How this page chooses
A hundred and twenty-two laureates is not a reading list, it is a library, and most lists of them are just the library catalogue retyped. So this page does three smaller things instead.
The three most recent winners, with the one book of each to start on. Five laureates who already have a full guide on this site, so you can go from one book to everything they wrote. And seven writers who never won, which is where the prize is most honest about itself. Every book below is one I am pointing you at in a particular edition and translation, because with this prize the translation is half the question.
Newest first, with the citation the Academy actually wrote and the one book of each I would open first. 234
These five already have a full guide on this site, so the book below is a door rather than a destination. Two of them wrote in English and three did not, which on this prize is roughly the right ratio.
This is the part of the prize that tells you most about it. Nominations stay sealed for fifty years, so the archive runs to 1975 and stops — which means that for these seven we can say something, and for anyone whose case would fall after 1975 we cannot. 6
One sentence in a will, and everything that came out of it
Alfred Nobel wrote a hundred and forty words about literature and left the argument to everybody else.
The sentence
Nobel signed his will in Paris on 27 November 1895. One fifth of the interest on his estate was to go to “the person who, in the field of literature, produced the most outstanding work in an idealistic direction”. The Swedish is i idealisk riktning, and the Nobel Foundation itself renders it two ways in its own publications — “idealistic” in the will, “ideal” elsewhere. A century of arguments about this prize starts in that gap. The first award went to Sully Prudhomme in 1901. 514
Who decides, and when
The Swedish Academy: eighteen members, seats for life. Only four kinds of people may nominate — members of academies like it, professors of literature and linguistics, previous laureates, and presidents of national writers’ organisations. You cannot nominate yourself. Nominations close on 31 January, the committee cuts the list to about twenty in April and to five in May, the members read all summer, and they vote in early October. Everything about the nominations is sealed for fifty years. 6
What the winner gets
11 million Swedish kronor, which is the figure that has applied since 2023, when the Nobel Foundation raised it from ten million. The 2026 amount had not been announced when this page was last checked, so do not assume it carries over. The ceremony is on 10 December, the anniversary of Nobel’s death. 7
The seven missing years, and the one that is not missing
The prize has not been awarded in seven years: 1914, 1918, 1935, and 1940 to 1943. All but one sit inside a world war. 1935 is the strange one — a peacetime year in which the Academy simply found nothing of the required importance.
Almost every list adds 2018, and it does not belong there. That prize was postponed, and awarded in full to Olga Tokarczuk in October 2019 alongside Peter Handke’s for 2019. The same thing happened in 1949, awarded to Faulkner the following year, and in 1915, awarded to Romain Rolland in 1916. Postponed is not the same as withheld. 89
Why 2018 was postponed
In November 2017 a Swedish newspaper published allegations against the husband of an Academy member, a man who ran a cultural venue that the Academy funded. He was convicted of rape in 2018 and, on appeal, sentenced to two and a half years. He had never been a member himself.
What broke the Academy was its own response. It split over whether to expel the member, seven people left or stopped attending, and because the 1786 statutes had no way to resign a seat for life, it fell below the number needed to elect anyone new. Sara Danius, the first woman to hold the post of Permanent Secretary, stepped down in April 2018. On 4 May the Academy announced there would be no prize that year. It then rebuilt the literature committee to include specialists from outside its own membership, which is how it still works. 1617
The two who said no
Boris Pasternak accepted in 1958 and then, in the Nobel Foundation’s own careful wording, “was later caused by the authorities of his country to decline”. Doctor Zhivago was banned at home and published abroad. He died in 1960; his son collected the medal for him in the late eighties. 10
Jean-Paul Sartre refused outright in 1964. He wrote to the Academy before the vote asking not to be considered; it voted for him anyway. His explanation in Le Figaro had two halves, and the second is the one that usually gets dropped: that a writer who accepts such an honour turns himself into an institution, and that the prize in practice went either to Western writers or to rebels of the East — the only Soviet book it had honoured being one banned in its own country. That was a reference to Pasternak. Nobody else in literature has declined it. 11
And the first ten years
Under Carl David af Wirsén, the Academy’s Permanent Secretary for the prize’s first decade, “an idealistic direction” was read as requiring a lofty and sound idealism. Under that reading it passed over Tolstoy, Ibsen and Zola in favour of writers almost nobody reads now. It was not only foreigners: af Wirsén kept Selma Lagerlöf from the prize for years by organising majorities for candidates he had nominated himself. She won in 1909, as his grip loosened. 15
Frequently asked questions about the Nobel Prize in Literature
When is the 2026 Nobel Prize in Literature announced?
On Thursday 8 October 2026, at 1pm Central European Summer Time at the earliest, by the Permanent Secretary of the Swedish Academy at the Stock Exchange Building in Stockholm. The Academy does not commit to an exact minute, because the announcement follows the members’ final vote that morning. The award ceremony is on 10 December, the anniversary of Alfred Nobel’s death.
Who won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2025?
László Krasznahorkai, announced on 9 October 2025, for what the Swedish Academy called his compelling and visionary oeuvre that, in the midst of apocalyptic terror, reaffirms the power of art. He is Hungarian and writes in Hungarian, and he is the second Hungarian to win after Imre Kertész in 2002.
How much is the Nobel Prize in Literature worth?
11 million Swedish kronor, which is what the 2025 laureate received. That figure has been in place since 2023, when the Nobel Foundation raised it from 10 million. The amount for 2026 had not been announced when this page was last checked.
How many people have won the Nobel Prize in Literature?
122 people, across 118 awards, from 1901 to 2025. The two numbers differ because the prize has been split between two writers four times: in 1904, 1917, 1966 and 1974. Eighteen of the laureates have been women.
Which years was the Nobel Prize in Literature not awarded?
Seven: 1914, 1918, 1935, and 1940 through 1943. All but 1935 fall in the two world wars, and 1935 is the odd one, a peacetime year in which the Academy simply found nothing of the required importance. 2018 is often added to this list and does not belong there: that prize was postponed and then awarded in full to Olga Tokarczuk in October 2019.
Why was there no Nobel Prize in Literature in 2018?
Because the Swedish Academy could not function. In November 2017 a Swedish newspaper published allegations against the husband of one of its members, a man who ran a cultural venue the Academy funded and who was later convicted of rape and sentenced to two and a half years. The Academy split over how to respond, seven members left or stopped taking part, and it fell below the number its own rules required to elect anyone. On 4 May 2018 it announced there would be no prize that year. It then reformed its committee, and in October 2019 announced two laureates at once: Olga Tokarczuk for 2018 and Peter Handke for 2019.
Has anyone refused the Nobel Prize in Literature?
Two people. Boris Pasternak accepted in 1958 and was then made to decline it by the Soviet authorities; his novel Doctor Zhivago had been banned at home and published abroad. He died in 1960 and his son collected the medal for him in the late 1980s. Jean-Paul Sartre refused it outright in 1964, saying that a writer who accepts such an honour turns himself into an institution, and adding a second objection that is usually left out: that the prize went either to Western writers or to rebels of the East, and the only Soviet book it had honoured was one banned in its own country.
Why did Tolstoy never win the Nobel Prize?
Nobody knows, and that is the honest answer. He was nominated five years running, from 1902 to 1906, and passed over each time. In the prize’s first decade the Academy read Alfred Nobel’s instruction about work in an idealistic direction as requiring a lofty and sound idealism, and under that reading it also passed over Ibsen, Zola and Hardy. The 1901 protest by Swedish writers was aimed at a year in which Tolstoy had not in fact been nominated.
Who decides the Nobel Prize in Literature?
The Swedish Academy, eighteen writers and scholars who hold their seats for life. A Nobel Committee for Literature does the sifting, and since the 2018 crisis it includes specialists from outside the Academy as well. Nominations close on 31 January, the list is cut to about twenty in April and to five in May, the members read through the summer, and they vote in early October. Nominations stay secret for fifty years, so the archive currently runs to 1975 and no further.
