Year | Nationality | Reason for Award | Answer | % Correct |
---|---|---|---|---|
2016 | American | "for having created new poetic expressions within the great American song tradition" | Bob Dylan | 88%
|
1954 | American | "for his mastery of the art of narrative, most recently demonstrated in The Old Man and the Sea, and for the influence that he has exerted on contemporary style" | Ernest Miller Hemingway | 78%
|
1957 | French | "for his important literary production, which with clear-sighted earnestness illuminates the problems of the human conscience in our times" | Albert Camus | 75%
|
1929 | German | "principally for his great novel, Buddenbrooks, which has won steadily increased recognition as one of the classic works of contemporary literature" | Thomas Mann | 74%
|
1982 | Colombian | "for his novels and short stories, in which the fantastic and the realistic are combined in a richly composed world of imagination, reflecting a continent's life and conflicts" | Gabriel Garcia Marquez | 73%
|
1999 | German | "whose frolicsome black fables portray the forgotten face of history" | Gunter Grass | 71%
|
1964 | French | "for his work which, rich in ideas and filled with the spirit of freedom and the quest for truth, has exerted a far-reaching influence on our age" | Jean-Paul Sartre | 71%
|
1953 | British | "for his mastery of historical and biographical description as well as for brilliant oratory in defending exalted human values" | Sir Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill | 71%
|
1997 | Italian | "who emulates the jesters of the Middle Ages in scourging authority and upholding the dignity of the downtrodden" | Dario Fo | 70%
|
1949 | American | "for his powerful and artistically unique contribution to the modern American novel" | William Faulkner | 69%
|
2003 | South African | "who in innumerable guises portrays the surprising involvement of the outsider" | John M. Coetzee | 68%
|
1971 | Chilean | "for a poetry that with the action of an elemental force brings alive a continent's destiny and dreams" | Pablo Neruda | 68%
|
1969 | Irish | "for his writing, which - in new forms for the novel and drama - in the destitution of modern man acquires its elevation" | Samuel Beckett | 68%
|
2006 | Turkish | "who in the quest for the melancholic soul of his native city has discovered new symbols for the clash and interlacing of cultures" | Orhan Pamuk | 67%
|
1923 | Irish | "for his always inspired poetry, which in a highly artistic form gives expression to the spirit of a whole nation" | William Butler Yeats | 67%
|
2013 | Canadian | "master of the contemporary short story" | Alice Munro | 66%
|
2017 | British | "who, in novels of great emotional force, has uncovered the abyss beneath our illusory sense of connection with the world" | Kazuo Ishiguro | 66%
|
2007 | British | "that epicist of the female experience, who with scepticism, fire and visionary power has subjected a divided civilisation to scrutiny" | Doris Lessing | 65%
|
1994 | Japanese | "who with poetic force creates an imagined world, where life and myth condense to form a disconcerting picture of the human predicament today" | Kenzaburo Oe | 65%
|
1990 | Mexican | "for impassioned writing with wide horizons, characterized by sensuous intelligence and humanistic integrity" | Octavio Paz | 65%
|
1938 | American | "for her rich and truly epic descriptions of peasant life in China and for her biographical masterpieces" | Pearl Buck | 65%
|
2001 | Trinidadian and Tobagoan, British | "for having united perceptive narrative and incorruptible scrutiny in works that compel us to see the presence of suppressed histories" | Sir Vidiadhar Surajprasad Naipaul | 65%
|
1946 | German, Swiss | "for his inspired writings which, while growing in boldness and penetration, exemplify the classical humanitarian ideals and high qualities of style" | Hermann Hesse | 64%
|
2009 | Romanian, German | "who, with the concentration of poetry and the frankness of prose, depicts the landscape of the dispossessed" | Herta Muller | 64%
|
1962 | American | "for his realistic and imaginative writings, combining as they do sympathetic humour and keen social perception" | John Steinbeck | 64%
|
1995 | Irish | "for works of lyrical beauty and ethical depth, which exalt everyday miracles and the living past" | Seamus Heaney | 64%
|
1907 | British | "in consideration of the power of observation, originality of imagination, virility of ideas and remarkable talent for narration which characterize the creations of this world-famous author" | Rudyard Kipling | 63%
|
1970 | Russian | "for the ethical force with which he has pursued the indispensable traditions of Russian literature" | Alexandr Isayevich Solzhenitsyn | 62%
|
2010 | Peruvian | "for his cartography of structures of power and his trenchant images of the individual's resistance, revolt, and defeat" | Mario Vargas Llosa | 62%
|
1983 | British | "for his novels which, with the perspicuity of realistic narrative art and the diversity and universality of myth, illuminate the human condition in the world of today" | William Golding | 62%
|
1958 | Russian/Soviet | "for his important achievement both in contemporary lyrical poetry and in the field of the great Russian epic tradition" | Boris Leonidovich Pasternak | 61%
|
2004 | Austrian | "for her musical flow of voices and counter-voices in novels and plays that with extraordinary linguistic zeal reveal the absurdity of society's clichés and their subjugating power" | Elfriede Jelinek | 61%
|
1925 | British, Irish | "for his work which is marked by both idealism and humanity, its stimulating satire often being infused with a singular poetic beauty" | George Bernard Shaw | 61%
|
2005 | British | "who in his plays uncovers the precipice under everyday prattle and forces entry into oppression's closed rooms" | Harold Pinter | 61%
|
1972 | German | "for his writing which through its combination of a broad perspective on his time and a sensitive skill in characterization has contributed to a renewal of German literature" | Heinrich Boll | 61%
|
2012 | Chinese | "who with hallucinatory realism merges folk tales, history and the contemporary" | Mo Yan | 61%
|
1913 | Bengali | "because of his profoundly sensitive, fresh and beautiful verse, by which, with consummate skill, he has made his poetic thought, expressed in his own English words, a part of the literature of the West" | Rabindranath Tagore | 61%
|
1993 | American | "who in novels characterized by visionary force and poetic import, gives life to an essential aspect of American reality" | Toni Morrison | 61%
|
1904 | French | "in recognition of the fresh originality and true inspiration of his poetic production, which faithfully reflects the natural scenery and native spirit of his people, and, in addition, his significant work as a Provençal philologist" | Frederic Mistral | 60%
|
1945 | Chilean | "for her lyric poetry which, inspired by powerful emotions, has made her name a symbol of the idealistic aspirations of the entire Latin American world" | Gabriela Mistral | 60%
|
1932 | British | "for his distinguished art of narration which takes its highest form in The Forsyte Saga" | John Galsworthy | 60%
|
1991 | South African | "who through her magnificent epic writing has - in the words of Alfred Nobel - been of very great benefit to humanity" | Nadine Gordimer | 60%
|
1901 | French | "in special recognition of his poetic composition, which gives evidence of lofty idealism, artistic perfection and a rare combination of the qualities of both heart and intellect" | Sully Prudhomme | 60%
|
2011 | Swedish | "because, through his condensed, translucent images, he gives us fresh access to reality" | Tomas Transtromer | 60%
|
1986 | Nigerian | "who in a wide cultural perspective and with poetic overtones fashions the drama of existence" | Wole Soyinka | 59%
|
1947 | French | "for his comprehensive and artistically significant writings, in which human problems and conditions have been presented with a fearless love of truth and keen psychological insight" | Andre Paul Guillaume Gide | 58%
|
1948 | British | "for his outstanding, pioneer contribution to present-day poetry" | Thomas Stearns Eliot | 58%
|
1992 | Saint Lucian | "for a poetic oeuvre of great luminosity, sustained by a historical vision, the outcome of a multicultural commitment" | Derek Walcott | 57%
|
1936 | American | "for the power, honesty and deep-felt emotions of his dramatic works, which embody an original concept of tragedy" | Eugene Gladstone O'Neill | 57%
|
1920 | Norwegian | "for his monumental work, Growth of the Soil" | Knut Pedersen Hamsun | 57%
|
1973 | Australian | "for an epic and psychological narrative art which has introduced a new continent into literature" | Patrick White | 57%
|
1921 | French | "in recognition of his brilliant literary achievements, characterized as they are by a nobility of style, a profound human sympathy, grace, and a true Gallic temperament" | Anatole France | 56%
|
1981 | Bulgarian, British | "for writings marked by a broad outlook, a wealth of ideas and artistic power" | Elias Canetti | 56%
|
1955 | Icelandic | "for his vivid epic power which has renewed the great narrative art of Iceland" | Halldor Kiljan Laxness | 55%
|
2002 | Hungarian | "for writing that upholds the fragile experience of the individual against the barbaric arbitrariness of history" | Imre Kertesz | 55%
|
1998 | Portuguese | "who with parables sustained by imagination, compassion and irony continually enables us once again to apprehend an elusory reality" | Jose Saramago | 55%
|
1959 | Italian | "for his lyrical poetry, which with classical fire expresses the tragic experience of life in our own times" | Salvatore Quasimodo | 55%
|
1950 | British | "in recognition of his varied and significant writings in which he champions humanitarian ideals and freedom of thought" | Earl Bertrand Arthur William Russell | 54%
|
1905 | Polish | "because of his outstanding merits as an epic writer" | Henryk Sienkiewicz | 54%
|
1978 | Polish, Jewish | "for his impassioned narrative art which, with roots in a Polish-Jewish cultural tradition, brings universal human conditions to life" | Isaac Bashevis Singer | 54%
|
1987 | Russian, American | "for an all-embracing authorship, imbued with clarity of thought and poetic intensity" | Joseph Brodsky | 54%
|
1909 | Swedish | "in appreciation of the lofty idealism, vivid imagination and spiritual perception that characterize her writings" | Selma Ottilia Lovisa Lagerlof | 54%
|
1996 | Polish | "for poetry that with ironic precision allows the historical and biological context to come to light in fragments of human reality" | Wislawa Szymborska | 54%
|
1930 | American | "for his vigorous and graphic art of description and his ability to create, with wit and humour, new types of characters" | Sinclair Lewis | 52%
|
1968 | Japanese | "for his narrative mastery, which with great sensibility expresses the essence of the Japanese mind" | Yasunari Kawabata | 52%
|
1903 | Norwegian | "as a tribute to his noble, magnificent and versatile poetry, which has always been distinguished by both the freshness of its inspiration and the rare purity of its spirit" | Bjornsterne Martinus Bjornson | 51%
|
1902 | German | "the greatest living master of the art of historical writing, with special reference to his monumental work, A history of Rome" | Christian Matthias Theodor Mommsen | 51%
|
1961 | Yugoslavian | "for the epic force with which he has traced themes and depicted human destinies drawn from the history of his country" | Ivo Andric | 51%
|
1976 | Canadian, American | "for the human understanding and subtle analysis of contemporary culture that are combined in his work" | Saul Bellow | 51%
|
2015 | Belarusian | "for her polyphonic writings, a monument to suffering and courage in our time" | Svetlana Alexievich | 51%
|
1915 | French | "as a tribute to the lofty idealism of his literary production and to the sympathy and love of truth with which he has described different types of human beings" | Romain Rolland | 50%
|
1928 | Norwegian | "principally for her powerful descriptions of Northern life during the Middle Ages" | Sigrid Undset | 50%
|
1974 | Swedish | "for a narrative art, far-seeing in lands and ages, in the service of freedom" | Eyvind Johnson | 49%
|
1952 | French | "for the deep spiritual insight and the artistic intensity with which he has in his novels penetrated the drama of human life" | Francois Mauriac | 49%
|
2008 | French, Mauritian | "author of new departures, poetic adventure and sensual ecstasy, explorer of a humanity beyond and below the reigning civilization" | Jean-Marie Gustave Le Clezio | 49%
|
1944 | Danish | "for the rare strength and fertility of his poetic imagination with which is combined an intellectual curiosity of wide scope and a bold, freshly creative style" | Johannes Vilhelm Jensen | 49%
|
1934 | Italian | "for his bold and ingenious revival of dramatic and scenic art" | Luigi Pirandello | 49%
|
1965 | Russian/Soviet | "for the artistic power and integrity with which, in his epic of the Don, he has given expression to a historic phase in the life of the Russian people" | Mikhail Aleksandrovich Sholokov | 49%
|
1980 | Polish | "who with uncompromising clear-sightedness voices man's exposed condition in a world of severe conflicts" | Czeslaw Milosz | 48%
|
2014 | French | "for the art of memory with which he has evoked the most ungraspable human destinies and uncovered the life-world of the occupation" | Patrick Modiano | 48%
|
1951 | Swedish | "for the artistic vigour and true independence of mind with which he endeavours in his poetry to find answers to the eternal questions confronting mankind" | Par Fabian Lagerkvist | 47%
|
1911 | Belgian | "in appreciation of his many-sided literary activities, and especially of his dramatic works, which are distinguished by a wealth of imagination and by a poetic fancy, which reveals, sometimes in the guise of a fairy tale, a deep inspiration, while in a mysterious way they appeal to the readers' own feelings and stimulate their imaginations" | Count Maurice (Mooris) Polidore Marie Bernhard Maeterlinck | 46%
|
1984 | Czech | "for his poetry which endowed with freshness, sensuality and rich inventiveness provides a liberating image of the indomitable spirit and versatility of man" | Jaroslav Seifert | 46%
|
1967 | Guatemalan | "for his vivid literary achievement, deep-rooted in the national traits and traditions of Indian peoples of Latin America" | Miguel Angel Asturias | 46%
|
1989 | Spanish | "for a rich and intensive prose, which with restrained compassion forms a challenging vision of man's vulnerability" | Camilo Jose Cela | 45%
|
1912 | German | "primarily in recognition of his fruitful, varied and outstanding production in the realm of dramatic art" | Gerhart Johann Robert Hauptmann | 45%
|
1927 | French | "in recognition of his rich and vitalizing ideas and the brilliant skill with which they have been presented" | Henri Bergson | 45%
|
1933 | Russian | "for the strict artistry with which he has carried on the classical Russian traditions in prose writing" | Ivan Alekseyevich Bunin | 45%
|
1966 | German, Swedish | "for her outstanding lyrical and dramatic writing, which interprets Israel's destiny with touching strength" | Nelly Sachs | 45%
|
1979 | Greek | "for his poetry, which, against the background of Greek tradition, depicts with sensuous strength and intellectual clear-sightedness modern man's struggle for freedom and creativeness" | Odysseas Elytis | 45%
|
1919 | Swiss | "in special appreciation of his epic, Olympian Spring" | Carl Friedrich Georg Spitteler | 44%
|
1985 | French | "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" | Claude Simon | 44%
|
1966 | Israeli | "for his profoundly characteristic narrative art with motifs from the life of the Jewish people" | Shmuel Yosef Agnon | 44%
|
1924 | Polish | "for his great national epic, The Peasants" | Wladyslaw Stanislaw Reymont | 44%
|
1963 | Greek | "for his eminent lyrical writing, inspired by a deep feeling for the Hellenic world of culture" | Giorgos Seferis | 43%
|
1974 | Swedish | "for writings that catch the dewdrop and reflect the cosmos" | Harry Martinson | 43%
|
1908 | German | "in recognition of his earnest search for truth, his penetrating power of thought, his wide range of vision, and the warmth and strength in presentation with which in his numerous works he has vindicated and developed an idealistic philosophy of life" | Rudolf Christoph Eucken | 43%
|
2000 | Chinese | "for an æuvre of universal validity, bitter insights and linguistic ingenuity, which has opened new paths for the Chinese novel and drama" | Gao Xingjian | 42%
|
1956 | Spanish | "for his lyrical poetry, which in Spanish language constitutes an example of high spirit and artistical purity" | Juan Ramon Jimenez | 42%
|
1977 | Spanish | "for a creative poetic writing which illuminates man's condition in the cosmos and in present-day society, at the same time representing the great renewal of the traditions of Spanish poetry between the wars" | Vicente Aleixandre | 42%
|
1910 | German | "as a tribute to the consummate artistry, permeated with idealism, which he has demonstrated during his long productive career as a lyric poet, dramatist, novelist and writer of world-renowned short stories" | Paul Johann Ludwig Heyse | 41%
|
1906 | Italian | "not only in consideration of his deep learning and critical research, but above all as a tribute to the creative energy, freshness of style, and lyrical force which characterize his poetic masterpieces" | Giosue Carducci | 40%
|
1939 | Finnish | "for his deep understanding of his country's peasantry and the exquisite art with which he has portrayed their way of life and their relationship with Nature" | Frans Eemil Sillanpaa | 39%
|
1917 | Danish | "for his authentic descriptions of present-day life in Denmark" | Henrik Pontoppidan | 39%
|
1904 | Spanish | "in recognition of the numerous and brilliant compositions which, in an individual and original manner, have revived the great traditions of the Spanish drama" | Jose Echegaray y Eizaguerre | 39%
|
1937 | French | "for the artistic power and truth with which he has depicted human conflict as well as some fundamental aspects of contemporary life in his novel-cycle Les Thibault" | Roger Martin du Gard | 39%
|
1960 | French | "for the soaring flight and the evocative imagery of his poetry which in a visionary fashion reflects the conditions of our time" | Saint-John Perse | 35%
|
1926 | Italian | "for her idealistically inspired writings which with plastic clarity picture the life on her native island and with depth and sympathy deal with human problems in general" | Grazia Deladda | 33%
|
1931 | Swedish | "The poetry of [award winner's name]" | Erik Axel Karlfeldt | 32%
|
1975 | Italian | "for his distinctive poetry which, with great artistic sensitivity, has interpreted human values under the sign of an outlook on life with no illusions" | Eugenio Montale | 32%
|
1988 | Egyptian | "who, through works rich in nuance - now clear-sightedly realistic, now evocatively ambiguous - has formed an Arabian narrative art that applies to all mankind" | Naghuib Mafouz | 32%
|
1916 | Swedish | "in recognition of his significance as the leading representative of a new era in our literature" | Carl Gustaf Verner von Heidenstam | 31%
|
1917 | Danish | "for his varied and rich poetry, which is inspired by lofty ideals" | Karl Adolph Gjellerup | 29%
|
1914 | 1918 | 1935 | +4 others | N/A | N/A | No Award Given | 29%
|
1922 | Spanish | "for the happy manner in which he has continued the illustrious traditions of the Spanish drama" | Jacinto Benavente | 27%
|
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