In 1895 when Alfred Nobel signed off his fortune to the Nobel Prizes, as part of will he mentioned one part dedicated to “the person who shall have produced in the field of literature the most outstanding work in an ideal direction”.
This year, the biggest competition according to Ladbrokes appears to be between Kenyan poet Ngugi Wa Thiong’o for his political satire Wizard of the Crow Japanese novelist Haruki Murakami for his Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage. The others contenders could be Belarus journalist Svetlana Alexievech’s Voices from Chernobyl, Norwegian playwright Jan Fosse for Night Songs, Philip Roth for American Pastoral. This year’s Nobel Prize for Literature will be announced in a few hours.
Here are a few interesting facts about the award:
1)The winner this year will be the 111th winner. Since 1901 there have been 110 winners.
2) There have been 76 winners in prose, 33 in poetry, 14 in drama and 3 in essay writing/ philosophy.
3) This year, the Swedish Academy, the Nobel Prize awarding institution responsible for selecting Nobel Laureates in Literature, received 210 valid nominations. Of these, 36 were first time nominees.
4) The Nobel Medal for Literature was designed by Swedish sculptor and engraver Erik Lindberg and represents a young man sitting under a laurel tree.
5) In the last ten years, the Nobel Prize in Literature has gone for the first time to authors in Portugal, China, Trinidad & Tobago, Hungary, Austria and Turkey.
6) There has been just one winner from India, Rabindranath Tagore who won it in 1913.
7) Boris Pasternak in 1958 declined on urging of the authorities of his country. In 1964, Jean Paul Sartre declined the prize saying, “It is not the same thing if I sign Jean-Paul Sartre or if I sign Jean-Paul Sartre, Nobel Prize winner. A writer must refuse to allow himself to be transformed into an institution, even if it takes place in the most honorable form." just as he declined all official honours.” Erik Axel Karlfeldt won in 1918 but did not accept because he was Secretary of the Swedish Academy.
8) The Nobel Prize in Literature has been shared between two individuals on four occasions – in 1904 between Frédéric Mistral and José Echegaray, in 1917 between Karl Gjellerup and Henrik Pontoppidan, in 1966 between Shmuel Agnon and Nelly Sachs and in 1974 between Eyvind Johnson and Harry Martinson.
9) The average age of all Literature Laureates between 1901 and 2013 is 65 years. The youngest was Rudyard Kipling who was 42 years old when awarded the Prize in 1907. The oldest laureate is Doris Lessing who was 88 years old when was awarded the Prize in 2007.
10) Doris Lessing is one of 13 women who have been awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature. Swedish author Selma Lagerlöf, who later went on to be elected to the Swedish Academy, was the first woman to be awarded in 1909. Other winners include Grazia Deledda, Sigrid Undset, Pearl Buck, Gabriela Mistral, Nelly Sachs, Nadine Gordimer, Toni Morrison, Wislawa Szymborska, Elfriede Jelinek, Herta Müller and finally Alice Munro in 2013.
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