So the other week I was reading an intensely boring bio of Solzhenitsyn (it cunningly disguised the fact that it was focused on his Orthodox beliefs until it was too late), and it occurred to me that he's actually one of the few winners of the Nobel Prize for Literature whose works I've actually read. How few? There's been 104 winners since 1901, and I reckon I've read at least one thing by only 10 of them (Gunter Grass, William Golding, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Alexander Solzhenitsyn, John Steinbeck, Albert Camus, Ernest Hemingway, William Faulkner, Sinclair Lewis, and Rudyard Kipling). I'm going to take a punt and guess that you, dear readers, haven't done much better, but I have a Masters in English Lit and it's a bit embarrassing (yep, that does sound incredibly up myself, but there you go). So the Nobel Project is born. I'm going to read one thing by everyone who's ever won the prize if it kills me (and it just might).
For anyone who wants to play at home - here's the list thanks to http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/literature/laureates/:
2007 - Doris Lessing 
2006 - Orhan Pamuk 
2005 - Harold Pinter 
2004 - Elfriede Jelinek 
2003 - J. M. Coetzee 
2002 - Imre Kertész 
2001 - V. S. Naipaul 
2000 - Gao Xingjian 
1999 - Günter Grass 
1998 - José Saramago 
1997 - Dario Fo 
1996 - Wislawa Szymborska 
1995 - Seamus Heaney 
1994 - Kenzaburo Oe 
1993 - Toni Morrison 
1992 - Derek Walcott 
1991 - Nadine Gordimer 
1990 - Octavio Paz 
1989 - Camilo José Cela 
1988 - Naguib Mahfouz 
1987 - Joseph Brodsky 
1986 - Wole Soyinka 
1985 - Claude Simon 
1984 - Jaroslav Seifert 
1983 - William Golding 
1982 - Gabriel García Márquez 
1981 - Elias Canetti 
1980 - Czeslaw Milosz 
1979 - Odysseus Elytis 
1978 - Isaac Bashevis Singer 
1977 - Vicente Aleixandre 
1976 - Saul Bellow 
1975 - Eugenio Montale 
1974 - Eyvind Johnson, Harry Martinson 
1973 - Patrick White 
1972 - Heinrich Böll 
1971 - Pablo Neruda 
1970 - Alexandr Solzhenitsyn 
1969 - Samuel Beckett 
1968 - Yasunari Kawabata 
1967 - Miguel Angel Asturias 
1966 - Shmuel Agnon, Nelly Sachs 
1965 - Mikhail Sholokhov 
1964 - Jean-Paul Sartre 
1963 - Giorgos Seferis 
1962 - John Steinbeck 
1961 - Ivo Andric 
1960 - Saint-John Perse 
1959 - Salvatore Quasimodo 
1958 - Boris Pasternak 
1957 - Albert Camus 
1956 - Juan Ramón Jiménez 
1955 - Halldór Laxness 
1954 - Ernest Hemingway 
1953 - Winston Churchill 
1952 - François Mauriac 
1951 - Pär Lagerkvist 
1950 - Bertrand Russell 
1949 - William Faulkner 
1948 - T.S. Eliot 
1947 - André Gide 
1946 - Hermann Hesse 
1945 - Gabriela Mistral 
1944 - Johannes V. Jensen 
1943 - The prize money was with 1/3 allocated to the Main Fund and with 2/3 to the Special Fund of this prize section 
1942 - The prize money was with 1/3 allocated to the Main Fund and with 2/3 to the Special Fund of this prize section 
1941 - The prize money was with 1/3 allocated to the Main Fund and with 2/3 to the Special Fund of this prize section 
1940 - The prize money was with 1/3 allocated to the Main Fund and with 2/3 to the Special Fund of this prize section 
1939 - Frans Eemil Sillanpää 
1938 - Pearl Buck 
1937 - Roger Martin du Gard 
1936 - Eugene O'Neill 
1935 - The prize money was with 1/3 allocated to the Main Fund and with 2/3 to the Special Fund of this prize section 
1934 - Luigi Pirandello 
1933 - Ivan Bunin 
1932 - John Galsworthy 
1931 - Erik Axel Karlfeldt 
1930 - Sinclair Lewis 
1929 - Thomas Mann 
1928 - Sigrid Undset 
1927 - Henri Bergson 
1926 - Grazia Deledda 
1925 - George Bernard Shaw 
1924 - Wladyslaw Reymont 
1923 - William Butler Yeats 
1922 - Jacinto Benavente 
1921 - Anatole France 
1920 - Knut Hamsun 
1919 - Carl Spitteler 
1918 - The prize money was allocated to the Special Fund of this prize section 
1917 - Karl Gjellerup, Henrik Pontoppidan 
1916 - Verner von Heidenstam 
1915 - Romain Rolland 
1914 - The prize money was allocated to the Special Fund of this prize section 
1913 - Rabindranath Tagore 
1912 - Gerhart Hauptmann 
1911 - Maurice Maeterlinck 
1910 - Paul Heyse 
1909 - Selma Lagerlöf 
1908 - Rudolf Eucken 
1907 - Rudyard Kipling 
1906 - Giosuè Carducci 
1905 - Henryk Sienkiewicz 
1904 - Frédéric Mistral, José Echegaray 
1903 - Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson 
1902 - Theodor Mommsen 
1901 - Sully Prudhomme
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2 comments:
I can do 17, but I'm a nerdy swot. Does trying to read Doris Lessing but getting bored count?
You are a nerdy swot! But I'm now up to 13. And I liked Lessing...
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