Nobel Prize

Presentation Speech by Professor Kjell Espmark of the , December 10, 1998. Translation of the Swedish text. Professor Kjell Espmark delivering the Presentation Speech for the 1998 Nobel Prize in Literature at the Stockholm Concert Hall. Photo: Hans Mehlin, Nobelprize.org Your Majesties, Your Royal Highness, Ladies and Gentlemen, There is one type of writer who,…

Presentation Speech by Anders Österling, Permanent Secretary of the This year’s Nobel Prize in literature has been awarded to a writer of German origin who has had wide critical acclaim and who has created his work regardless of public favour. The sixty-nine-year-old Hermann Hesse can look back on a considerable achievement consisting of novels, short…

  Presentation Speech by Professor Sture Allén, Permanent Secretary of the Translation from the Swedish text Your Majesties, Your Royal Highnesses, Ladies and Gentlemen, Art is on the side of the oppressed, Nadine Gordimer says in one of her essays, urging us to think before we dismiss this heretical idea about the freedom of art.…

Presentation Speech by Anders Österling, Permanent Secretary of the In a youthful manifesto of 1913 entitled Ordkonst och bildkonst [Verbal Art and Pictorial Art], Pär Lagerkvist, whose name was then unknown, had the audacity to find fault with the decadence of the literature of his time which, according to him, did not answer the requirements…

Swedish Presentationstal av Författaren Kjell Espmark, ledamot av och ledamot i Nobelkommittén för litteratur, 10 december 2011. Eders Majestäter, Eders Kungliga Högheter, ärade Nobelpristagare, mina damer och herrar! Tomas Tranströmer är en av de mycket få svenska författare som haft ett inflytande på världslitteraturen. Han är översatt till ett sextiotal språk och har varit viktig…

Presentation Speech by Karl Ragnar Gierow, of the , on December 10, 1970 Your Majesty, Your Royal Highnesses, Ladies and Gentlemen, Our passports show where and when we were born, facts that are needed to fix our identity. According to a current theory this also applies to authorship. A literary work belongs to its time,…

Swedish Presentationstal av Professor Horace Engdahl, ständige sekreterare, ledamot av Svenska Akademien, 10 december 2008. Professor Horace Engdahl presenterar Nobelpriset i litteratur 2008 i Stockholms Konserthus. Eders Majestäter, Eders Kungliga Högheter, mina damer och herrar! Vad skall man med personer till i ett litterärt verk? Roland Barthes hävdade att det mest föråldrade bland…

  Presentation Speech by Professor Lars Gyllensten of the Translation from the Swedish text Your Majesties, Your Royal Highnesses, Ladies and Gentlemen, With this year’s Nobel Prize in Literature to Gabriel García Márquez the Swedish Academy cannot be said to bring forward an unknown writer. García Márquez achieved unusual success as a writer with his…

English Presentation Speech by Writer Per Wästberg, Member of the , Chairman of its Nobel Committee, December 10, 2005. Per Wästberg delivering the Presentation Speech for the 2005 Nobel Prize in Literature at the Stockholm Concert Hall. Your Majesties, Your Royal Highnesses, Esteemed Nobel Laureates, Ladies and Gentlemen, Harold Pinter is the renewer…

Presentation Speech by Professor Lars Gyllensten of the Translation from the Swedish text Your Majesties, Your Royal Highnesses, Ladies and Gentlemen, “Heaven and earth conspire that everything which has been, be rooted out and reduced to dust. Only the dreamers, who dream while awake, call back the shadows of the past and braid from unspun…