Authors who received the Nobel Prize in Literature. Russian writers - Nobel Prize laureates

First laureate. Ivan Alekseevich Bunin(22.10.1870 - 08.11.1953). The prize was awarded in 1933.

Ivan Alekseevich Bunin, a Russian writer and poet, was born on his parents' estate near Voronezh, in central Russia. Until the age of 11, the boy was raised at home, and in 1881 he entered the Yeletsk district gymnasium, but four years later, due to the family’s financial difficulties, he returned home, where he continued his education under the guidance of his older brother Julius. WITH early childhood Ivan Alekseevich read Pushkin, Gogol, Lermontov with enthusiasm, and at the age of 17 he began writing poetry.

In 1889 he went to work as a proofreader for the local newspaper Orlovsky Vestnik. The first volume of poems by I.A. Bunin was published in 1891 as an appendix to one of the literary magazines. His first poems were full of images of nature, which is typical for all of the writer’s poetic work. At the same time, he began to write stories that appeared in various literary magazines, and entered into correspondence with A.P. Chekhov.

In the early 90s. XIX century Bunin is influenced by the philosophical ideas of Leo Tolstoy, such as closeness to nature, manual labor and non-resistance to evil through violence. Since 1895 he lives in Moscow and St. Petersburg.

Literary recognition came to the writer after the publication of such stories as “On the Farm”, “News from the Motherland” and “At the End of the World”, dedicated to the famine of 1891, the cholera epidemic of 1892, the resettlement of peasants to Siberia, as well as impoverishment and the decline of the small landed nobility. Ivan Alekseevich called his first collection of stories “At the End of the World” (1897).

In 1898 he published the poetry collection “Under open air”, as well as Longfellow’s translation of “The Song of Hiawatha”, which received very high praise and was awarded the Pushkin Prize of the first degree.

In the first years of the 20th century. actively engaged in translating English and French poets into Russian. He translated Tennyson's poems "Lady Godiva" and Byron's "Manfred", as well as works by Alfred de Musset and François Coppet. From 1900 to 1909 Many of the writer’s famous stories are published - “Antonov Apples”, “Pines”.

At the beginning of the 20th century. writes his best books, for example, the prose poem “Village” (1910), the story “Sukhodol” (1912). In a prose collection published in 1917, Bunin includes his most famous story, “The Gentleman from San Francisco,” a meaningful parable about the death of an American millionaire in Capri.

Fearing the consequences October Revolution, in 1920 he came to France. Of the works created in the 20s, the most memorable are the story “Mitya’s Love” (1925), the stories “Rose of Jericho” (1924) and “ Sunstroke"(1927). The autobiographical story “The Life of Arsenyev” (1933) also received very high criticism from critics.

I.A. Bunin was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1933 “for the rigorous skill with which he develops the traditions of Russian classical prose.” Following the wishes of his many readers, Bunin prepared an 11-volume collection of works, which was published by the Berlin publishing house Petropolis from 1934 to 1936. Most of all I.A. Bunin is known as a prose writer, although some critics believe that he managed to achieve more in poetry.

Boris Leonidovich Pasternak(02/10/1890-05/30/1960). The prize was awarded in 1958.

Russian poet and prose writer Boris Leonidovich Pasternak was born into a well-known Jewish family in Moscow. The poet's father, Leonid Pasternak, was an academician of painting; mother, née Rosa Kaufman, a famous pianist. Despite their rather modest income, the Pasternak family moved in the highest artistic circles of pre-revolutionary Russia.

Young Pasternak entered the Moscow Conservatory, but in 1910 he abandoned the idea of ​​becoming a musician and, after studying for some time at the Faculty of History and Philosophy of Moscow University, at the age of 23 he left for the University of Marburg. Having made a short trip to Italy, in the winter of 1913 he returned to Moscow. In the summer of the same year, after passing university exams, he completed his first book of poems, “Twin in the Clouds” (1914), and three years later, the second, “Over the Barriers.”

The atmosphere of revolutionary change in 1917 was reflected in the book of poems “My Sister is My Life,” published five years later, as well as in “Themes and Variations” (1923), which put him in the first rank of Russian poets. He spent most of his later life in Peredelkino, a summer cottage village for writers near Moscow.

In the 20s XX century Boris Pasternak writes two historical and revolutionary poems “Nine Hundred and Fifth” (1925-1926) and “Lieutenant Schmidt” (1926-1927). In 1934, at the First Congress of Writers, he was already spoken of as the leading modern poet. However, praise for him soon gives way to harsh criticism due to the poet’s reluctance to limit his work to proletarian themes: from 1936 to 1943. the poet failed to publish a single book.

Owning several foreign languages, in the 30s. translates classics of English, German and French poetry into Russian. His translations of Shakespeare's tragedies are considered the best in Russian. Only in 1943 was Pasternak’s first book in the last 8 years published - the poetry collection “On Early Trips”, and in 1945 - the second, “Earthly Expanse”.

In the 40s, continuing his poetic activity and translating, Pasternak began work on the famous novel Doctor Zhivago, the life story of Yuri Andreevich Zhivago, a doctor and poet, whose childhood was at the beginning of the century and who became a witness and participant in the First World War. , revolution, civil war, the first years of the Stalin era. The novel, initially approved for publication, was later considered unsuitable "due to the author's negative attitude towards the revolution and lack of faith in social change." The book was first published in Milan in 1957 in Italian, and by the end of 1958 it had been translated into 18 languages.

In 1958, the Swedish Academy awarded Boris Pasternak the Nobel Prize in Literature “for significant achievements in modern lyric poetry, as well as for continuing the tradition of the great Russian epic novel.” But due to the insults and threats that fell upon the poet, and exclusion from the Writers' Union, he was forced to refuse the prize.

For many years, the poet’s work was artificially “unpopular” and only in the early 80s. attitudes towards Pasternak gradually began to change: the poet Andrei Voznesensky published memories of Pasternak in the magazine “ New world", a two-volume volume of selected poems by the poet was published, edited by his son Evgeniy Pasternak (1986). In 1987, the Writers' Union reversed its decision to expel Pasternak after publication of the novel Doctor Zhivago began in 1988.

Mikhail Alexandrovich Sholokhov(05/24/1905 - 02/02/1984). The prize was awarded in 1965.

Mikhail Alexandrovich Sholokhov was born on the Kruzhilin farmstead Cossack village Veshenskaya in the Rostov region, in southern Russia. In his works, the writer immortalized the Don River and the Cossacks who lived here both in pre-revolutionary Russia and during the civil war.

His father, a native of the Ryazan province, sowed grain on rented Cossack land, and his mother was Ukrainian. After graduating from four classes of the gymnasium, Mikhail Alexandrovich joined the Red Army in 1918. The future writer first served in a logistics support detachment, and then became a machine gunner. From the first days of the revolution he supported the Bolsheviks and advocated for Soviet power. In 1932 he joined the Communist Party, in 1937 he was elected to the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, and two years later - a full member of the USSR Academy of Sciences.

In 1922 M.A. Sholokhov arrived in Moscow. Here he took part in the work of the literary group “Young Guard”, worked as a loader, laborer, and clerk. In 1923, his first feuilletons were published in the Yunosheskaya Pravda newspaper, and in 1924 his first story, “The Birthmark,” was published.

In the summer of 1924 he returned to the village of Veshenskaya, where he lived almost forever for the rest of his life. In 1925, a collection of feuilletons and stories by the writer about civil war under the title "Don Stories". From 1926 to 1940 working on “The Quiet Don,” a novel that brought the writer world fame.

In the 30s M.A. Sholokhov interrupts work on “Quiet Don” and writes the second world-famous novel “Virgin Soil Upturned”. During the Great Patriotic War Sholokhov is a war correspondent for Pravda, author of articles and reports on the heroism of the Soviet people; after the Battle of Stalingrad, the writer begins work on the third novel - the trilogy “They Fought for the Motherland.”

In the 50s The publication of the second and final volume of Virgin Soil Upturned begins, but the novel was published as a separate book only in 1960.

In 1965 M.A. Sholokhov received the Nobel Prize in Literature “for the artistic power and integrity of the epic about the Don Cossacks at a turning point for Russia.”

Mikhail Alexandrovich married in 1924, he had four children; The writer died in the village of Veshenskaya in 1984 at the age of 78. His works remain popular among readers.

Alexander Isaevich Solzhenitsyn(born December 11, 1918). The prize was awarded in 1970.

Russian novelist, playwright and poet Alexander Isaevich Solzhenitsyn was born in Kislovodsk, in the North Caucasus. Alexander Isaevich's parents came from peasant backgrounds, but received a good education. Since the age of six he has lived in Rostov-on-Don. The childhood years of the future writer coincided with the establishment and consolidation of Soviet power.

Having successfully graduated from school, in 1938 he entered Rostov University, where, despite his interest in literature, he studied physics and mathematics. In 1941, having received a diploma in mathematics, he also graduated correspondence department Institute of Philosophy, Literature and History in Moscow.

After graduating from the university A.I. Solzhenitsyn worked as a mathematics teacher in a Rostov secondary school. During the Great Patriotic War he was mobilized and served in the artillery. In February 1945, he was suddenly arrested, stripped of the rank of captain and sentenced to 8 years in prison followed by exile to Siberia “for anti-Soviet agitation and propaganda.” From a specialized prison in Marfino near Moscow he was transferred to Kazakhstan, to a camp for political prisoners, where the future writer was diagnosed with stomach cancer and was considered doomed. However, having been released on March 5, 1953, Solzhenitsyn underwent successful radiation therapy at the Tashkent hospital and recovered. Until 1956 he lived in exile in various regions of Siberia, taught in schools, and in June 1957, after rehabilitation, he settled in Ryazan.

In 1962, his first book, “One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich,” was published in the “New World” magazine. A year later, several stories by Alexander Isaevich were published, including “The Incident at Krechetovka Station”, “ Matrenin Dvor" and "For the good of the cause." The last work published in the USSR was the story “Zakhar-Kalita” (1966).

In 1967, the writer was subjected to persecution and newspaper persecution, and his works were banned. Nevertheless, the novels “In the First Circle” (1968) and “Cancer Ward” (1968-1969) end up in the West and are published there without the consent of the author. From this time began the most difficult period of his literary activity and further life path almost until the beginning of the new century.

In 1970, Solzhenitsyn was awarded Nobel Prize in literature “for the moral strength gleaned from the tradition of great Russian literature.” However, the Soviet government considered the decision of the Nobel Committee to be “politically hostile.” A year after receiving the Nobel Prize A.I. Solzhenitsyn allowed the publication of his works abroad, and in 1972 August the Fourteenth was published in English by a London publishing house.

In 1973, the manuscript of Solzhenitsyn’s main work, “The Gulag Archipelago, 1918–1956: An Experience in Artistic Research,” was confiscated. Working from memory, as well as using his own notes, which he kept in the camps and in exile, the writer restores the book that “turned the minds of many readers” and prompted millions of people to take a critical look at many pages of history for the first time Soviet Union. The “GULAG Archipelago” refers to prisons, forced labor camps, and exile settlements scattered throughout the USSR. In his book, the writer uses the memoirs, oral and written testimonies of more than 200 prisoners whom he met in prison.

In 1973, the first publication of “Archipelago” was published in Paris, and on February 12, 1974, the writer was arrested, accused of treason, deprived of Soviet citizenship and deported to Germany. His second wife, Natalia Svetlova, and her three sons were allowed to join her husband later. After two years in Zurich, Solzhenitsyn and his family moved to the United States and settled in Vermont, where the writer completed the third volume of “The Gulag Archipelago” (Russian edition - 1976, English - 1978), and also continued work on the cycle historical novels about the Russian revolution, begun by “August the fourteenth” and called “The Red Wheel”. At the end of the 1970s. In Paris, the YMCA-Press publishing house published the first 20-volume collection of Solzhenitsyn's works.

In 1989, the magazine “New World” published chapters from “The Gulag Archipelago”, and in August 1990 A.I. Solzhenitsyn was returned to Soviet citizenship. In 1994, the writer returned to his homeland, traveling by train across the country from Vladivostok to Moscow in 55 days.

In 1995, on the writer’s initiative, the Moscow government, together with Solzhenitsyn’s Russian Philosophy and the Russian publishing house in Paris, created a library fund “ Russian abroad" The basis of her handwritten and book fund More than 1,500 memoirs of Russian emigrants, as well as collections of manuscripts and letters of Berdyaev, Tsvetaeva, Merezhkovsky and many other outstanding scientists, philosophers, writers, poets and the archives of the commander-in-chief of the Russian army in the First World War, Grand Duke Nikolai Nikolaevich, became available. Significant work In recent years, the two-volume work “200 Years Together” (2001-2002) has become a work. After his arrival, the writer settled near Moscow, in Trinity-Lykovo.

“In works of great emotional power, he revealed the abyss that lies beneath our illusory sense of connection with the world,” says the official release published on the website announcing the new Nobel laureate in literature, British writer of Japanese origin Kazuo Ishiguro.

A native of Nagasaki, he moved with his family to Britain in 1960. The writer’s first novel, “Where the Hills Are in the Haze,” was published in 1982 and was dedicated specifically to his hometown and new homeland. The novel tells the story of a Japanese woman who, after the suicide of her daughter and moving to England, cannot shake off haunting dreams of the destruction of Nagasaki.

Great success came to Ishiguro with the novel The Remains of the Day (1989),

dedicated to the fate of the former butler, who served one noble house all his life. For this novel, Ishiguro received the Booker Prize, and the jury voted unanimously, which is unprecedented for this award. In 1993, an American director filmed this book with and starring.

The writer's fame was greatly supported by the release in 2010 of the dystopian film Never Let Me Go, which takes place in an alternative Britain at the end of the twentieth century, where child organ donors are raised in a special boarding school for cloning. The film stars Keira Knightley and others.

In 2005, this novel was included in the list of the hundred best according to the version.

Kazuo's latest novel, The Buried Giant, published in 2015, is considered one of his strangest and most daring works. This is a medieval fantasy novel in which the journey of an elderly couple to a neighboring village to visit their son becomes a road to their own memories. Along the way, the couple defends themselves from dragons, ogres and other mythological monsters. You can read more about the book.

This year's award amount is $1.12 million. The award ceremony will take place at the Stockholm Philharmonic on December 10, the day of the death of the founder of the award.

Literary rate

Every year, it is the Nobel Prize in Literature that arouses particular interest among bookmakers - no other discipline in which the award is awarded has such a stir. The list of this year's favorites, according to the bookmaker companies Ladbrokes and Unibet, included the Kenyan Ngugi Wa Thiong'o (5.50), the Canadian writer and critic (6.60), and the Japanese writer (odds 2.30). The current laureate’s fellow countryman, the author of “The Sheep Hunt” and “After Dark,” however, has been promised a Nobel for many years, just like another “eternal” literary Nobel nominee, the famous Syrian poet Adonis. However, both of them remain without a reward year after year, and the bookmakers are slightly perplexed.

Other candidates this year included: Chinese Ian Leanke, Israeli, Italian Claudio Magris, Spaniard, American singer and poet Patti Smith, from Austria, South Korean poet and prose writer Ko Eun, Nina Bouraoui from France, Peter Nadas from Hungary, American rapper Kanye West and others.

In the entire history of the award, bookmakers have made no mistakes only three times:

In 2003, when the victory was awarded to the South African writer John Coetzee, in 2006 with the famous Turk, and in 2008 with the Frenchman.

“What bookmakers are guided by when determining favorites is unknown,” says the literary expert, editor-in-chief of the Gorky Media resource, “it is only known that a few hours before the announcement, the odds for whoever turns out to be the winner then drop sharply to unfavorable values.” Whether this means that someone is supplying bookmakers with information several hours before the announcement of the winners, the expert refused to confirm. According to Milchin,

Bob Dylan was at the bottom of the list last year, as was Svetlana Alexievich in 2015.

According to the expert, a few days before the announcement of the current winner, bets on Canadian Margaret Atwood and Korean Ko Eun dropped sharply.

The name of the future laureate is traditionally kept in the strictest confidence until the announcement. The list of candidates compiled by the Swedish Academy is also classified and will only become known after 50 years.

The Swedish Academy was founded in 1786 by King Gustav III to support and develop the Swedish language and literature. It consists of 18 academicians who are elected to their posts for life by other members of the academy.

On December 10, 1933, King Gustav V of Sweden awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature to the writer Ivan Bunin, who became the first Russian writer to receive this high award. In total, the prize, established by the inventor of dynamite Alfred Bernhard Nobel in 1833, was received by 21 people from Russia and the USSR, five of them in the field of literature. True, historically it turned out that for Russian poets and writers the Nobel Prize was fraught with big problems.

Ivan Alekseevich Bunin distributed the Nobel Prize to friends

It is known that Nobel laureates have the right to decide for themselves how to spend the money they receive. Some invest in the development of science, some in charity, some in their own business. Bunin, a creative person and devoid of “practical ingenuity,” disposed of his bonus, which amounted to 170,331 crowns, completely irrationally. Poet and literary critic Zinaida Shakhovskaya recalled: “ Returning to France, Ivan Alekseevich... in addition to money, began to organize feasts, distribute “benefits” to emigrants, and donate funds to support various societies. Finally, on the advice of well-wishers, he invested the remaining amount in some “win-win business” and was left with nothing».

Ivan Bunin is the first emigrant writer to be published in Russia. True, the first publications of his stories appeared in the 1950s, after the writer’s death. Some of his works, stories and poems, were published in his homeland only in the 1990s.

Dear God, why are you
Gave us passions, thoughts and worries,
Do I thirst for business, fame and pleasure?
Joyful are cripples, idiots,
The leper is the most joyful of all.
(I. Bunin. September, 1917)

Boris Pasternak refused the Nobel Prize

The writing community in the poet’s homeland took this news extremely negatively and on October 27, Pasternak was unanimously expelled from the Union of Writers of the USSR, at the same time filing a petition to deprive Pasternak of Soviet citizenship. In the USSR, Pasternak's receipt of the prize was associated only with his novel Doctor Zhivago. The literary newspaper wrote: “Pasternak received “thirty pieces of silver,” for which the Nobel Prize was used. He was awarded for agreeing to play the role of bait on the rusty hook of anti-Soviet propaganda... An inglorious end awaits the resurrected Judas, Doctor Zhivago, and his author, whose lot will be popular contempt.”.

The mass campaign launched against Pasternak forced him to refuse the Nobel Prize. The poet sent a telegram to the Swedish Academy in which he wrote: “ Due to the importance that the award given to me has received in the society to which I belong, I must refuse it. Please don't take my voluntary refusal as an insult.».

It is worth noting that in the USSR until 1989, even in school curriculum There were no references to Pasternak’s work in the literature. He was the first to decide to introduce the Soviet people en masse to creative Pasternak director Eldar Ryazanov. In his comedy “The Irony of Fate, or Enjoy Your Bath!” (1976) he included the poem “There will be no one in the house”, transforming it into an urban romance, which was performed by the bard Sergei Nikitin. Ryazanov later included in his film “ Office romance"An excerpt from another poem by Pasternak - “Loving others is a heavy cross..." (1931). True, it sounded in a farcical context. But it is worth noting that at that time the very mention of Pasternak’s poems was a very bold step.

It's easy to wake up and see clearly,
Shake out the verbal trash from the heart
And live without getting clogged in the future,
All this is not a big trick.
(B. Pasternak, 1931)

Mikhail Sholokhov, receiving the Nobel Prize, did not bow to the monarch

Award presenter Soviet writer Gustav Adolf VI called him "one of the most distinguished writers of our time." Sholokhov did not bow to the king, as prescribed by the rules of etiquette. Some sources claim that he did this intentionally with the words: “We Cossacks do not bow to anyone. In front of the people, please, but I won’t do it in front of the king...”

Alexander Solzhenitsyn was deprived of Soviet citizenship because of the Nobel Prize

On October 8, 1970, “for the moral strength drawn from the tradition of great Russian literature,” Solzhenitsyn was awarded the Nobel Prize. This became the reason for persecution of Solzhenitsyn in the USSR. In 1971, all the writer’s manuscripts were confiscated, and in the next 2 years, all his publications were destroyed. In 1974, a Decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR was issued, which deprived Alexander Solzhenitsyn of Soviet citizenship and deported him from the USSR for systematically committing actions incompatible with belonging to USSR citizenship and causing damage to the USSR.

The writer’s citizenship was returned only in 1990, and in 1994 he and his family returned to Russia and actively became involved in public life.

Nobel Prize winner Joseph Brodsky was convicted of parasitism in Russia

In 1972, Brodsky turned to Secretary General Brezhnev with a request to work in his homeland as a translator, but his request remained unanswered, and he was forced to emigrate. Brodsky first lives in Vienna, London, and then moves to the United States, where he becomes a professor at New York, Michigan and other universities in the country.

On December 10, 1987, Joseph Brosky was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature “for his comprehensive creativity, imbued with clarity of thought and passion of poetry.” It is worth saying that Brodsky, after Vladimir Nabokov, is the second Russian writer who writes in English as his native language.

The sea was not visible. In the whitish darkness,
swaddled on all sides, absurd
it was thought that the ship was heading towards land -
if it was a ship at all,
and not a clot of fog, as if poured
who whitened it in milk?
(B. Brodsky, 1972)

Interesting fact
For the Nobel Prize in different times nominated, but never received it, such famous personalities like Mahatma Gandhi, Winston Churchill, Adolf Hitler, Joseph Stalin, Benito Mussolini, Franklin Roosevelt, Nicholas Roerich and Leo Tolstoy.

Literature lovers will definitely be interested in this book, which is written with disappearing ink.

The Nobel Prize in Literature was awarded for the 107th time - the 2014 winner was French writer and screenwriter Patrick Modiano. Thus, since 1901, 111 authors have already received the literature prize (four times the award was awarded to two writers at the same time).

Alfred Nobel bequeathed a prize for “the most outstanding literary work in ideal direction”, and not for circulation and popularity. But the concept of a “bestselling book” already existed at the beginning of the 20th century, and sales volumes can at least partially speak about the skill and literary significance of the writer.

RBC has compiled a conditional rating of Nobel laureates in literature based on the commercial success of their works. The source was data from the world's largest book retailer Barnes & Noble on the best-selling books of Nobel laureates.

William Golding

Winner of the 1983 Nobel Prize in Literature

"For novels that, with the clarity of realistic narrative art combined with the diversity and universality of myth, help to comprehend the existence of man in the modern world"

For almost forty years literary career English writer published 12 novels. Golding's novels Lord of the Flies and The Descendants are among the Nobel laureates' best-selling books according to Barnes & Noble. The first, released in 1954, brought him worldwide fame. In terms of the significance of the novel for the development of modern thought and literature, critics often compared it with Salinger’s “The Catcher in the Rye.”

The best-selling book at Barnes & Noble is Lord of the Flies (1954).

Toni Morrison

Winner of the 1993 Nobel Prize in Literature

« A writer who brought to life an important aspect of American reality through her dreamy and poetic novels.”

American writer Toni Morrison was born in Ohio into a working-class family. She began making art while attending Howard University, where she studied " English language and literature." Morrison's first novel, The Bluest Eye, was based on a story she wrote for a university poetry group. In 1975, her novel Sula was nominated for the US National Book Award.

Best selling book at Barnes & Noble - The Bluest Eye (1970)

John Steinbeck

Winner of the 1962 Nobel Prize in Literature

"For his realistic and poetic gift, combined with gentle humor and keen social vision"

Among Steinbeck's most famous novels are The Grapes of Wrath, East of Eden, and Of Mice and Men. All of them are included in the top dozen bestsellers according to the American store Barnes & Noble.

By 1962, Steinbeck had already been nominated for the prize eight times, and he himself believed that he did not deserve it. Critics in the United States greeted the award with hostility, believing that his later novels were much weaker than his subsequent ones. In 2013, when documents from the Swedish Academy were revealed (they had been kept secret for 50 years), it turned out that Steinbeck was a recognized classic American literature- awarded because he was "the best in a bad crowd" of candidates for that year's award.

The first edition of the novel “The Grapes of Wrath” with a circulation of 50 thousand copies was illustrated and cost $2.75. In 1939, the book became a bestseller. To date, the book has sold more than 75 million copies, and the first edition good condition costs more than $24 thousand.

Ernest Hemingway

Winner of the 1954 Nobel Prize in Literature

"For the narrative mastery once again demonstrated in The Old Man and the Sea, and for the influence it has had on modern style"

Hemingway became one of nine literary laureates to whom the Nobel Prize was awarded for a specific work (the story “The Old Man and the Sea”), and not for literary activity generally. In addition to the Nobel Prize, The Old Man and the Sea won the author a Pulitzer Prize in 1953. The story was first published in Life magazine in September 1952, and in just two days, 5.3 million copies of the magazine were purchased in the United States.

Interestingly, the Nobel Committee seriously considered awarding the prize to Hemingway in 1953, but then chose Winston Churchill, who wrote more than a dozen books of a historical and biographical nature during his life. One of the main reasons for not delaying the awarding of the former British Prime Minister was his venerable age (Churchill was 79 years old at that time).

Gabriel Garcia Marquez

Winner of the 1982 Nobel Prize in Literature

"For novels and stories in which fantasy and reality combine to reflect the life and conflicts of an entire continent"

Márquez became the first Colombian to receive a prize from the Swedish Academy. His books, including Chronicle of a Death Proclaimed, Love in the Time of Cholera, and The Autumn of the Patriarch, outsold all books ever published in Spanish except the Bible. Described by Chilean poet and Nobel laureate Pablo Neruda as “the greatest work in the Spanish language since Cervantes’ Don Quixote,” One Hundred Years of Solitude has been translated into more than 25 languages ​​and has sold more than 50 million copies worldwide.

The best-selling book at Barnes & Noble is One Hundred Years of Solitude (1967).

Samuel Beckett

Winner of the 1969 Nobel Prize in Literature

"For innovative works in prose and drama, in which the tragedy of modern man becomes his triumph"

A native of Ireland, Samuel Beckett is considered one of the most prominent representatives of modernism; Along with Eugene Ionescu, he founded the “theater of the absurd.” Beckett wrote in English and French, and his most famous work - the play "Waiting for Godot" - was written in French. The main characters of the play throughout the entire play are waiting for a certain Godot, meeting with whom can bring meaning to their meaningless existence. There is practically no dynamics in the play, Godot never appears, and the viewer is left to interpret for himself what kind of image he is.

Beckett loved chess, attracted women, but led a secluded life. He agreed to accept the Nobel Prize only on the condition that he would not attend the presentation ceremony. Instead, his publisher, Jérôme Lindon, received the prize.

William Faulkner

Winner of the 1949 Nobel Prize in Literature

"For his significant and artistically unique contribution to the development of the modern American novel"

Faulkner initially refused to go to Stockholm to receive the prize, but his daughter persuaded him. When asked by US President John F. Kennedy to attend a dinner in honor of Nobel Prize winners, Faulkner, who said to himself “I’m not a writer, but a farmer,” replied that he was “too old to travel so far for a dinner with strangers.”

According to Barnes & Noble, Faulkner's best-selling book is his novel As I Lay Dying. “The Sound and the Fury,” which the author himself considered his most successful work, did not have commercial success for a long time. In the 16 years after its publication (in 1929), the novel sold only three thousand copies. However, at the time of receiving the Nobel Prize, The Sound and the Fury was already considered a classic of American literature.

In 2012, the British publishing house The Folio Society released Faulkner's The Sound and the Fury, where the text of the novel is printed in 14 colors, as the author himself wanted (so that the reader could see different time planes). The publisher's recommended price for such a copy is $375, but the circulation was limited to only 1,480 copies, and a thousand of them were already pre-ordered at the time of the book's release. At the moment, you can buy a limited edition of “The Sound and the Fury” on eBay for 115 thousand rubles.

Doris Lessing

Winner of the 2007 Nobel Prize in Literature

"For his insight into women's experiences with skepticism, passion and visionary power"

British poet and writer Doris Lessing became the oldest laureate literary prize Swedish Academy, in 2007 she was 88 years old. Lessing also became the eleventh woman to win this prize (out of thirteen).

Lessing was not popular among the masses literary critics, since her works were often devoted to pressing social issues (in particular, she was called a propagandist of Sufism). However, The Times magazine places Lessing fifth on its list of the "50 greatest British authors since 1945".

The most popular book at Barnes & Noble is Lessing's 1962 novel The Golden Notebook. Some commentators rank it among the classics of feminist fiction. Lessing herself categorically disagreed with this label.

Albert Camus

Winner of the 1957 Nobel Prize in Literature

"For his enormous contribution to literature, highlighting the importance of human conscience"

Algerian-born French essayist, journalist and writer Albert Camus has been called the “conscience of the West.” One of his most popular works, the novel “The Outsider,” was published in 1942, and sales began in the United States in 1946. English translation, and in just a few years more than 3.5 million copies were sold.

When presenting the prize to the writer, member of the Swedish Academy Anders Exterling said that “Camus’s philosophical views were born in an acute contradiction between the acceptance of earthly existence and the awareness of the reality of death.” Despite Camus's frequent association with the philosophy of existentialism, he himself denied his involvement in this movement. In a speech in Stockholm, he said his work was built on the desire to "avoid outright lies and resist oppression."

Alice Munro

Winner of the 2013 Nobel Prize in Literature

The prize was awarded with the wording “ to the master modern genre short story"

Canadian short story writer Alice Munro has been writing short stories since she was a teenager, but her first collection (Dance of the Happy Shadows) was published only in 1968, when Munro was already 37. In 1971, the writer published a collection of interconnected stories, Lives of Girls and Women, which was praised by critics as a “novel of education” (Bildungsroman). Among others literary works- collections “Who are you, exactly?” (1978), “The Moons of Jupiter” (1982), “The Fugitive” (2004), “Too Much Happiness” (2009). The 2001 collection “The Hate Me, Friendship, Courtship, Love, Marriage” served as the basis for the Canadian feature film Away from Her directed by Sarah Polley.

Critics have called Munro "the Canadian Chekhov" for his narrative style, characterized by clarity and psychological realism.

The best selling book at Barnes & Noble is “ Dear Life"(2012).

HISTORY OF RUSSIA

“Prix Nobel? Oui, ma belle". This is what Brodsky joked long before receiving the Nobel Prize, which is the most important award for almost any writer. Despite the generous scattering of Russian literary geniuses, only five of them managed to receive the highest award. However, many, if not all, of them, having received it, suffered enormous losses in their lives.

Nobel Prize 1933 "For the truthful artistic talent with which he recreated in prose the typical Russian character."

Bunin became the first Russian writer to receive the Nobel Prize. This event was given a special resonance by the fact that Bunin had not appeared in Russia for 13 years, even as a tourist. Therefore, when he was notified of a call from Stockholm, Bunin could not believe what had happened. In Paris, the news spread instantly. Every Russian, regardless of financial status and position, squandered their last pennies in a tavern, rejoicing that their compatriot turned out to be the best.

Once in the Swedish capital, Bunin was almost the most popular Russian person in the world; people stared at him for a long time, looked around, and whispered. He was surprised, comparing his fame and honor with the glory of the famous tenor.



Nobel Prize ceremony.
I. A. Bunin is in the first row, far right.
Stockholm, 1933

Nobel Prize 1958 "For significant achievements in modern lyric poetry, as well as for continuing the tradition of the great Russian epic novel"

Pasternak's candidacy for the Nobel Prize was discussed by the Nobel Committee every year, from 1946 to 1950. After a personal telegram from the head of the committee and Pasternak’s notification of the award, the writer responded with the following words: “Grateful, glad, proud, embarrassed.” But after some time, after the planned public persecution of the writer and his friends, public persecution, sowing an impartial and even hostile image among the masses, Pasternak refused the prize, writing a letter of more voluminous content.

After the award of the prize, Pasternak bore the full burden of the “persecuted poet” firsthand. Moreover, he carried this burden not at all for his poems (although it was for them, for the most part, that he was awarded the Nobel Prize), but for the “anti-conscience” novel “Doctor Zhivago”. Nes, even refusing such an honorable prize and a substantial sum of 250,000 crowns. According to the writer himself, he still would not have taken this money, having sent it to another, more useful place than his own pocket.

On December 9, 1989, in Stockholm, Boris Pasternak's son, Evgeniy, was awarded a diploma and the Nobel Medal to Boris Pasternak at a gala reception dedicated to the Nobel Prize laureates of that year.



Pasternak Evgeniy Borisovich

Nobel Prize 1965 “for the artistic strength and integrity of the epic about the Don Cossacks at a turning point for Russia”.

Sholokhov, like Pasternak, repeatedly appeared in the field of view of the Nobel Committee. Moreover, their paths, like their offspring, involuntarily, and also voluntarily, crossed more than once. Their novels, without the participation of the authors themselves, “prevented” each other from winning the main award. There is no point in choosing the best of two brilliant, but very different works. Moreover, the Nobel Prize was (and is) given in both cases not for individual works, but for the overall contribution as a whole, for a special component of all creativity. Once, in 1954, the Nobel Committee did not award Sholokhov only because the letter of recommendation from Academician of the USSR Academy of Sciences Sergeev-Tsensky arrived a couple of days later, and the committee did not have enough time to consider Sholokhov’s candidacy. It is believed that the novel (“Quiet Don”) at that time was not politically beneficial to Sweden, but artistic value always played a secondary role for the committee. In 1958, when Sholokhov’s figure looked like an iceberg in the Baltic Sea, the prize went to Pasternak. Already gray-haired, sixty-year-old Sholokhov was awarded his well-deserved Nobel Prize in Stockholm, after which the writer read a speech as pure and honest as all his work.



Mikhail Alexandrovich in the Golden Hall of Stockholm City Hall
before the start of the Nobel Prize presentation.

Nobel Prize 1970 "For the moral strength gleaned from the tradition of great Russian literature."

Solzhenitsyn learned about this prize while still in the camps. And in his heart he strived to become its laureate. In 1970, after he was awarded the Nobel Prize, Solzhenitsyn replied that he would come “personally, on the appointed day” to receive the award. However, as twelve years earlier, when Pasternak was also threatened with deprivation of citizenship, Solzhenitsyn canceled his trip to Stockholm. It's hard to say that he regretted it too much. Reading the program for the gala evening, he kept coming across pompous details: what and how to say, a tuxedo or tailcoat to wear at this or that banquet. “...Why does it have to be a white bow tie,” he thought, “but not in a camp padded jacket?” “And how can we talk about the main task of our whole life at the “feast table”, when the tables are laden with dishes and everyone is drinking, eating, talking...”

Nobel Prize 1987 "For a comprehensive literary activity distinguished by clarity of thought and poetic intensity."

Of course, it was much “easier” for Brodsky to receive the Nobel Prize than for Pasternak or Solzhenitsyn. At that time, he was already a persecuted emigrant, deprived of citizenship and the right to enter Russia. The news of the Nobel Prize found Brodsky having lunch at a Chinese restaurant near London. The news practically did not change the expression on the writer’s face. He only joked to the first reporters that now he would have to wag his tongue for a whole year. One journalist asked Brodsky who he considers himself to be: Russian or American? “I am a Jew, a Russian poet and an English essayist,” Brodsky replied.

Known for his indecisive character, Brodsky took two versions of the Nobel lecture to Stockholm: in Russian and in English. Until the last moment, no one knew in what language the writer would read the text. Brodsky settled on Russian.



On December 10, 1987, Russian poet Joseph Brodsky was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature “for his comprehensive creativity, imbued with clarity of thought and poetic intensity.”