1951 Nobel Prize in Literature

1951 Nobel Prize in Literature
Pär Lagerkvist
"for the artistic vigour and true independence of mind with which he endeavours in his poetry to find answers to the eternal questions confronting mankind."
Date	November 1951 (announcement) 10 December 1951 (ceremony)
Location	Stockholm, Sweden
Presented by	Swedish Academy
First awarded	1901
Website	Official website
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The 1951 Nobel Prize in Literature was awarded the Swedish author Pär Lagerkvist "for the artistic vigour and true independence of mind with which he endeavours in his poetry to find answers to the eternal questions confronting mankind."^[1] Lagerkvist is the fourth Swedish recipient of the Nobel Prize in Literature after Lagerlöf in 1909, Von Heidenstam in 1916, and Karlfeldt in 1931.

Laureate

Pär Lagerkvist wrote novels, poetry, plays, short stories and essays and were one of major Swedish literary figures of the first half of the 20th century. In his early years Lagerkvist supported modernist and aesthetically radical views, as shown by his manifesto Ordkonst och bildkonst ("Word Art and Picture Art", 1913) and the play Den Svåra Stunden ("The Difficult Hour", 1918). In 1916, he published Ångest ("Anguish"), a violent and disillusioned collection of poems. The novel Bödeln ("The Hangman", 1933) and the play Mannen utan själ ("The Man Without a Soul", 1936) expresses Lagerkvist's indignation over rising fascism. A recurring theme in his writings is the fundamental question of good and evil, and the problem of man's relation to God. This theme is particularly notable in the 1944 novel Dvärgen ("The Dwarf"), which became his first major success, followed by Barabbas (1950), a novel that won Lagerkvist world recognition.^[2] His works also include the notable autobiographical novel Gäst hos verkligheten ("Guest of Reality", 1925),^[2] and two of his most important works, the collection of poems Aftonland ("Evening Land", 1953) and the novel Sibyllan ("The Sibyl", 1956), which were published after he was awarded the Nobel prize.^[3][4]

Deliberations

Nominations

Pär Lagerkvist had first been proposed for the prize in 1947.^[5] Following the publication of his novel Barabbas, Lagerkvist had been one of the favorites to be awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1950.^[6] In 1951, the Nobel committee for literature received nine nominations for Lagerkvist, including nominations from the French authors and previous laureates André Gide and Roger Martin du Gard, and the Swedish Academy decided to award him the prize.^[5]

In total the Nobel committee received 44 nominations for 25 writers including

died in 1951 without having been nominated for the prize.

Official list of nominees and their nominators for the prize

No.	Nominee	Country	Genre(s)	Nominator(s)
1	Shmuel Yosef Agnon (1887–1970)	Israel	novel, short story	Simon Halkin (1899–1987)
2	Mark Aldanov (1886–1957)	Soviet Union ( Ukraine)  France	biography, novel, essays, literary criticism	Ivan Bunin (1870–1953)
3	María Enriqueta Camarillo (1872–1968)	Mexico	novel, short story, drama, poetry, translation	Leavitt Olds Wright (1891–1980)
4	Winston Churchill (1874–1965)	United Kingdom	history, essays, memoir	George Macauley Trevelyan (1876–1962)
5	Paul Claudel (1868–1955)	France	poetry, drama, essays, memoir	Kåre Foss (1895–1967)
6	Júlio Dantas (1876–1962)	Portugal	poetry, drama, novel, essays	Brazilian Academy of Letters Hjalmar Hammarskjöld (1862–1953)
7	Georges Duhamel (1884–1966)	France	novel, short story, poetry, drama, literary criticism	Hjalmar Hammarskjöld (1862–1953)
8	José Maria Ferreira de Castro (1898–1978)	Portugal	novel	Holger Sten (1907–1971)
9	Rómulo Gallegos (1884–1969)	Venezuela	novel, short story	Margot Arce de Vázquez (1904–1990) Francisco Matos Paoli (1915–2000) Julia Braschi (?) Ángel Luis Morales (?) Manuel Siaca Rivera (1906–?) Lewis Richardson (?) Luis Alberto Sánchez (1900–1994) Manuel Garcia Díaz (?) David Jackson McWilliams (1909–1986) Siguen Firmas (?) Asociación des Escritores Venezolanos
10	Manuel Gálvez (1882–1962)	Argentina	novel, poetry, drama, essays, history, biography	Manuel Alcobre (1900–1977)
11	Taha Hussein (1889–1973)	Egypt	novel, short story, poetry, translation	Academy of the Arabic Language
12	Nikos Kazantzakis (1883–1957)	Greece	novel, philosophy, essays, drama, memoir, translation	Sigfrid Siwertz (1882–1970)
13	Pär Lagerkvist (1891–1974)	Sweden	poetry, novel, short story, drama	Oscar Wieselgren (1886–1971) Paulus Svendsen (1904–1989) Lorentz Eckhoff (1884–1974) Fernand Baldensperger (1871–1958) Roger Martin du Gard (1881–1958) André Gide (1869–1951) Norwegian Authors' Union Prince Wilhelm, Duke of Södermanland (1884–1965) Hjalmar Gullberg (1898–1961)
14	Halldór Laxness (1902–1998)	Iceland	novel, short story, drama, poetry	Einar Ólafur Sveinsson (1899–1984) Sigurður Nordal (1886–1974)
15	Ezequiel Martínez Estrada (1895–1964)	Argentina	poetry, essays, literary criticism, biography	Sociedad Argentina de Escritores
16	Ramón Menéndez Pidal (1869–1968)	Spain	philology, history	Gunnar Tilander (1894–1973) Walther von Wartburg (1888–1971) Alonso Zamora Vicente (1916–2006) Academia Chilena de la Lengua
17	Alfred Noyes (1880–1958)	United Kingdom	poetry, drama, essays, biography, novel, short story, literary criticism	Laurence McGinley, S.J. (1905–1992)
18	José Ortega y Gasset (1883–1955)	Spain	philosophy, essays	Juan Ignacio Luca de Tena (1897–1975) Gregorio Marañón Posadillo (1887–1960) Gabriel Maura Gamazo (1879–1963) Vicente García de Diego (1878–1978) Wenceslao Fernández Flórez (1885–1964) Ramón Cabanillas Enríquez (1876–1959) Eugenio d'Ors i Rovira (1881–1954)
19	Katharine Susannah Prichard (1883–1969)	Australia	novel, short story, drama, poetry, autobiography	William Allan Edwards (1909–1995) Fellowship of Australian Writers
20	Zalman Shneour (1887–1959)	Soviet Union ( Belarus)  United States	poetry, essays	Joseph Klausner (1874–1958) The Hebrew PEN-Club
21	Angelos Sikelianos (1884–1951)	Greece	poetry, drama	Sigfrid Siwertz (1882–1970)
22	Sotíris Skípis (ca. 1881–1952)	Greece	poetry, drama, translation	unnamed[8]
23	Tarjei Vesaas (1897–1970)	Norway	poetry, novel	Olav Midttun (1883–1972) Sigmund Skard (1903–1995)
24	Mika Waltari (1908–1979)	Finland	short story, novel, poetry, drama, essays, screenplay	Aarne Anttila (1892–1952)

Prize decision

Pär Lagerkvist was first nominated for the prize in 1947. In 1947 and 1949 Lagerkvist, himself a member of the Swedish Academy, declined to be considered for the prize and the Nobel committee did thus not discuss his candidacy. While respecting his will, the committee the latter year still urged the Academy to "take notice of the proposition". Lagerkvist was nominated again in 1950 and nominators argued that his prominent role as a pioneer and innovator in Swedish-language literature and his humanity qualified him for the prize. The international success of Lagerkvist's 1950 novel Barabbas and the nominations from the French Nobel laureates André Gide and Roger Martin du Gard became decisive for the Academy to award Lagerkvist the prize in 1951.^[9]

Reactions

Although several Nordic and Swedish authors had been awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature before and Lagerkvist himself was a member of the awarding institution the Swedish Academy, the decision to award him was defended as a legitimate choice in the Swedish press by critics Erik Hjalmar Linder and Sten Selander, saying the internationally recognised Lagerkvist undoubtedly deserved the prize. Selander argued that Lagerkvist was a classic modernist in the same class as the two recent laureates William Faulkner and T. S. Eliot.^[10]

Banquet speech

At the banquet at Stockholm City Hall on 10 December 1951, Pär Lagerkvist thanked his colleagues in the Swedish Academy for the honour of awarding him the Nobel Prize and then read a piece from an unpublished novel written in 1922 called Myten och människan ("The Myth and the human being"). "I found that the beginning of it roughly includes just what I was going to say here today, but in the form of fiction, which undeniebly suits me better", Lagerkvist said, "It is about the mysterious of our essence and our existence, about this what makes the destiny of the human being so grand - and so difficult."^[11]

References