View source for Civilisation/List of Nobel Prize in Literature laureates

{| class="wikitable"
|1901
|Sully  Prudhomme
|France
|Poet and  essayist
|-
|1902
|Theodore  Mommsen
|Germany
|principally for ''The History of Rome''
|-
|1903
|Bjornstjerne  Bjornson
|Norway
|Poet
|-
|1904
|Frederic  Mistral

Jose  Eshegaray
|France

Spain
|Poet

Dramatist
|-
|1905
|Henryk Sienkiewicz
|Poland
|Author of ''Quo Vadis''
|-
|1906
|Giosue  Carducci
|Italy
|Regarded as the official national poet of modern Italy
|-
|1907
|Rudyard  Kipling
|UK
|First British  winner. Born in British India. Youngest person to win the award (aged 41)
|-
|1908
|Rudolf  Christoph Eucken
|Germany
|Philosopher
|-
|1909
|Selma  Lagerlof
|Sweden
|First female  winner. ''Gosta Berling’s Saga'' – debut novel
|-
|1910
|Paul von  Heyse
|Germany
|
|-
|1911
|Maurice Maeterlinck
|Belgium
|Symbolist  playwright. Works include ''Pelleas et Melisande'' and ''The Blue Bird''
|-
|1912
|Gerhart Hauptmann
|Germany
|
|-
|1913
|Rabindranath Tagore
|India
|First  non-European winner. Bengali polymath born in Calcutta
|-
|1914
|Not awarded
|
|
|-
|1915
|Romain Rolland
|France
|Supporter of  Josef Stalin. Corresponded with Sigmund Freud
|-
|1916
|Verner von Heidenstam
|Sweden
|
|-
|1917
|Karl Adolph Gjellerup

Henrik Pontoppidan
|Denmark

Denmark
|Both writers  were associated with the Modern Breakthrough period of Scandinavian literature
|-
|1918
|Not awarded
|
|
|-
|1919
|Carl Spitteler
|Switzerland
|principally  for ''Olympian Spring''
|-
|1920
|Knut Hamsun
|Norway
|
|-
|1921
|Anatole  France
|France
|
|-
|1922
|Jacinto  Benavente
|Spain
|
|-
|1923
|W. B. Yeats
|Ireland
|“for his  always inspired poetry, which in a highly artistic form gives expression to  the spirit of a whole nation”. First Irish winner
|-
|1924
|Wladyslaw  Reymont
|Poland
|
|-
|1925
|George  Bernard Shaw
|Ireland
|"for his  work which is marked by both idealism and humanity, its stimulating satire  often being infused with a singular poetic beauty"
|-
|1926
|Grazia  Deledda
|Italy
|Second female  winner
|-
|1927
|Henri Bergson
|France
|Philosopher
|-
|1928
|Sigrid Undset
|Norway
|
|-
|1929
|Thomas Mann
|Germany
|principally  for ''Buddenbrooks''
|-
|1930
|Sinclair  Lewis
|USA
|First  American winner
|-
|1931
|Erik Axel  Karlfeldt
|Sweden
|Died in April  1931. Awarded posthumously
|-
|1932
|John  Galsworthy
|UK
|principally  for ''The Forsyte Saga''. Second  British winner
|-
|1933
|Ivan Bunin
|Russian  empire
|First Russian  winner
|-
|1934
|Luigi  Pirandello
|Italy
|Author of ''Six  Characters in Search of An Author''
|-
|1935
|Not awarded
|
|
|-
|1936
|Eugene  O’Neill
|USA
|Second  American winner
|-
|1937
|Roger Martin  du Gard
|France
|
|-
|1938
|Pearl S. Buck
|USA
|"for her  rich and truly epic descriptions of peasant life in China". First female  American winner
|-
|1939
|Frans Eemil  Sillanpaa
|Finland
|
|-
|1940
|Not awarded
|
|
|-
|1941
|Not awarded
|
|
|-
|1942
|Not awarded
|
|
|-
|1943
|Not awarded
|
|
|-
|1944
|Johannes V.  Jensen
|Denmark
|
|-
|1945
|Gabriela Mistral
|Chile
|First Latin  American winner
|-
|1946
|Hermann Hesse
|Germany
|Also had  Swiss citizenship
|-
|1947
|Andre Gide
|France
|
|-
|1948
|T.S. Eliot
|UK
|"for his  outstanding, pioneer contribution to present-day poetry". Born in St.  Louis, Missouri
|-
|1949
|William  Faulkner
|USA
|Considered  the greatest writer of Southern literature
|-
|1950
|Bertrand  Russell
|UK
|Mathematician,  philosopher, and logician
|-
|1951
|Par Lagerkvist
|Sweden
|
|-
|1952
|Francois  Mauriac
|France
|
|-
|1953
|Winston  Churchill
|UK
|"for his  mastery of historical and biographical description as well as for brilliant  oratory in defending exalted human values"
|-
|1954
|Ernest  Hemingway
|USA
|principally  for ''The Old Man and the Sea''
|-
|1955
|Halldor  Laxness
|Iceland
|First Nobel  Prize winner from Iceland
|-
|1956
|Juan Ramon  Jimenez
|Spain
|
|-
|1957
|Albert Camus
|France
|Born in  French Algeria. First African-born winner
|-
|1958
|Boris  Pasternak
|Soviet Union
|Forced to  decline the prize by the Soviet Union
|-
|1959
|Salvatore  Quasimodo
|Italy
|for his  lyrical poetry
|-
|1960
|Saint-John  Perse
|France
|French  diplomat from 1914 to 1940
|-
|1961
|Ivo Andric
|Yugoslavia
|Born in  Austria-Hungary, modern-day Bosnia and Herzegovina
|-
|1962
|John  Steinbeck
|USA
|Steinbeck was  a "compromise choice" as there were no obvious candidates
|-
|1963
|Georgos  Seferis
|Greece
|Born in the  Ottoman Empire. Greek Ambassador to the UK from 1957 to 1962
|-
|1964
|John-Paul  Sartre
|France
|Attempted to refuse  the award, saying that he always declined official honours and that "a  writer should not allow himself to be turned into an institution"
|-
|1965
|Mikhail  Sholokhov
|Soviet Union
|Principally  for ''And Quiet Flows the Don''
|-
|1966
|Shmuel Yosef  Agnon

Nelly Sachs
|Israel

Germany
|for their  works about the Jewish people
|-
|1967
|Miguel Angel Asturias
|Guatemala
|poet-diplomat,  novelist, and playwright
|-
|1968
|Yasunari  Kawabata
|Japan
|First Japanese  winner
|-
|1969
|Samuel  Beckett
|Ireland
|Lived in  Paris, and wrote in both French and English
|-
|1970
|Alexander  Solzhenitsyn
|Russia
|helped to  raise global awareness of political repression in the Soviet Union, in  particular the Gulag system
|-
|1971
|Pablo Neruda
|Chile
|Considered  the national poet of Chile
|-
|1972
|Heinrich Boll
|West Germany
|
|-
|1973
|Patrick White
|Australia
|First  Australian winner. Born in London
|-
|1974
|Eyvind  Johnson

Harry  Martinson
|Sweden

Sweden
|
|-
|1975
|Eugenio  Montale
|Italy
|
|-
|1976
|Saul Bellow
|USA
|is the only  writer to win the National Book Award for Fiction three times. Born in Canada
|-
|1977
|Vicente  Aleixandre
|Spain
|was part of  the Generation of '27
|-
|1978
|Isaac Bashevis  Singer
|USA
|wrote and  published first in Yiddish. Born in Poland
|-
|1979
|Odysseas  Elytis
|Greece
|
|-
|1980
|Czeslaw Milosz
|Poland
|Born in the  Russian empire
|-
|1981
|Elias Canetti
|Bulgaria
|moved to  England to escape Nazi persecution and became a British citizen in 1952
|-
|1982
|Gabriel  Garcia Marquez
|Colombia
|popularised the  literary style known as magic realism
|-
|1983
|William  Golding
|UK
|
|-
|1984
|Jaroslav  Siefert
|Czechoslovakia
|
|-
|1985
|Claude Simon
|France
|Born in  Madagascar
|-
|1986
|Wole Soyinka
|Nigeria
|First winner  from sub-Saharan Africa
|-
|1987
|Joseph  Brodsky
|Soviet Union
|was expelled  from the Soviet Union in 1972, settling in the United States
|-
|1988
|Naguib  Mahfouz
|Egypt
|First Arab  writer to win
|-
|1989
|Camilo Jose  Cela
|Spain
|was associated  with the Generation of '36 movement.
|-
|1990
|Octavio Paz
|Mexico
|Poet and  diplomat
|-
|1991
|Nadine Gordimer
|South Africa
|First South African winner. Her writing dealt with  moral and racial issues, particularly apartheid
|-
|1992
|Derek Walcott
|Saint Lucia
|Author of the  epic poem ''Omeros''
|-
|1993
|Toni Morrison
|USA
|First Afro-American winner
|-
|1994
|Kenzaburo Oe
|Japan
|
|-
|1995
|Seamus Heaney
|Ireland
|''District  and Circle'' won the T. S. Eliot Prize in 2006
|-
|1996
|Wislawa Szymborska
|Poland
|
|-
|1997
|Dario Fo
|Italy
|"who  emulates the jesters of the Middle Ages in scourging authority"
|-
|1998
|Jose Saramago
|Portugal
|
|-
|1999
|Gunter Grass
|Germany
|Born in the Free City of Danzig (now Gdansk, Poland
|-
|2000
|Gao Xingjian
|China
|has been a French citizen since 1998
|-
|2001
|V.S. Naipaul
|UK
|Born in Trinidad
|-
|2002
|Imre Kertesz
|Hungary
|His works deal with themes of the Holocaust
|-
|2003
|J.M. Coetzee
|South Africa
|Has been an Australian citizen since 2006
|-
|2004
|Elfriede Jelinek
|Austria
|
|-
|2005
|Harold Pinter
|UK
|"who in his plays uncovers the precipice under  everyday prattle and forces entry into oppression's closed rooms"
|-
|2006
|Orhan Pamuk
|Turkey
|First Turkish Nobel laureate
|-
|2007
|Doris Lessing
|UK
|Born in Iran, moved to Zimbabwe, where she remained  until moving to England in 1949. Oldest winner (aged 87)
|-
|2008
|J.M.G. Le Clezio
|France
|
|-
|2009
|Herta Muller
|Germany
|Born in Romania. Many of her works are told from the  viewpoint of the German minority in Romania
|-
|2010
|Mario Vargas  Llosa
|Peru
|
|-
|2011
|Tomas  Transtromer
|Sweden
|
|-
|2012
|Mo  Yan
|China
|Pen name of Guan Moye. Author of ''Red Sorghum''
|-
|2013
|Alice  Munro
|Canada
|Short stories, mostly set in Huron County, Ontario
|-
|2014
|Patrick  Modiano
|France
|Many works about the Occupation of France in World War  II
|-
|2015
|Svetlana  Alexievich
|Belarus
|Her books trace the emotional history of the Soviet Union  through collages of interviews. Born in Ukraine
|-
|2016
|Bob  Dylan
|USA
|"for having created new poetic expressions within  the great American song tradition"
|-
|2017
|Kazuo  Ishiguro
|UK
|Born in Japan. UK citizen since 1983
|-
|2018
|Olga  Tokarczuk
|Poland
|
|-
|2019
|Peter  Handke
|Austria
|
|-
|2020
|Louise  Gluck
|USA
|US Poet Laureate from 2003 to 2004
|-
|2021
|Abdulrazak  Gurnah
|UK
|moved to the UK in the 1960s as a refugee during the  Zanzibar Revolution
|-
|2022
|Annie  Ernaux
|France
|
|-
|2023
|Jon Fosse
|Norway
|
|-
|2024
|Han Kang
|South Korea
|First female Asian winner
|}