Talk:List of Nobel laureates in Literature

message: This page is new, with the aim toward making it a featured list one of these days. Any suggestions or changes are welcome, as would be any available media (free images of the laureates would be fantastic). Irregulargalaxies 22:28, 6 June 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: New page

message: The problem with countries still remains unresolved. There is huge inconsistency between writers. Some of the entries focus on nationality, some on residence, some on ethnicity, some on where a writer was born. It's not the same thing at all to rely on the NobelPrize.org page 'Residence at the time of the award' for this category. Especially because there are more and more globalised writers with complex histories, there needs to be an adequate way to represent them. It is particularly galling, as someone who at least knows something about world literature, to see Czeslaw Milosz, for example, be reduced to an 'American'... 
BooksJay (talk) 08:42, 25 October 2019 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree that there should be consistency with this list. However, there is nothing "galling" about describing Czeslaw Milosz as an American. That is, in fact, what he was. From 1962 until his death, he was an American citizen. Note that he could have lived in the US under some other status (just as he had done in France), but instead he chose to naturalize as a citizen, which means he chose to identify as an American. I know he made various public claims over the years--it's not difficult to find Milosz quotes in which he calls himself Polish, Lithuanian, or American. But Wikipedia should be in the business of providing facts, and the fact is that Milosz, as an American citizen, was an American. And in fact, he won honors--including the US National Medal of Arts--that only Americans are eligible to receive. My fear is that, by listing his country here as Poland, Wikipedia readers will come away thinking "When he won the Nobel, he lived in Poland" or "When he won the Nobel, he was a Polish citizen," or "He must have been born in Poland," when none of those things is true. This is why the Nobel website provides both country of residence and country of birth--it lets people know when the situation is complicated and provides for a greater degree of accuracy. There is no such reflection of Milosz's situation, and no such accuracy, in simply listing his country as Poland. Those are my two cents. Thanks. IbIANTiA (talk) 10:19, 25 October 2019 (UTC)

text: Because we're following what is listed by the Nobel Foundation at their official website. -- Scorpion0422 14:47, 26 January 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: How about acknowledging we do know better and correcting the obvious mistakes? An information doesn't suddenly become true just because it's written somewhere, no matter how smart the author officially is.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.175.191.119 (talk) 11:44, 8 October 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: The country of the Nobel site refers to the laureates' nationality at the time of their receipt of the prize.  If they were of dual nationality and/or took up other nationality at some point of their lives, it should be acknowledged as such, IMHO. 121.6.96.185 (talk) 17:57, 8 October 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: If it is so, why is Rabindranath Tagore listed as being of Indian nationality at the time of their receipt of the prize? India became independent not earlier than in 1947. There were no Indian citizens before it. I've heard national flags were used during the Nobel ceremonies, probably it can help in finding the truth... 1450 (talk) 17:39, 19 December 2010 (UTC)
thread_title: Confusion about the countries

message: I know that this list used to include the languages of the laureates.
I'm not sure why this was removed, surely it is more relevent than their nationalities, or at least equally so? -Kez (talk) 19:27, 22 January 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: I wholeheartedly agree.  The language in which they write is crucially important. DORC (talk) 15:31, 3 May 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Agreed. I will add the list soon (or if anyone else would like to). Irregulargalaxies (talk) 23:57, 5 May 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: No one is going to add anything unless it's sourced. — sephiroth bcr (converse) 03:53, 6 May 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: So you want a link to every author's bibliography?Irregulargalaxies (talk) 20:45, 6 May 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: If that can be classified as a source, I would say so. Even then, why is the language they write in "crucially important", especially if the nationality is listed? Dabomb87 (talk) 19:46, 9 May 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: I would have thought that obvious — literature is conveyed through language, and a nationality only reflects a birthplace and/or country of residence, with many countries being officially bi- or multilingual. For example there is currently no way to make the notable distinction between a solely Francophone and an Anglophone Canadian author. Similarly, it is important that Wole Soyinka writes in English and not any African language. Samuel Beckett was Irish, but his works were predominantly in French. The language of an author shows their readership, and in terms of the Nobel prize, the linguistic geography of the prize. -Kez (talk) 10:49, 5 July 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: Languages?

message: According to Herta Mueller's profile she is of both German and Romanian nationality, shouldn't this be identified on the Nobel Prize for literature listing? Brady Fish (talk) 15:59, 17 October 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: Herta Mueller German and Romanian?

message: Perhaps add another more recognized currency inside parenthesis since I asume 10 000 000 SEK doesn't say anything to most people?
Skether (talk) 21:16, 19 October 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: Currency

message: she is born, raised and educated in Romania, graduating in German studies and Romanian literature, and left Romania only when she was already 34 years old. plus, her novels refer to Romania. she is  German ethnic of Romania, so I guess it would be politically correct to place Romania instead of Germany, or at least to mention both. citing Germany for Mueller is like citing Israel for a Jewish writer of America, quite inappropriate  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 93.112.87.240 (talk) 22:30, 4 February 2010 (UTC)
thread_title: herta mueller

message: The sort options on this table do not opearte correctly for those entries where there are multiple prize-winners. Presentation is misaligned with the laurette's picture included in the year column and other information then shifted leftward.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 195.194.19.31 (talk) 14:01, 9 March 2010 (UTC)
thread_title: Sort Options

message: For some strange reason, a user has taken to delete the column with the language the laureates write/wrote in. That part of the article is as well sourced as anything else. The official size of the Nobel Prize, used as a source for this article, give the name, the country and the language for each laureate. I've assumed good faith this far, but further deletion of the column with language will start to look like vandalism, not a good faith edit.Jeppiz (talk) 18:55, 7 October 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: So it is. The old version of the site did not include languages, and when I did check some random Nobel entries, I didn't see language (being more familiar with the old version of the Nobel site, I didn't realize there was more). But, please avoid blanket reverting contributions: you didn't check my edit and see that I also updated the lead. This is called "blind editing" and is strongly discouraged. -- Scorpion0422 19:27, 7 October 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: You're absolutely right, sorry about that!Jeppiz (talk) 20:15, 7 October 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: Thank you for implementing this, I've been arguing for it since the column first disappeared, but wasn't sure if I could justify reinstating it without referencing every one, despite its crucial importance! However, shouldn't Samuel Beckett's be English and French, since his original works and translations were in both over his career? -Kez (talk) 17:49, 24 November 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: I noticed that the list of laureates by language only listed one (1) author in the Polish, while the number should be 4. This has now been corrected; see http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/literature/shortfacts.html for the official listings. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 144.63.247.6 (talk) 13:43, 10 October 2012 (UTC)
thread_title: Language

message: There seems to be constant contention about the winner's nationalities. Some of the discussion refers to the Nobel website as the source being used, but I can't see any mention of nationalities there. What is the link to the source? Greenman (talk) 21:56, 28 October 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: Well, the site has changed a bit since the nationalities were added. The linked to pages used to include just the information provided in the rows of our tables. Now, you have to click "biographical", which has such information. We're going by the "Residence at the time of the award" listing. -- "Don't blame me, I voted for  Scorpion0422" 23:11, 28 October 2010 (UTC)

text: Irish are not the sole controversial winners in this list. Poland did not exist as a state before 1917, but residention at the time of the award of some winners in the list is exactly "Poland". So having changed the nationality of one winner we'll have to do it with the others. So let them off. Ales (talk) 22:07, 24 January 2011 (UTC)
thread_title: Nationalities

message: William Butler Yeats was from the Irish Free State when he won his Nobel in 1923. All latter Irish winners were from the Republic of Ireland. It's not gonna do any harm to show those accuracies. GoodDay (talk) 23:00, 31 December 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: Irish are not the sole controversial winners in this list. Poland did not exist as a state before 1917, but residention at the time of the award of some winners in the list is exactly "Poland". So having changed the nationality of one winner we'll have to do it with the others. So let them off. Ales (talk) 22:07, 24 January 2011 (UTC)
thread_title: Irish winners

message: Why does " In 2012, the prize was awarded to Mo Yan of China" appear in the lead? ★★RetroLord★★ 09:27, 13 March 2013 (UTC)
thread_title: Recentism

message: There is no a detail regarding the appropriate use (organization etc.) of flag icons at Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Icons. I don't think that an important detail on the list. The Nobel Committee's official web page has nothing to do with Wikipedia. As far as I know, Wikipedia rules valid in other languages​​: 
*Llista de guardonats amb el Premi Nobel de Literatura (Catalan) 
*Liste der Nobelpreisträger für Literatur (German)
*Список лауреатов Нобелевской премии по литературе (Russian)
*Nobel Edebiyat Ödülü sahipleri listesi (Turkish)
Furthermore, please look at other (non-org.) awards at the Featured lists:
*Pritzker Architecture Prize
*Freedom Award
*Shaw Prize
*Grammy Award for Best World Music Album
*Crafoord Prize and etc. — Maurice07 (talk) 13:11, 2 February 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  Flag icons on the list 

message: It seems that the column of countries is inconsistent. Why Henryk Sienkiewicz is from Poland in 1905 when there was no Poland at that point of the time? 5.134.65.136 (talk) 12:26, 11 October 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  Consistency of the list 

message: Two laureates, Jimenez and Aleixandre, are listed under "Country" as "Spanish State", which links to "Francoist Spain", while Echegaray, Benavente, and Cela are just "Spain". Why?  Yes, the Francoist regime was in power when Jimenez won in 1956 (thought he wrote the work for which he won under the Bourbons and left Spain in 1916, and is acknowledged as being "domiciled in Puerto Rico" in his entry at nobel.org) and, inconsistently, when Aleixandre wrote, but *not* when he won.  For that matter, Cela wrote most of his work while living in Francoist Spain.  How about, for example "Fascist Italy", for Pirandello?  How is Francoist Spain particularly different (n.b. no apologia for that regime particularly intended, but neither is it IMHO so uniquely awful as to deserve the special treatment in the list).  I plan to edit Jimenez and Aleixandre's entries soon just to plain "Spain" if nobody responds here soonish.
142.129.255.114 (talk) 07:25, 6 January 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Unique aversion to the Francoist regime? 

message: .... Following is the entire RfC discussion.Anythingyouwant (talk) 16:48, 18 July 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't think this makes sense.  This information is straightforwardly available for authors, whose names are clearly associated with their works, in a way it's not available for architects. --Samuel J. Howard (talk) 19:45, 24 June 2015 (UTC)
replies: text:  Could you elaborate on that? Oscar Niemeyer and I. M. Pei are at any rate much more famous than Frans Eemil Sillanpää and Erik Axel Karlfeldt. It would be very helpful if there was a link of one representative work for each author. After all, someone may not remember George Bernard Shaw and Eugene O'Neill but remember Arms and the Man and Long Day's Journey into Night.--The Theosophist (talk) 05:14, 25 June 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: , what I'm saying is that due to the characteristic of authorship in literary works (the authors name is right there on the cover and the fact that authors' names are part of the typical categorization of literary works (e.g. in library catalogues) that just listing the name of the author sufficiently links them to their works in a way that does not happen for architects.--Samuel J. Howard (talk) 13:55, 7 July 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: Furthermore, the representative work on the Pritzker prize page displays the work, not merely lists it. Due to the visual nature of architecture, this "visual excerpt" says a lot more about an architects work than a representative work listing, even if it was paired with an excerpt of the work says about an author.--Samuel J. Howard (talk) 13:55, 7 July 2015 (UTC)

text: I'm also against -- going into what else they won elsewhere or later is not part of List of Nobel laureates in Literature.  That would be non-Nobel stuff about the person, which might belong at the person's page -- and it's case by case what the person's article would have on it.  Besides, they're not all going to have gone on to the same things so it's diverse data that wouldn't mechanically be neatly captured in one column format.  Markbassett (talk) 23:50, 30 June 2015 (UTC)
replies: text:  I cannot follow you. I do not see what my proposal of icnluding a famous book for each laureate has to do with “what else they won elsewhere or later”.--The Theosophist (talk) 03:24, 7 July 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: I think he's pointing out, among other things, the problem that the Eugene O'Neill work you're suggesting, Long Day's Journey into Night, was written in 1941–42 and published in 1956, but O'Neill actually won the Nobel in 1936.  The work that would be most representative for an author is quite possibly not the work that would be most representative of the achievements that caused the Nobel committee to award them the prize (for other reasons, because it may not have been written yet.)  This would be a total pain to curate on an ongoing basis to prevent people from putting post-Nobel representative works, which would have to be excluded to prevent a false linkage between those works and the prizes.--Samuel J. Howard (talk) 13:55, 7 July 2015 (UTC)
replies: text:  Well, in that case we could decide which book we should include for each laureate here and then add the final list to the article.--The Traditionalist (talk) 03:28, 8 July 2015 (UTC)

text:  Samuel J. Howard - I was reading ”The Theosophist to mean citing other awards they had, or other works and other things about the person unrelated to the Nobel award.  The examplar mentioned of Pritzker Architecture Prize is to something given for a lifelong body of work and part of that seems to be citing one of them as the "Example work" for the artist.  The Nobel Prize on the other hand is awarded for a single outstanding achievement, and Nobel Prize in Literature for a specific work.  "A characteristic work" I say No that is outside the Nobel topic, both if it was after the award or if it was before and not what the award cited.  If you come back and make that "what they got the award for" I would say yes.  Markbassett (talk) 22:24, 9 July 2015 (UTC)
replies: text:  The Nobel is not like the BAFTA. It is not awarded for a specific work but for the whole career of a writer, just like the Pritzker does for architects. Sometimes, in older years, it could occur that a laureate′s specific work was singled out in the citation, but the last time was in 1954.--The Traditionalist (talk) 01:49, 10 July 2015 (UTC)
replies: text:  The Nobel is announced as 'for' something specific, see http://www.nobelprize.org/  -- and the suggestion seems to be to list something unrelated to the Prize, either later work or other awards or body of work or whatever just is not appropriate to the article list.  Markbassett (talk) 03:39, 10 July 2015 (UTC)
replies: text:  Can you show me a page which supports the claim that the prize is anounced for a specific work?--The Traditionalist (talk) 03:43, 10 July 2015 (UTC)

text:  p.s. This probably means the Pritzker Architecture Prize column header needs to be more clear about what "Example work" means.  Markbassett (talk) 22:29, 9 July 2015 (UTC)

text: I'm not adamantly against this, but I don't really support this idea either. It would have to name a work that at least partly contributed to their earning of the prize; but I imagine there would be heated argument over that. Aside from that, a column titled "notable work" seems too much like trivia to me. Eman235/talk 02:58, 10 July 2015 (UTC)
replies: text:  Then should we remove its counterpart column from Pritzker Architecture Prize?--The Traditionalist (talk) 03:25, 10 July 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: Well...maybe, but since it's established, I'd be hesitant to do so. Eman235/talk 04:38, 10 July 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Characteristic / example work 

message: "Nobel laureates by country" section tells: One Nobel laureate is classified as stateless (Ivan Bunin, 1933).
Therefore it is odd that the table of laureates has his county as France. So, is he classified as "stateless" or not? If I understand correctly, the infos should match each other. 93.106.7.43 (talk) 04:56, 16 January 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  Ivan Bunin? 

message: I have changed the country and flag for Rabindranath Tagore to "British Raj (India)" to match the historically accurate labels of the other laureates. It does not appear to have been discussed before, so I have made the change. If there was already a discussion and consensus about this topic, feel free to revert. Fishal (talk) 23:06, 18 June 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  Rabindranath Tagore country 

message: The list states incorrectly that the Prize was not awarded in 1918. It was awarded to Erik Axel Karlfeldt who declined to accept it, just like Jean Paul Sartre and Boris Pasternak. He was awarded the Prize once again in 1931, posthumously.
--Jidu Boite (talk) 08:23, 27 December 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  Year 1918 

message: Sienkiewicz's country appears as "Poland (Russian Empire)". I believe the author would be appalled by such a statement. I propose a change that would acknowledge the complexity of the situation - that he considered himself a Pole, but at the time the polish territories were annexed by three neighboring countries including the Russian Empire. 31.0.79.114 (talk) 14:25, 16 January 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  Sienkiewicz's country 

message: Should there be more women/equal amount of both genders winning the prize? Espngeek (talk) 17:33, 20 May 2022 (UTC)
replies: text: There is a section devoted to this discussion on Nobel_Prize#Gender_disparity. I don't think a chart adds anything to this specific list. Irregulargalaxies (talk) 16:46, 1 April 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  Gender chart 

message: By chance, I noticed that under the section "Nobel laureates by country," the article states that there has been 119 nobel prize winners (from 1901 through 2022). By today, shouldn't this be 122? (99 in the 20th century and 23 in the 21st century). Furthermore, the list of winners by country adds up to 129, so there must be a miscounting somewhere+ AlexanderSokolDk (talk) 07:41, 7 October 2022 (UTC)
replies: text: There is not always one laureate per year. There have been years with no awardees (eg, 1914) and years with multiple awardees (eg, 1974). Irregulargalaxies (talk) 16:35, 1 April 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  Inconsistency in country counts 

message: A map of birthplaces was added recently. A couple points for discussion:
* It's hugely incomplete - it's missing basically every European laureate between 1915 and 1984.
* Adding all the laureates would probably make a map unreadably dense in parts.
* It has multiple location errors - Gurnah's birthplace is in Kenya instead of Zanzibar, Cela is on Sardinia instead of Spain, etc.
* There are formatting errors - the (short) family name is Gao, not Xingjian, for example.
To the larger point, I don't think this adds anything significant to the article. The country/nationality of the authors is listed individually and also as a summary list. A birthplace map essentially regurgitates most of that same information, but adding potential confusion for authors who were born in a different location from where they primarily lived or are associated with their work (eg, Simon, Undset, Bellow, etc). Even with all of that, the maps increase the article size without adding significant information.
I'm appreciative of the effort, but suggest that it be removed. Opening this section for discussion, however. Irregulargalaxies (talk) 17:03, 1 April 2023 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree with the rationale, mainly point two, having a complete map would make it unreadable. Auguel (talk) 16:28, 6 April 2023 (UTC)
replies: text: All the laureates have been added and corrected on the European map and it looks perfectly readable to me. Mondrian (talk) 13:59, 7 April 2023 (UTC)
thread_title: Map

message: I've made 19xx Nobel Prize in Literature link to the table here for 5 years which don't have their own articles, and added extra anchors so each links to the right row of the table. This means that the next/last year links go to the table when there isn't an article instead of being red links.
The year isn't a link (as it would only link back to itself), but it should become one if one of these is turned into an article. Aoeuidhtns (talk) 13:50, 22 November 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  Redirects for years without separate articles. 

message: There hasn't been a Nobel Prize for Literature for 2024, so Jacob Elson (whoever that is) hasn't won it. 40.132.68.49 (talk) 19:39, 12 January 2024 (UTC)
thread_title:  Jacob Elson