Presentation Speech by C.D. af Wirsén, Permanent Secretary of the , on December 10, 1901 When Alfred Nobel decided to make the great donation which has justly received much attention, his entire life’s work led him to favour the study of nature and to reward discoveries in some of the sciences concerned with it. Likewise,…

Presentation Speech by Anders Österling, Permanent Secretary of the The Nobel Prize laureate in literature for this year bears a name of unusual sound, which he chose at first to protect himself from the curious. Saint-John Perse is the poet’s name that was to be made internationally famous by a private man who in civil…

Swedish Academy The Permanent Secretary Press release October 8, 1992 The Nobel Prize in Literature 1992 Derek Walcott “for a poetic oeuvre of great luminosity, sustained by a historical vision, the outcome of a multicultural commitment” This year the Swedish Academy has decided to award the Nobel Prize for Literature to Derek Walcott. Walcott, who…

Swedish Presentationstal av Professor Horace Engdahl, Ständige Sekreterare, ledamot av Svenska Akademien, i Stockholms Konserthus 10 december 2004. Horace Engdahl presenterar Nobelpriset i litteratur 2004 i Stockholms Konserthus. Eders Majestäter, Eders kungliga högheter, Mina damer och herrar, Det första man förundras över när man läser Elfriede Jelinek är den egendomliga, blandade stämma som…

Mossbawn: Two Poems in Dedication For Mary Heaney I. Sunlight There was a sunlit absence. The helmeted pump in the yard heated its iron, water honeyed in the slung bucket and the sun stood like a griddle cooling against the wall of each long afternoon. So, her hands scuffled over the bakeboard, the reddening stove…

No Nobel Prize was awarded this year. The prize money was with 1/3 allocated to the Main Fund and with 2/3 to the Special Fund of this prize section.

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Presentation Speech by C.D. af Wirsén, Permanent Secretary of the on December 10, 1902 The second paragraph of the Nobel statutes states that «Literature» should include not only belles-lettres, «but also other writings that in form or content show literary value». This definition sanctions the award of the Nobel Prize in Literature to philosophers, writers…

Presentation Speech by Hjalmar Gullberg, Member of the , on December 10, 1945 One day a mother’s tears caused a whole language, disdained at that time in good society, to rediscover its nobility and gain glory through the power of its poetry. It is said that when , the first of the two poets bearing…

The Haw Lantern The wintry haw is burning out of season, crab of the thorn, a small light for small people, wanting no more from them but that they keep the wick of self-respect from dying out, not having to blind them with illumination. But sometimes when your breath plumes in the frost it takes…