The Nobel Prize in Literarure (women)

Annotation :

Svetlana Alexievich

Born: 31 May 1948, Ivano-Frankivsk, Ukraine

Residence at the time of the award: Belarus

Prize motivation: "for her polyphonic writings, a monument to suffering and courage in our time"

Annotation :

Alice Munro

Born: 10 July 1931, Wingham, Canada

Residence at the time of the award: Canada

Prize motivation: "master of the contemporary short story"

Field: prose

Language: English

Annotation :

Herta Müller

Born: 17 August 1953, Nitzkydorf, Banat, Romania

Residence at the time of the award: Germany

Prize motivation: "who, with the concentration of poetry and the frankness of prose, depicts the landscape of the dispossessed"

Field: prose

Language: German

Annotation :

Doris Lessing

Born: 22 October 1919, Kermanshah, Persia (now Iran)

Died: 17 November 2013, London, United Kingdom

Residence at the time of the award: United Kingdom

Prize motivation: "that epicist of the female experience, who with scepticism, fire and visionary power has subjected a divided civilisation to scrutiny"

Field: prose

Language: English

Annotation :

2004 - Elfriede Jelinek

Born: 20 October 1946, Mürzzuschlag, Austria

Residence at the time of the award: Austria

Prize motivation: "for her musical flow of voices and counter-voices in novels and plays that with extraordinary linguistic zeal reveal the absurdity of society's clichés and their subjugating power"

Field: drama, prose

Language: German

Annotation :

1996 - Wislawa Szymborska

Born: 2 July 1923, Bnin (now Kórnik), Poland

Died: 1 February 2012, Kraków, Poland

Residence at the time of the award: Poland

Prize motivation: "for poetry that with ironic precision allows the historical and biological context to come to light in fragments of human reality"

Field: poetry

Language: Polish

Annotation :

1993 - Toni Morrison

Born: 18 February 1931, Lorain, OH, USA

Residence at the time of the award: USA

Prize motivation: "who in novels characterized by visionary force and poetic import, gives life to an essential aspect of American reality"

Field: prose

Language: English

Annotation :

1991 - Nadine Gordimer

Born: 20 November 1923, Springs, South Africa

Died: 13 July 2014, Johannesburg, South Africa

Residence at the time of the award: South Africa

Prize motivation: "who through her magnificent epic writing has - in the words of Alfred Nobel - been of very great benefit to humanity"

Field: prose

Language: English

Annotation :

1966 - Nelly Sachs

Born: 10 December 1891, Berlin, Germany

Died: 12 May 1970, Stockholm, Sweden

Residence at the time of the award: Sweden

Prize motivation: "for her outstanding lyrical and dramatic writing, which interprets Israel's destiny with touching strength"

Field: poetry

Language: German

Annotation :

1945 - Gabriela Mistral 
(pen-name of Lucila Godoy y Alcayaga)

Born: 7 April 1889, Vicuña, Chile

Died: 10 January 1957, Hempstead, NY, USA

Residence at the time of the award: Chile

Prize motivation: "for her lyric poetry which, inspired by powerful emotions, has made her name a symbol of the idealistic aspirations of the entire Latin American world"

Field: poetry

Language: Spanish

Annotation :

1938 - - Facts

Pearl Buck 
(pen-name of Pearl Walsh, née Sydenstricker)

Born: 26 June 1892, Hillsboro, WV, USA

Died: 6 March 1973, Danby, VT, USA

Residence at the time of the award: USA

Prize motivation: "for her rich and truly epic descriptions of peasant life in China and for her biographical masterpieces"

Field: prose

Language: English

Annotation :

1928 - Sigrid Undset

Born: 20 May 1882, Kalundborg, Denmark

Died: 10 June 1949, Lillehammer, Norway

Residence at the time of the award: Norway

Prize motivation: "principally for her powerful descriptions of Northern life during the Middle Ages"

Field: prose

Language: Norwegian

Annotation :

1926 - Grazia Deledda 
(pen-name of Grazia Madesani, née Deledda)

Born: 27 September 1871, Nuoro, Sardinia, Italy

Died: 15 August 1936, Rome, Italy

Residence at the time of the award: Italy

Prize motivation: "for her idealistically inspired writings which with plastic clarity picture the life on her native island and with depth and sympathy deal with human problems in general"

Field: prose

Language: Italian

Annotation :

1909 - Selma Ottilia Lovisa Lagerlöf

Born: 20 November 1858, Mårbacka, Sweden

Died: 16 March 1940, Mårbacka, Sweden

Residence at the time of the award: Sweden

Prize motivation: "in appreciation of the lofty idealism, vivid imagination and spiritual perception that characterize her writings"

Field: prose

Language: Swedish