poetry.

1959

Salvatore Quasimodo

For his lyrical poetry expressing the tragic experience of life in our time.

1958

Boris Pasternak

For his important achievement in lyrical poetry and the Russian epic tradition.

1957

Albert Camus

For literary production that illuminates the problems of human conscience.

1956

Juan Ramón Jiménez

For his lyrical poetry in Spanish, an example of high spirit and purity.

1955

Halldór Laxness

For his vivid epic power renewing Icelandic narrative art.

1954

Ernest Hemingway

For his mastery of narrative art, especially The Old Man and the Sea.

1953

Winston Churchill

For his mastery of historical and biographical description and brilliant oratory.

1952

François Mauriac

For deep spiritual insight and artistic intensity in his novels.

1951

Pär Lagerkvist

For artistic vigour and independence of mind in seeking eternal answers.

1950

Bertrand Russell

For writings that champion humanitarian ideals and freedom of thought.

1949

William Faulkner

For powerful and unique contribution to the modern American novel.

1948

T. S. Eliot

For his outstanding, pioneer contribution to present-day poetry.

1947

André Gide

For comprehensive and significant writings presenting human problems with fearless truth.

1946

Hermann Hesse

For inspired writings exemplifying humanitarian ideals.

1945

Gabriela Mistral

For her lyric poetry symbolizing the idealistic aspirations of Latin America.

1944

Johannes V. Jensen

For the strength and fertility of poetic imagination and creative style.

1939

Frans Eemil Sillanpää

For deep understanding of peasantry and exquisite art portraying their life.

1938

Pearl S. Buck

For her epic descriptions of peasant life in China and biographical masterpieces.

1937

Roger Martin du Gard

For artistic power and truth in depicting human conflict.

1936

Eugene O’Neill

For the power, honesty and deep emotion of his dramatic works.

1934

Luigi Pirandello

For his bold and ingenious revival of dramatic and scenic art.

1933

Ivan Bunin

For the strict artistry continuing classical Russian prose traditions.

1932

John Galsworthy

For his distinguished art of narration in The Forsyte Saga.

1931

Erik Axel Karlfeldt

The poetry of Erik Axel Karlfeldt.

1930

Sinclair Lewis

For his vigorous and graphic art of description and creation of new character types.

1929

Thomas Mann

For his great novel Buddenbrooks, a classic of contemporary literature.

1928

Sigrid Undset

For powerful descriptions of Northern life during the Middle Ages.

1927

Henri Bergson

For rich and vitalizing ideas and brilliant presentation.

1926

Grazia Deledda

For idealistically inspired writings picturing life on her native island.

1925

George Bernard Shaw

For his work marked by idealism, humanity, and poetic satire.

1924

Władysław Reymont

For his great national epic The Peasants.

1923

William Butler Yeats

For inspired poetry giving expression to the spirit of a nation.

1922

Jacinto Benavente

For continuing the illustrious traditions of Spanish drama.

1921

Anatole France

For brilliant literary achievements characterized by nobility and human sympathy.

1920

Knut Hamsun

For his monumental work Growth of the Soil.

1919

Carl Spitteler

In special appreciation of his epic Olympian Spring.

1917

Karl Gjellerup / Henrik Pontoppidan

For varied poetry inspired by lofty ideals / For authentic descriptions of present-day Danish life.

1916

Verner von Heidenstam

For significance as the leading representative of a new era in literature.

1915

Romain Rolland

For lofty idealism and love of truth in his literary work.

1913

Rabindranath Tagore

For his profoundly sensitive and beautiful verse that made his poetic thought part of world literature.

1912

Gerhart Hauptmann

For fruitful, varied, and outstanding dramatic art.

1911

Maurice Maeterlinck

For his imaginative and poetic dramatic works appealing deeply to readers.

1910

Paul Heyse

For consummate artistry and idealism in poetry and prose.

1909

Selma Lagerlöf

For lofty idealism, vivid imagination, and spiritual perception.

1908

Rudolf Eucken

For vindicating and developing an idealistic philosophy of life.

1907

Rudyard Kipling

For originality, imagination, and remarkable talent for narration.

1906

Giosuè Carducci

For creative energy, freshness of style, and lyrical force.

1905

Henryk Sienkiewicz

Because of his outstanding merits as an epic writer.

1904

Frédéric Mistral / José Echegaray

For fresh originality of poetic production / For brilliant compositions reviving Spanish drama.

1903

Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson

For noble, magnificent, and versatile poetry distinguished by purity and inspiration.

1902

Theodor Mommsen

For his monumental historical work A History of Rome.

1901

Sully Prudhomme

For poetic compositions of lofty idealism and artistic perfection.