1949 Nobel Prize in Literature

The 1949 Nobel Prize in Literature was awarded the American author William Faulkner (1897–1962) "for his powerful and artistically unique contribution to the modern American novel."[1] The prize was awarded the following year on October 1950. The Nobel Committee for Literature had decided that none of the nominations for 1949 met the criteria as outlined in the will of Alfred Nobel, and the prize was reserved until the following year.[1]

1949 Nobel Prize in Literature
William Faulkner
"for his powerful and artistically unique contribution to the modern American novel."
Date
  • 10 November 1950 (announcement)
  • 10 December 1950
    (ceremony)
LocationStockholm, Sweden
Presented bySwedish Academy
First awarded1901
WebsiteOfficial website

Laureate
Main article: William Faulkner

William Faulkner generally is regarded as one of the most significant American writers of all time. Faulkner wrote 13 novels and many short stories but started as a poet. With his breakthrough novel, The Sound and the Fury (1929), he began to use stream of consciousness to portray a character's flow of inner thoughts. His books often are told from the point of view of several characters and contain accurately rendered colloquialisms combined with long sentences full of imagery and language that is sometimes surreal. Among his other famous works include As I Lay Dying (1930), Light In August (1934) and Absalom! Absalom! (1936).[2][3]

Deliberations

Nominations

William Faulkner was not nominated for the prize in 1949,[4] but he was nominated the following year and in 1950 the Swedish Academy decided to award Faulkner the Nobel Prize in Literature for 1949. Faulkner was nominated by Prince Wilhelm, Duke of Södermanland who became the president of the Swedish PEN Centre.[4] Faulkner had not been nominated for the prize before, making it a rare occasion when an author have been awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature the same year they were first nominated.[5]

In total, the Nobel Committee received 43 nominations for the 1949 prize for authors such as Benedetto Croce, Thornton Wilder, Winston Churchill (awarded in 1953), François Mauriac (awarded in 1952), Carl Sandburg, Georges Duhamel, and Pär Lagerkvist (awarded in 1951). 9 of the nominees were nominated first-time among them Albert Camus (awarded in 1957), Leonid Leonov, Enrique González Martínez, Alfonso Reyes, Taha Hussein, and Alberto Moravia. Three of the nominees were women: Marie Under, Henriette Charasson, and Dorothy Canfield Fisher.

The authors James Truslow Adams, Hervey Allen, Chairil Anwar, Rex Beach, Elsa Bernstein, Maurice Blondel, Jacques Copeau, Will Cuppy, Lucien Descaves, Ali Douagi, William Price Drury, Inés Echeverría Bello, Herbert Eulenberg, Martin Grabmann, Yaroslav Halan, Edmond Jaloux, Klaus Mann, Sarojini Naidu, Elin Pelin, Gustav Radbruch, Alexander Serafimovich, George Shiels, Elin Wägner, and Oton Župančič died in 1949 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 Hugo Bergmann (1883–1975)
2 Mark Aldanov (1886–1957)  Soviet Union
( Ukraine)
 France		 biography, novel, essays, literary criticism Ivan Bunin (1870–1953)
3 Riccardo Bacchelli (1891–1985)  Italy novel, drama, essays
4 Eugène Baie (1874–1964)  Belgium law, essays Maurice Maeterlinck (1862–1949)
5 Albert Camus (1913–1960)  France novel, short story, essays, philosophy, drama Hjalmar Gullberg (1898–1961)
6 Dorothy Canfield Fisher (1879–1958)  United States novel, short story, pedagogy, essays David Baumgardt (1890–1963)
7 Hans Carossa (1878–1956)  Germany poetry, autobiography, essays Henry Olsson (1896–1985)
8 Henriette Charasson (1884–1972)  France poetry, essays, drama, novel, literary criticism, biography Serge Barrault (1887–1976)
9 Winston Churchill (1874–1965)  United Kingdom history, essays, memoir
10 Benedetto Croce (1866–1952)  Italy history, philosophy, law
11 Georges Duhamel (1884–1966)  France novel, short story, poetry, drama, literary criticism
12 Johan Falkberget (1879–1967)  Norway novel, short story, essays
13 Enrique González Martínez (1871–1952)  Mexico poetry Antonio Castro Leal (1896–1981)
14 Jacinto Grau Delgado (1877–1958)  Spain drama, essays, short story, literary criticism Hjalmar Gullberg (1898–1961)
15 Taha Hussein (1889–1973)  Egypt novel, short story, poetry, translation Ahmed Lutfi el-Sayed (1872–1963)[lower-alpha 1]
16 Pär Lagerkvist (1891–1974)  Sweden poetry, novel, short story, drama Erik Ekelund (1897–1976)
17 Halldór Laxness (1902–1998)  Iceland novel, short story, drama, poetry Jón Helgason (1899–1986)
18 Leonid Leonov (1899–1994)  Soviet Union drama, novel, short story Valentin Kiparsky (1904–1983)
19 André Malraux (1901–1976)  France novel, essays, literary criticism Martin Lamm (1880–1950)
20 François Mauriac (1885–1970)  France novel, short story
21 Ramón Menéndez Pidal (1869–1968)  Spain philology, history Gunnar Tilander (1894–1973)
22 Alberto Moravia (1907–1990)  Italy novel, literary criticism, essays, drama Hjalmar Gullberg (1898–1961)
23 Charles Langbridge Morgan (1894–1958)  United Kingdom drama, novel, essays, poetry Elias Wessén (1889–1981)
24 Seán O'Casey (1880–1964)  Ireland drama, memoir Oscar Wieselgren (1886–1971)
25 Arnulf Øverland (1889–1968)  Norway poetry, essays
26 Boris Pasternak (1890–1960)  Soviet Union poetry, novel, translation Maurice Bowra (1898–1971)
27 Alfonso Reyes Ochoa (1889–1959)  Mexico philosophy, essays, novel, poetry Gabriela Mistral (1889–1957)[lower-alpha 2]
28 Carl Sandburg (1878–1967)  United States poetry, essays, biography Einar Tegen (1884–1965)
29 George Santayana (1863–1952)  Spain
 United States		 philosophy, essays, poetry, novel Giuseppe Antonio Borgese (1882–1952)
30 Mikhail Sholokhov (1905–1984)  Soviet Union novel Valentin Kiparsky (1904–1983)
31 Angelos Sikelianos (1884–1951)  Greece poetry, drama Sigfrid Siwertz (1882–1970)
32 John Steinbeck (1902–1968)  United States novel, short story, screenplay Henri Peyre (1901–1988)
33 Reinaldo Temprano Azcona (1911–1954)  Spain essays Emilio Alarcos García (1895–1986)
34 Marie Under (1883–1980)  Soviet Union
( Estonia)		 poetry Hjalmar Hammarskjöld (1862–1953)
35 Thornton Wilder (1897–1975)  United States drama, novel, short story Yngve Brilioth (1891–1959)

Prize decision
See also: 1950 Nobel Prize in Literature § Prize decision

On 3 November 1949 the Swedish Academy announced that no Nobel Prize in Literature would be awarded that year: "No Nobel Prize in Literature will be awarded this year. And the justification, in short, is that none of this year's candidates has been able to gather the absolute majority required according to the statutes for the prize to be awarded. For the time being, two literature prizes are therefore at the Academy's disposal next year. In 1918 and 1935 the same measure was taken on the same grounds.”[6]

The Academy awarded the prize for 1949 the following year to William Faulkner, while Bertrand Russell was awarded the 1950 Nobel Prize in Literature.[7]

Award ceremony speech

In his award ceremony speech on 10 December 1950, Gustaf Hellström, member of the Swedish Academy, said of Faulkner: "As a probing psychologist he is the unrivalled master among all living British and American novelists. Neither do any of his colleagues possess his fantastic imaginative powers and his ability to create characters. His subhuman and superhuman figures, tragic or comic in a macabre way, emerge from his mind with a reality that few existing people – even those nearest to us – can give us", "Moreover – side by side with Joyce and perhaps even more so – Faulkner is the great experimentalist among twentieth-century novelists. Scarcely two of his novels are similar technically. It seems as if by this continuous renewal he wanted to achieve the increased breadth which his limited world, both in geography and in subject matter, cannot give him. The same desire to experiment is shown in his mastery, unrivalled among modern British and American novelists, of the richness of the English language, a richness derived from its different linguistic elements and the periodic changes in style – from the spirit of the Elizabethans down to the scanty but expressive vocabulary of the Negroes of the southern states."[8]

Acceptance speech

At the banquet, Faulkner read his acceptance speech, which he ended with an affirmation of faith:

"I believe that man will not merely endure: he will prevail. He is immortal, not because he alone among creatures has an inexhaustible voice, but because he has a soul, a spirit capable of compassion and sacrifice and endurance."

The speech was later made available in print.[9]

Reactions

The choice of William Faulkner as the Nobel Prize Laureate was well received.[10] Faulkner himself at first refused to travel to Sweden to accept the award, but was persuaded by friends and his wife to travel. At the banquet in Stockholm on 10 December 1950 he held a memorable acceptance speech. Faulkner eventually gave away the prize money in scholarships and other bequests.[9]

Notes
  1. Several other members of the King Fuad I University also nominated Taha Hussein.
  2. Other nominations were made of Alfonso Reyes.

References
  1. "Nobel Prize in Literature 1949". nobelprize.org.
  2. "William Faulkner". Britannica. 2 July 2023.
  3. William Faulkner – Facts nobelprize.org
  4. "Nominations 1949". nobelprize.org. April 2020.
  5. "Nomineringar och utlåtanden 1901-1950" (in Swedish). Svenska Akademien.
  6. Berg, Mattias (29 June 2015). "Avgörande ögonblick: När tvivlet kom till Akademien". Sveriges Radio (in Swedish).
  7. The Nobel Prize in Literature: Nominations and Reports 1901–1950 nobelprize.org
  8. "Award Ceremony speech". nobelprize.org.
  9. A. Nicholas Fargnoli, Michael Golay Critical Companion to William Faulkner, Infobase Publishing 2009, p.422
  10. "Winners of the Nobel Prize in Literature (link to article)". The New York Times.
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