A list of all Nobel Prize winners in **Literature** along with their respective fields (though the Nobel Prize in Literature is awarded for outstanding contributions in the field of literature, not specific subfields like science categories). The Nobel Prize in Literature is awarded to authors, poets, and playwrights for their body of work, often reflecting universal themes, human experiences, and artistic excellence.
—
### **Nobel Prize in Literature Winners (1901–2024)**
| **Year** | **Winner** | **Country** | **Notable Works/Contributions** |
|———-|—————————|——————-|————————————————————————————————-|
| 1901 | Sully Prudhomme | France | Poetry (philosophical and aesthetic themes) |
| 1902 | Theodor Mommsen | Germany | Historical writing, *History of Rome* |
| 1903 | Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson | Norway | Poetry, novels, and plays (nationalist themes) |
| 1904 | Frédéric Mistral | France | Poetry (Provençal language revival) |
| 1904 | José Echegaray | Spain | Drama (revival of Spanish drama) |
| 1905 | Henryk Sienkiewicz | Poland | Novels (*Quo Vadis*) |
| 1906 | Giosuè Carducci | Italy | Poetry (classical and lyrical themes) |
| 1907 | Rudyard Kipling | United Kingdom | Novels, short stories (*The Jungle Book*, *Kim*) |
| 1908 | Rudolf Eucken | Germany | Philosophical writings |
| 1909 | Selma Lagerlöf | Sweden | Novels (*The Wonderful Adventures of Nils*) |
| 1910 | Paul Heyse | Germany | Poetry, novels, and short stories |
| 1911 | Maurice Maeterlinck | Belgium | Plays (*The Blue Bird*) |
| 1912 | Gerhart Hauptmann | Germany | Plays (*The Weavers*) |
| 1913 | Rabindranath Tagore | India | Poetry (*Gitanjali*), philosophy, and literature |
| 1915 | Romain Rolland | France | Novels (*Jean-Christophe*) |
| 1916 | Verner von Heidenstam | Sweden | Poetry and historical novels |
| 1917 | Karl Gjellerup | Denmark | Novels and poetry |
| 1917 | Henrik Pontoppidan | Denmark | Novels (realist and social themes) |
| 1919 | Carl Spitteler | Switzerland | Poetry and epic works (*Olympian Spring*) |
| 1920 | Knut Hamsun | Norway | Novels (*Hunger*, *Growth of the Soil*) |
| 1921 | Anatole France | France | Novels and essays (*Thaïs*, *The Crime of Sylvestre Bonnard*) |
| 1922 | Jacinto Benavente | Spain | Plays (*The Bonds of Interest*) |
| 1923 | W.B. Yeats | Ireland | Poetry (*The Tower*, *The Winding Stair*) |
| 1924 | Władysław Reymont | Poland | Novels (*The Peasants*) |
| 1925 | George Bernard Shaw | Ireland | Plays (*Pygmalion*, *Man and Superman*) |
| 1926 | Grazia Deledda | Italy | Novels (*Canne al vento*) |
| 1927 | Henri Bergson | France | Philosophical writings (*Creative Evolution*) |
| 1928 | Sigrid Undset | Norway | Novels (*Kristin Lavransdatter*) |
| 1929 | Thomas Mann | Germany | Novels (*Buddenbrooks*, *The Magic Mountain*) |
| 1930 | Sinclair Lewis | United States | Novels (*Main Street*, *Babbitt*) |
| 1931 | Erik Axel Karlfeldt | Sweden | Poetry |
| 1932 | John Galsworthy | United Kingdom | Novels (*The Forsyte Saga*) |
| 1933 | Ivan Bunin | Russia/France | Short stories and poetry |
| 1934 | Luigi Pirandello | Italy | Plays (*Six Characters in Search of an Author*) |
| 1936 | Eugene O’Neill | United States | Plays (*Long Day’s Journey into Night*, *The Iceman Cometh*) |
| 1937 | Roger Martin du Gard | France | Novels (*The Thibaults*) |
| 1938 | Pearl S. Buck | United States | Novels (*The Good Earth*) |
| 1939 | Frans Eemil Sillanpää | Finland | Novels (*Meek Heritage*) |
| 1944 | Johannes V. Jensen | Denmark | Novels and poetry (*The Long Journey*) |
| 1945 | Gabriela Mistral | Chile | Poetry (*Desolación*) |
| 1946 | Hermann Hesse | Switzerland | Novels (*Siddhartha*, *Steppenwolf*) |
| 1947 | André Gide | France | Novels (*The Counterfeiters*) |
| 1948 | T.S. Eliot | United Kingdom | Poetry (*The Waste Land*) |
| 1949 | William Faulkner | United States | Novels (*The Sound and the Fury*, *As I Lay Dying*) |
| 1950 | Bertrand Russell | United Kingdom | Philosophical writings (*A History of Western Philosophy*) |
| 1951 | Pär Lagerkvist | Sweden | Novels and poetry (*Barabbas*) |
| 1952 | François Mauriac | France | Novels (*Thérèse Desqueyroux*) |
| 1953 | Winston Churchill | United Kingdom | Historical and biographical writings (*The Second World War*) |
| 1954 | Ernest Hemingway | United States | Novels (*The Old Man and the Sea*, *A Farewell to Arms*) |
| 1955 | Halldór Laxness | Iceland | Novels (*Independent People*) |
| 1956 | Juan Ramón Jiménez | Spain | Poetry (*Platero y Yo*) |
| 1957 | Albert Camus | France | Novels and philosophical essays (*The Stranger*, *The Plague*) |
| 1958 | Boris Pasternak | Soviet Union | Novels (*Doctor Zhivago*) |
| 1959 | Salvatore Quasimodo | Italy | Poetry |
| 1960 | Saint-John Perse | France | Poetry (*Anabasis*) |
| 1961 | Ivo Andrić | Yugoslavia | Novels (*The Bridge on the Drina*) |
| 1962 | John Steinbeck | United States | Novels (*The Grapes of Wrath*, *Of Mice and Men*) |
| 1963 | Giorgos Seferis | Greece | Poetry |
| 1964 | Jean-Paul Sartre | France | Philosophical writings and novels (*Nausea*, *Being and Nothingness*) |
| 1965 | Mikhail Sholokhov | Soviet Union | Novels (*And Quiet Flows the Don*) |
| 1966 | Shmuel Yosef Agnon | Israel | Novels and short stories |
| 1966 | Nelly Sachs | Sweden | Poetry (Holocaust themes) |
| 1967 | Miguel Ángel Asturias | Guatemala | Novels (*Men of Maize*) |
| 1968 | Yasunari Kawabata | Japan | Novels (*Snow Country*) |
| 1969 | Samuel Beckett | Ireland | Plays (*Waiting for Godot*) |
| 1970 | Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn | Soviet Union | Novels (*One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich*, *The Gulag Archipelago*) |
| 1971 | Pablo Neruda | Chile | Poetry (*Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair*) |
| 1972 | Heinrich Böll | Germany | Novels (*The Lost Honor of Katharina Blum*) |
| 1973 | Patrick White | Australia | Novels (*Voss*) |
| 1974 | Eyvind Johnson | Sweden | Novels |
| 1974 | Harry Martinson | Sweden | Poetry |
| 1975 | Eugenio Montale | Italy | Poetry |
| 1976 | Saul Bellow | United States | Novels (*Herzog*, *Humboldt’s Gift*) |
| 1977 | Vicente Aleixandre | Spain | Poetry |
| 1978 | Isaac Bashevis Singer | United States | Short stories and novels (*The Family Moskat*) |
| 1979 | Odysseas Elytis | Greece | Poetry |
| 1980 | Czesław Miłosz | Poland | Poetry (*The Captive Mind*) |
| 1981 | Elias Canetti | Bulgaria/UK | Novels and essays (*Auto-da-Fé*) |
| 1982 | Gabriel García Márquez | Colombia | Novels (*One Hundred Years of Solitude*, *Love in the Time of Cholera*) |
| 1983 | William Golding | United Kingdom | Novels (*Lord of the Flies*) |
| 1984 | Jaroslav Seifert | Czechoslovakia | Poetry |
| 1985 | Claude Simon | France | Novels (*The Flanders Road*) |
| 1986 | Wole Soyinka | Nigeria | Plays and novels (*Death and the King’s Horseman*) |
| 1987 | Joseph Brodsky | United States | Poetry |
| 1988 | Naguib Mahfouz | Egypt | Novels (*The Cairo Trilogy*) |
| 1989 | Camilo José Cela | Spain | Novels (*The Family of Pascual Duarte*) |
| 1990 | Octavio Paz | Mexico | Poetry (*The Labyrinth of Solitude*) |
| 1991 | Nadine Gordimer | South Africa | Novels (*July’s People*) |
| 1992 | Derek Walcott | Saint Lucia | Poetry (*Omeros*) |
| 1993 | Toni Morrison | United States | Novels (*Beloved*, *Song of Solomon*) |
| 1994 | Kenzaburō Ōe | Japan | Novels (*A Personal Matter*) |
| 1995 | Seamus Heaney | Ireland | Poetry (*Death of a Naturalist*) |
| 1996 | Wisława Szymborska | Poland | Poetry |
| 1997 | Dario Fo | Italy | Plays (*Accidental Death of an Anarchist*) |
| 1998 | José Saramago | Portugal | Novels (*Blindness*) |
| 1999 | Günter Grass | Germany | Novels (*The Tin Drum*) |
| 2000 | Gao Xingjian | China/France | Novels and plays (*Soul Mountain*) |
| 2001 | V.S. Naipaul | United Kingdom | Novels (*A House for Mr. Biswas*) |
| 2002 | Imre Kertész | Hungary | Novels (*Fatelessness*) |
| 2003 | J.M. Coetzee | South Africa | Novels (*Disgrace*) |
| 2004 | Elfriede Jelinek | Austria | Novels and plays (*The Piano Teacher*) |
| 2005 | Harold Pinter | United Kingdom | Plays (*The Birthday Party*) |
| 2006 | Orhan Pamuk | Turkey | Novels (*My Name is Red*, *Snow*) |
| 2007 | Doris Lessing | United Kingdom | Novels (*The Golden Notebook*) |
| 2008 | Jean-Marie Gustave Le Clézio | France | Novels (*Desert*) |
| 2009 | Herta Müller | Germany | Novels (*The Land of Green Plums*) |
| 2010 | Mario Vargas Llosa | Peru | Novels (*The War of the End of the World*) |
| 2011 | Tomas Tranströmer | Sweden | Poetry |
| 2012 | Mo Yan | China | Novels (*Red Sorghum*) |
| 2013 | Alice Munro | Canada | Short stories (*Dear Life*) |
| 2014 | Patrick Modiano | France | Novels (*Missing Person*) |
| 2015 | Svetlana Alexievich | Belarus | Non-fiction (*Voices from Chernobyl*) |
| 2016 | Bob Dylan | United States | Songwriting and poetry |
| 2017 | Kazuo Ishiguro | United Kingdom | Novels (*The Remains of the Day*) |
| 2018 | Olga Tokarczuk | Poland | Novels (*Flights*) |
| 2019 | Peter Handke | Austria | Novels and plays |
| 2020 | Louise Glück | United States | Poetry (*Averno*) |
| 2021 | Abdulrazak Gurnah | Tanzania/UK | Novels (*Paradise*) |
| 2022 | Annie Ernaux | France | Memoirs and novels (*The Years*) |
| 2023 | Jon Fosse | Norway | Plays and novels (*A New Name*) |
| 2024 | Han Kang | South Korean| for her intense poetic prose that confronts historical traumas and exposes the fragility of human life |
