Presentation Speech by Per Wästberg of the , December 10, 2003. Translation of the Swedish text. Writer Per Wästberg delivering the Presentation Speech for the 2003 Nobel Prize in Literature at the Stockholm Concert Hall. Your Majesties, Your Royal Highnesses, Esteemed Nobel Laureates, Ladies and Gentlemen, To write is to awaken counter-voices within…

Presentation Speech by Harald Hjärne, Chairman of the Nobel Committee of the , on December 10, 1920 The Swedish Academy, in accordance with the statutes of the Nobel Founcation, has awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature for 1919, which was not awarded last year, to the Swiss poet Carl Spitteler for his epic, Olympischer Frühling…

Presentation Speech by Harald Hjärne, Chairman of the Nobel Committee of the , on December 10, 1920 In accordance with the statutes of the Nobel Foundation, the Swedish Academy has awarded the literary Prize for 1920 to the Norwegian novelist Knut Hamsun for his work, Markens Grøde (1917) [Growth of the Soil]. It would be…

Presentation Speech by Anders Österling, Permanent Secretary of the Salvatore Quasimodo, the Italian poet who has been awarded this year’s Nobel Prize in Literature, is a Sicilian by birth. He was born near Syracuse, to be more exact, in the little town of Modica some distance from the coast. It is not difficult to imagine…

  Presentation Speech by Professor Knut Ahnlund, of the December 10, 1989 Translation from the Swedish text Your Majesties, Your Royal Highnesses, Ladies and Gentlemen, Camilo José Cela has written upwards of a hundred books, a veritable library in itself, filled with the most astounding contrasts, popular, crudely humorous tales side by side with some…

Presentation Speech by C.D. af Wirsén, Permanent Secretary of the , on December 10, 1903 Again this year the names of several candidates for the Nobel Prize in Literature have been submitted to the Swedish Academy for its approval; some of them are authors of European reputation. The Academy thinks that this year it should…

Presentation Speech by Anders Österling, Member of the This year’s Nobel Prize in Literature has been awarded to two outstanding Jewish authors – Shmuel Yosef Agnon and Nelly Sachs – each of whom represents Israel’s message to our time. Agnon’s home is in Jerusalem, and Miss Sachs has been an immigrant in Sweden since 1940,…

Presentation Speech by Anders Österling, of the Translation from the Swedish text Your Majesties, Your Royal Highnesses, Ladies and Gentlemen, As we all know, this year’s Nobel Prize for Literature has been awarded to Eugenio Montale, from Italy. He comes from Eastern Liguria, a coastal landscape whose harsh character is reflected in his poetry. In…

Presentation Speech by Karl Ragnar Gierow, of the Translation from the Swedish text Your Majesties, Your Royal Highnesses, Ladies and Gentlemen, When Saul Bellow published his first book, the time had come for a change of climate and generation in American narrative art. The so-called hard-boiled style, with its virile air and choppy prose, had…

  Speech by Professor Sture Allén, Permanent Secretary of the Translation from the Swedish text Your Majesties, Your Royal Highnesses, Ladies and Gentlemen, The Nobel Prize awarded by the Swedish Academy is, as we know, a literary prize. This year it has been granted to Toni Morrison, making her the ninetieth Nobel Laureate in Literature.…