Presentation Speech by Professor Kjell Espmark, of the Translation from the Swedish text Your Majesties, Your Royal Highnesses, Ladies and Gentlemen, When the Nobel Prize in Literature is awarded, for the second time in succession, to a writer from the Spanish-speaking world, it is a reminder of the exceptional literary vitality and richness of…

English Presentation Speech by Professor Horace Engdahl of the , December 10, 2004. Horace Engdahl delivering the Presentation Speech for the 2004 Nobel Prize in Literature at the Stockholm Concert Hall. Your Majesties, Your Royal Highnesses, Ladies and Gentlemen, What first perplexes when reading Elfriede Jelinek is the strange, mixed voice that speaks…

Presentation Speech by Anders Österling, Member of the This year’s Nobel Prize for Literature has, as you all know, been awarded to the Russian writer Mikhail Sholokhov, born in 1905, and now in his sixty-first year. Sholokhov’s childhood was spent in the country of the Don Cossacks; and the strong ties that have always bound…

Presentation Speech by Artur Lundkvist, of the Translation from the Swedish text Your Majesty, Your Royal Highnesses, Ladies and Gentlemen, This year’s Nobel Prize for Literature has been awarded by the Swedish Academy to the Australian Patrick White. In the – as always – brief citation, mention is made of “his epic and psychological narrative…

Presentation Speech by C.D. af Wirsén, Permanent Secretary of the , on December 10, 1905 Wherever the literature of a people is rich and inexhaustible, the existence of that people is assured, for the flower of civilization cannot grow on barren soil. But in every nation there are some rare geniuses who concentrate in themselves…

Presentation Speech by C.D. af Wirsén, Permanent Secretary of the , on December 10, 1906 From the unusually large number of poets and authors proposed for the Nobel Prize this year, the Swedish Academy has chosen a great Italian poet who for a long time has attracted the attention both of the Academy and of…

Presentation Speech by Professor Sture Allén of the , December 10, 1997. Translation of the Swedish text. Your Majesties, Your Royal Highnesses, Ladies and Gentlemen, To be a jester is, and always has been, a serious matter. Swedish mediaeval laws stipulated that it cost a man smaller fines to lay violent hands on somebody from…

Presentation Speech by Harald Hjärne, Director of the , on December 10, 1908 Alfred Nobel was a man of action who, during his successful business career in the competing markets of many countries and in the international trade centres, had developed an awareness of the inner contradictions and dangers of modern developments. Mankind still seemed…

Presentation Speech by Karl Ragnar Gierow, of the (Translation) Your Majesty, Your Royal Highnesses, Ladies and Gentlemen, Mix a powerful imagination with a logic in absurdum, and the result will be either a paradox or an Irishman. If it is an Irishman, you will get the paradox into the bargain. Even the Nobel Prize in…

Presentation Speech by Mr. Östen Sjöstrand, Member of the Translation from the Swedish text Your Majesties, Your Royal Highnesses, Ladies and Gentlemen, The Irish poet Seamus Heaney was born in County Derry in Northern Ireland. The thatched farmhouse he grew up in was called Mossbawn – a name that has become mythical in Heaney’s poetry.…