Nobel Laureates - Literature
Selma Lagerlöf
Swedish author Selma Lagerlöf was the first woman to win the Nobel Prize for Literature.
Nelly Sachs
Nelly Sachs, a German Jew who escaped in 1940 to Sweden, was a poet and playwright who won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1966.
Toni Morrison
Novelist Toni Morrison was the first African American woman to receive the Nobel Prize for Literature, awarded that prize in 1993.
Doris Lessing
Born in Persia and raised in Africa, Doris Lessing wrote many novels, short stories, and essays, most about contemporary life, often pointing to social injustices. She won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2007
Women Nobel Literature Prize Winners
While women have been in the minority among winners of the Nobel Prize for Literature, a number of notable women have been awarded that honor, more in recent years.
1909: Selma Ottilia Lovisa Lagerlöf
Swedish novelist, first women to be awarded the Nobel Prize for literature.
1928: Sigrid Undset
Honored for her depiction of medieval Scandinavian life.
1926: Grazia Deledda
Italian novelist honored for her work depicting human lives, especially on her native island of Sardinia.
1938: Pearl Buck
American writer, honored for her depictions of life in China.
1945: Gabriela Mistral
Chilean poet noted for the emotion and lyricism of her poetry.
1966: Nelly Sachs
With Shmuel Yosef Agnon, this German-Jewish woman who escaped in 1940 to Sweden was honored for her depiction of Jewish life.
1991: Nadine Gordimer
South African author of "A Guest of Honor" and other epic novels.
1993: Toni Morrison
African American woman novelist, author of "Beloved."
1996: Wislawa Szymborska
Polish poet whose writing flourished after the lifting of censorship.
2004: Elfriede Jelinek
Austrian Elfriede Jelinek was honored for her "extraordinary linguistic zeal" and "musical flow of voices."
2007: Doris Lessing
Doris Lessing, a British novelist who grew up in Africa, was honored for her depictions of the female experience.
2009: Herta Müller
Herta Muller, a German-speaking Romanian novelist whose works are not well known outside Germany, was named the Nobel literature prize winner for 2009. Muller emigrated to West Germany in 1987 after being refused permission to leave in 1985. Her novels draw on her experience of the oppression and horrors of Ceausescu's Romania.