A Nobel Prize for Literature (Mostly) Quiz

Question: Who, in 2019, was named the recipient of the 2018 Nobel Prize for Literature?

Answer: The spouse of a member of the Swedish Academy, which oversees the Nobel Prize for Literature, was accused of sexual assault in 2018, which—together with allegations of wrongdoing connected to the award process—prompted the academy to not name a winner that year. In 2019 it named two winners: Olga Tokarczuk for 2018 and Peter Handke for 2019.

Question: Who was the first Englishman to win the Nobel Prize for Literature?

Answer: The English short-story writer, poet, and novelist Rudyard Kipling is chiefly remembered for his celebration of British imperialism, his tales and poems of British soldiers in India, and his tales for children. In 1907 he received the Nobel Prize for Literature, the first Englishman to be so honoured.

Question: Who was the first woman to receive the Nobel Prize for Literature?

Answer: In 1909 Selma Lagerlöf became the first Swedish writer, and the first woman, to receive the Nobel Prize for Literature.

Question: Which Icelandic writer received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1955?

Answer: Halldór Laxness was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1955.

Question: Which novelist was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1986?

Answer: The works of Romanian-born American novelist Elie Wiesel provide a sober yet passionate testament of the destruction of European Jewry during World War II. He was awarded the Nobel Prize for Peace in 1986. His ability to transform this personal concern into a universal condemnation of all violence, hatred, and oppression was largely responsible for his being awarded the prize.

Question: Which institution confers the Nobel Prize for Literature?

Answer: The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences confers the Nobel prizes for physics, chemistry, and economics; the Karolinska Institute confers the prize for physiology or medicine; and the Swedish Academy confers the prize for literature. The Norwegian Nobel Committee confers the prize for peace.

Question: Which Russian writer was forced by his country to decline the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1958?

Answer: Boris Pasternak’s novel Doctor Zhivago helped win him the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1958 but aroused so much opposition in the Soviet Union that he declined the honour.

Question: Who was the first writer in Chinese to win the Nobel Prize for Literature?

Answer: Chinese émigré novelist, playwright, and critic Gao Xingjian was the first Chinese writer to win the Nobel Prize for Literature. He was awarded the prize in 2000.

Question: Who was the first American to win the Nobel Prize for Literature?

Answer: The American novelist and social critic Sinclair Lewis punctured American complacency with his broadly drawn, widely popular satirical novels. He won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1930, the first given to an American.

Question: Which French writer was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1964 but declined to accept it?

Answer: The French novelist and playwright Jean-Paul Sartre was an exponent of existentialism, a philosophy acclaiming the freedom of the individual human being. He was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1964, but he declined it.

Question: Which British prime minister was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature?

Answer: Winston Churchill, in 1953, received two notable distinctions, the Order of the Garter and the Nobel Prize for Literature, the latter for “oratory in defending exalted human values” with “historical and biographical description.”

Question: Which of these works did Nobel winner George Bernard Shaw write?

Answer: The canonization of Joan of Arc in 1920 reawakened within George Bernard Shaw ideas for a chronicle play about her. In his Saint Joan (first performed 1923), she is treated not only as a Roman Catholic saint and martyr but as a combination of practical mystic, heretical saint, and inspired genius.