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Nobel Laureates in Literature (1901-present)

Who are the ones recognized as the greatest writers in literary history?

By , About.com Guide

By the terms of Alfred Bernhard Nobel's will (1896), the Nobel Prize for Literature is given to the person who has produced "the most distinguished work of an idealistic tendency" in the field of literature. Just a few of the Nobel laureates include: Isaac Bashevis Singer, Saul Bellow, Pablo Neruda, Samuel Beckett, John Steinbeck, Albert Camus, Ernest Hemingway, William Faulkner, T.S. Eliot, Hermann Hesse, Eugene O'Neill, Sinclair Lewis, William Butler Yeats, and Rudyard Kipling.

1901 - Sully Prudhomme (1837-1907)

French writer. Original name Rene Francois Armand Prudhomme. French writer. Sully Prudhomme won the first Nobel Prize for Literature in 1901 "in special recognition of his poetic composition, which gives evidence of lofty idealism, artistic perfection and a rare combination of the qualities of both heart and intellect."
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1902 - Christian Matthias Theodor Mommsen (1817-1903)

German/Nordic writer. Christian Matthias Theodor Mommsen was referred to as "the greatest living master of the art of historical writing, with special reference to his monumental work, A history of Rome" when he received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1902.

1903 - Bjørnstjerne Martinus Bjørnson (1832-1910)

Norwegian writer. Bjørnstjerne Martinus Bjørnson received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1903 "as a tribute to his noble, magnificent and versatile poetry, which has always been distinguished by both the freshness of its inspiration and the rare purity of its spirit."

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