1921 Nobel Prize in Literature

Award

1921 Nobel Prize in Literature

Anatole France

"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"

Date|

* 1921 (announcement)
* 10 December 1921
(ceremony)

Location| Stockholm, Sweden
Presented by| Swedish Academy
First award| 1901
Website| Official website
| <- 1920 · | Nobel Prize in Literature | · 1922 ->

|
|

The 1921 Nobel Prize in Literature was awarded to the French author Anatole France "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".[1]

## Laureate

[edit]

Main article: Anatole France

Anatole France (pseudonym for Jacques-Anatole-François Thibault, 1844-1924) started writing poems in the classical tradition, but became known for his prose works. His stories and novels are noted for wit and irony, scepticism, social preoccupations and clarity in the classical tradition. Notable works include the four volume novel sequence collected under the title L'Histoire contemporaine ("A Chronicle of Our Own Times", 1897–1901).[2] His famous oeuvres include Le Crime de Sylvestre Bonnard ("The Crime of Sylvestre Bonnard", 1881), La Rôtisserie de la reine Pédauque ("At the Sign of the Reine Pédauque", 1892), Les dieux ont soif ("The Gods Are Athirst", 1912) and La Révolte des anges ("The Revolt of the Angels", 1914).[2]

## Nominations

[edit]

Anatole France was nominatad 13 times since 1904 before he was awarded. He was first introduced for the Nobel Prize by French politician Marcellin Berthelot. In 1921, three nominations from Erik Staaff, Johan Vising and Emanuel Walberg was submitted for him to the Nobel committee.[3] In total, the Nobel Committee received 18 nominees which included Arno Holz, Arne Garborg, Gunnar Gunnarsson, W. B. Yeats (awarded in 1923), George Bernard Shaw (awarded in 1925), Grazia Deledda (awarded in 1926), Henri Bergson (awarded in 1927) and John Galsworthy (awarded in 1932). Five of the nominees were newly nominated: Jacinto Benavente (awarded in 1922), Jean Revel, Émile Boutroux, Stefan Zeromski, and H. G. Wells.[4] Deledda was the only female nominee during this year.

The authors Jean Aicard, Eduardo Acevedo Díaz, Hester A. Benedict, Maximilian Berlitz, Alexander Blok, Luca Caragiale, Georges Darien, Georges Feydeau, Otto von Gierke, Rosetta Luce Gilchrist, Nikolai Gumilev, John Habberton, Sarah Dyer Hobart, E. W. Hornung, Pavol Országh Hviezdoslav, Maria I. Johnston, Peter Kropotkin, Jeanne Lapauze, Lillian Rozell Messenger, Emilia Pardo Bazán, Abba Goold Woolson and Maria Amália Vaz de Carvalho died in 1921 without having been nominated.

Official list of nominees and their nominators for the prize  No.  | Nominee  | Country  | Genre(s)  | Nominator(s)

|
|
|
|

1  | Ferdinand Avenarius (1856–1923)  |  Germany | poetry  |

* Karl Groos (1861–1946)
* Rudolf Christoph Eucken (1846–1926)

2  | Jacinto Benavente (1866–1954)  |  Spain | drama  | 21 members of Royal Spanish Academy
3  | Henri Bergson (1859–1941)  |  France | philosophy  |

* Verner von Heidenstam (1859–1940)
* members of the Académie des Sciences Morales et Politiques
* members of the Académie Française

4  | Émile Boutroux (1845–1921)  |  France | philosophy  | Harald Hjärne (1848–1922)
5  | Otokar Březina (1868–1929)  |  Czechoslovakia | poetry, essays  | Arne Novák (1880–1939)
6  | Grazia Deledda (1871–1936)  |  Kingdom of Italy | novel, short story, essays  |

* 17 members of the Accademia dei Lincei
* Carl Bildt (1850–1931)

7  | Anatole France (1844–1924)  |  France | poetry, essays, drama, novel, literary criticism  |

* Emanuel Walberg (1873–1951)
* Johan Vising (1855–1942)
* Erik Staaff (1867–1936)

8  | John Galsworthy (1867–1933)  |  Great Britain | novel, drama, essays, short story, memoir  | Anders Österling (1884–1981)
9  | Arne Garborg (1851–1921)  |  Norway | novel, poetry, drama, essays  | Frits Läffler (1847–1921)
10  | Ángel Guimerá Jorge (1845–1924)  |  Spain | drama, poetry  | members of the Reial Acadèmia de Bones Lletres
11  | Gunnar Gunnarsson (1889–1975)  |  Iceland | novel, short story, poetry  | Adolf Noreen (1854–1925)
12  | Arno Holz (1863–1929)  |  Germany | poetry, drama, essays  | 49 members of the Society of Authors
13  | Alois Jirásek (1851–1930)  |  Czechoslovakia | novel, drama  | Czech Academy of Sciences
14  | Jean Revel (1848–1925)  |  France | history, short story  | Académie des sciences, belles-lettres et arts de Rouen
15  | George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950)  |  Ireland | drama, essays, novel  | Henrik Schück (1855–1947)
16  | Herbert George Wells (1866–1946)  |  Great Britain | novel, short story, essays, history, biography
17  | William Butler Yeats (1865–1939)  |  Ireland | poetry, drama, essays  | Erik Axel Karlfeldt (1864–1931)
18  | Stefan Żeromski (1864–1925)  |  Poland | novel, drama, short story  | members of the Polish Academy of Arts and Sciences

## Prize decision

[edit]

Anatole France had long been mentioned in the press as a popular choice for the Nobel prize. He had been discussed by the Nobel committee for the 1904 prize, but his candidacy was then dismissed by the committee, partly because of the "offensive eroticism" in his novels which according to committee member Carl David af Wirsén was not in line with Alfred Nobels guideline of an "ideal direction". Later Anatole France's left wing political views was also held against him by Wirsén. The Nobel committee recommended that the 1921 prize should be awarded to John Galsworthy, but committee member Henrik Schück successfully argued for a prize to France, who subsequently was awarded the 1921 Nobel Prize in literature.[5]

## References

[edit]

1. ^ The Nobel Prize in Literature 1921 nobelprize.org
2. ^ a b "Anatole France". britannica.com.
3. ^ "Nomination archive Anatole France". nobelprize.org. 21 May 2024.
4. ^ "Nomination archive Literature 1921". nobelprize.org. 21 May 2024.
5. ^ Gustav Källstrand Andens Olympiska Spel. Nobelprisets historia Fri Tanke 2021, p. 436

## External links

[edit]

* Award ceremony speech

* v
* t
* e

Laureates of the Nobel Prize in Literature

1901–1920|

* 1901: Sully Prudhomme
* 1902: Theodor Mommsen
* 1903: Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson
* 1904: Frédéric Mistral / José Echegaray
* 1905: Henryk Sienkiewicz
* 1906: Giosuè Carducci
* 1907: Rudyard Kipling
* 1908: Rudolf Eucken
* 1909: Selma Lagerlöf
* 1910: Paul Heyse
* 1911: Maurice Maeterlinck
* 1912: Gerhart Hauptmann
* 1913: Rabindranath Tagore
* 1914
* 1915: Romain Rolland
* 1916: Verner von Heidenstam
* 1917: Karl Gjellerup / Henrik Pontoppidan
* 1918
* 1919: Carl Spitteler
* 1920: Knut Hamsun

1921–1940|

* 1921: Anatole France
* 1922: Jacinto Benavente
* 1923: W. B. Yeats
* 1924: Władysław Reymont
* 1925: George Bernard Shaw
* 1926: Grazia Deledda
* 1927: Henri Bergson
* 1928: Sigrid Undset
* 1929: Thomas Mann
* 1930: Sinclair Lewis
* 1931: Erik Axel Karlfeldt (posthumously)
* 1932: John Galsworthy
* 1933: Ivan Bunin
* 1934: Luigi Pirandello
* 1935
* 1936: Eugene O'Neill
* 1937: Roger Martin du Gard
* 1938: Pearl S. Buck
* 1939: Frans Eemil Sillanpää
* 1940

1941–1960|

* 1941
* 1942
* 1943
* 1944: Johannes V. Jensen
* 1945: Gabriela Mistral
* 1946: Hermann Hesse
* 1947: André Gide
* 1948: T. S. Eliot
* 1949: William Faulkner
* 1950: Bertrand Russell
* 1951: Pär Lagerkvist
* 1952: François Mauriac
* 1953: Winston Churchill
* 1954: Ernest Hemingway
* 1955: Halldór Laxness
* 1956: Juan Ramón Jiménez
* 1957: Albert Camus
* 1958: Boris Pasternak
* 1959: Salvatore Quasimodo
* 1960: Saint-John Perse

1961–1980|

* 1961: Ivo Andrić
* 1962: John Steinbeck
* 1963: Giorgos Seferis
* 1964: Jean-Paul Sartre (declined award)
* 1965: Mikhail Sholokhov
* 1966: Shmuel Yosef Agnon / Nelly Sachs
* 1967: Miguel Ángel Asturias
* 1968: Yasunari Kawabata
* 1969: Samuel Beckett
* 1970: Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
* 1971: Pablo Neruda
* 1972: Heinrich Böll
* 1973: Patrick White
* 1974: Eyvind Johnson / Harry Martinson
* 1975: Eugenio Montale
* 1976: Saul Bellow
* 1977: Vicente Aleixandre
* 1978: Isaac Bashevis Singer
* 1979: Odysseas Elytis
* 1980: Czesław Miłosz

1981–2000|

* 1981: Elias Canetti
* 1982: Gabriel García Márquez
* 1983: William Golding
* 1984: Jaroslav Seifert
* 1985: Claude Simon
* 1986: Wole Soyinka
* 1987: Joseph Brodsky
* 1988: Naguib Mahfouz
* 1989: Camilo José Cela
* 1990: Octavio Paz
* 1991: Nadine Gordimer
* 1992: Derek Walcott
* 1993: Toni Morrison
* 1994: Kenzaburō Ōe
* 1995: Seamus Heaney
* 1996: Wisława Szymborska
* 1997: Dario Fo
* 1998: José Saramago
* 1999: Günter Grass
* 2000: Gao Xingjian

2001–2020|

* 2001: V. S. Naipaul
* 2002: Imre Kertész
* 2003: J. M. Coetzee
* 2004: Elfriede Jelinek
* 2005: Harold Pinter
* 2006: Orhan Pamuk
* 2007: Doris Lessing
* 2008: J. M. G. Le Clézio
* 2009: Herta Müller
* 2010: Mario Vargas Llosa
* 2011: Tomas Tranströmer
* 2012: Mo Yan
* 2013: Alice Munro
* 2014: Patrick Modiano
* 2015: Svetlana Alexievich
* 2016: Bob Dylan
* 2017: Kazuo Ishiguro
* 2018: Olga Tokarczuk
* 2019: Peter Handke
* 2020: Louise Glück

2021–present|

* 2021: Abdulrazak Gurnah
* 2022: Annie Ernaux
* 2023: Jon Fosse
* 2024: Han Kang
* 2025: to be determined

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