Old Books by (Mostly) Dead Nobel Laureates 2016

Congratulations to Bob Dylan!

Though there has been talk about the possibility for years, I could not have been more surprised to read this morning that American songwriter Bob Dylan has won the 2016 Nobel Prize in Literature. The American press loves to whine that the Nobel jury are a bunch of stuffy, ivory-tower America-haters. What a way to prove them wrong! I couldn’t be more pleased that Dylan has finally gotten the literary recognition he deserves.

In honor of the annual occasion, it’s once again time to post the cumulative listing of all the novels, stories, plays, poetry, and memoirs written by Nobel Prize-winning authors that have been reviewed at Old Books by Dead Guys. Since last year, several new works have been added, and four new authors have joined the list: George Bernard Shaw, Pär Lagerkvist, and Halldór Laxness, in addition to Dylan, who’s way down at the bottom of this chronological list. I’m currently working on Boris Pasternak’s Doctor Zhivago, but didn’t finish it in time, so he’ll have to wait until next year. Once again, congrats to Dylan! Click on the links below to read the complete reviews.

Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson (1903 Nobel) Norway

• Arne: A Sketch of Norwegian Country Life (1859)
• A Happy Boy (1860)
• “The Father” (1860) in Stories by Foreign Authors: Scandinavian (1898)
• “The Railroad and the Churchyard” (1882) in Stories by Foreign Authors: Scandinavian (1898)
• Absolom’s Hair (English edition, 1908)

Henryk Sienkiewicz (1905 Nobel) Poland

• In Vain (1876)
• “The Light-House Keeper of Aspinwall” (1881) in Stories by Foreign Authors: Polish, Greek, Belgian, Hungarian (1898)
• “Bartek the Conqueror” (1882) in Tales by Polish Authors (1915)
• With Fire and Sword (1884)
• The Deluge (1886)
• Pan Michael (1888)
• Lillian Morris and Other Stories (1894)
• Quo Vadis (1895)
• Sielanka: An Idyll (1898)
• So Runs the World (1898)
• Life and Death and Other Legends and Stories (1904)
• On the Field of Glory (1906)

Rudyard Kipling (1907 Nobel) United Kingdom

• Kim (1901)

Selma Lagerlöf (1909 Nobel) Sweden

• The Treasure (1903)

Paul von Heyse (1910 Nobel) Germany

• “The Fury” (1853) in Stories by Foreign Authors: German I (1898)

Maurice Maeterlinck (1911 Nobel) Belgium

• “The Massacre of the Innocents” (1886) in Stories by Foreign Authors: Polish, Greek, Belgian, Hungarian (1898)
• Death (1911)

Gerhart Hauptmann (1912 Nobel) Germany

• Atlantis (1912)

Knut Hamsun (1920 Nobel) Norway

• Hunger (1890)
• Shallow Soil (1893)
• Growth of the Soil (1917)

Anatole France (1921 Nobel) France

• “The Juggler of Notre Dame” (1892) in Stories by Foreign Authors: French I (1898)
• The Gods Are Athirst (1912)

Wladyslaw Reymont (1924 Nobel) Poland

• The Comedienne (1896)
• The Peasants (1904-1909)
• “The Trial” in More Tales by Polish Authors (1916)
• “A Polish Scene” in Selected Polish Tales (1921)
• “Death” in Selected Polish Tales (1921)

George Benard Shaw (1925 Nobel) Ireland

• “The Miraculous Revenge” in Little Blue Book No. 215 (ca. 1923)

Sinclair Lewis (1930 Nobel) United States of America

• Main Street (1920)

Eugene O’Neill (1936 Nobel) United States of America

• “Tomorrow” (1917)
• The Straw (1919)
• The Hairy Ape (1922)

Pearl S. Buck (1938 Nobel) United States of America (raised in China)

• East Wind, West Wind (1930)
• The Good Earth (1931)
• Sons (1933)
• A House Divided (1935)
• Dragon Seed (1942)
• The Promise (1943)
• China Flight (1943)
• The Living Reed: A Novel of Korea (1948)

Hermann Hesse (1946 Nobel) Switzerland (born in Germany)

• Beneath the Wheel (1906)
• Rosshalde (1914)
• Demian (1919)
• Siddhartha (1922)
• Steppenwolf (1927)
• The Journey to the East (1932)
• The Glass Bead Game (1943)

Pär Lagerkvist (1951 Nobel) Sweden

• Barabbas (1950)

Halldór Laxness (1955 Nobel) Iceland

• The Atom Station (1948)

Bob Dylan (2016 Nobel) United States of America

• Chronicles: Volume One (2004)
• Dylan: Disc by Disc (2015) by John Bream

See you next year!