Favorite Nobel Prize Winner

[chaplin]

Who is your favorite Nobel Laureate in Literature? The list has only 103 people, and of course excludes all of the greats of the 19th century, and even many from the 20th, thus making it a tough choice.

My favorite is most likely Solzhenitsyn, probably because he's the laureate I've read the most of.

Also, is there anyone you think should have received a prize but didn't?

Here's a link to a list if you need it: Nobel Laureates (http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/literature/laureates/)

[vili]

While there are quite a number of great writers on that list (and admittedly also a number of great writers not on that list), I must say that my pick is quite easy: Patrick White. There is just something in White's fiction that pushes all the right buttons for me. Mesmerising stuff.

[bouquin]

I have read 17 of the authors on the list. Difficult to pick out just one favorite. So I'm noting down five:
Imre Kertész
Naguib Mahfouz
Thomas Mann
Rabindranath Tagore
Ernest Hemingway

[vili]

Naguib Mahfouz
Mahfouz is also one of my very favourite authors. Have you read him in translation or in Arabic? I am unfortunately confined to translations, and have therefore only read him in English. While I have nothing bad to say about those translations, I have always been curious how much has been lost or gained by Mahfouz's translators.

[bouquin]

I read the translation.

[Durgamol]

only one? i can't choose only one!
Rabindranath Tagore
Albert Canus
Czeslaw Milosz
Wislawa Szymborska
Jose Saramago

[Aiculík]

Gabriel Garzia Marquez... and Luigi Pirandello, Elias Canetii, Wiliam Golding and Pablo Neruda for poetry.

[kandaurov]

I applaud this idea for a thread. It's not easy to keep coming up with "name your favourite -" threads and still managing to be original!

I'm very poorly read, Nobelwise, and I will resist the temptation of choosing a good deal of great writers whose names ring a bell; despite being such great names, I haven't actually read anything they've written (such as Sartre, Grass and Camus).

I'm gonna go with William Butler Yeats (definitely; I didn't know he had won one!), Samuel Beckett (though I can't always understand the man, I'm strangely fond of his writing), and José Saramago (just because he's Portugal's only Nobel; I have to admit I haven't read anything from him!, but will read "Ensaio sobre a Cegueira" as soon as possible).

[barbara0207]

Thomas Mann and Günter Grass appeal to me most.

[Niamh]

Like Kandaurov, i'm also not nobel wise. Know my Irish winners. Didnt know John Steinbeck and Eugene O'Neill got it though!
I've gotta go with Yeats. My favourite Poet. Also our first Nobel winner for Lit.

[tudwell]

Faulkner or Beckett, probably, though I haven't read too many of them.

[Dark Star]

Kawabata, Sartre, Hemingway, Russell, Faulkner, Hesse

[Woland]

Yeats, Eliot and Faulkner

[Elinor Dashwood]

Gabriel Garzia Marquez... and Luigi Pirandello, Elias Canetii, Wiliam Golding and Pablo Neruda for poetry.

I would definately agree, one of my faves!! Also the only one on the list I've read :bawling:

[JBI]

Shmuel Yosef Agnon, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, and William Faulkner.

Oh, and the top 15 are probably either not deserving, or could have been chosen to include better people, such as Leo Tolstoy, Franz Kafka, etc.

[aabbcc]

I am not quite sure whether I am "entitled" to answer this question given that I have some experience with rougly a third of the list; but out of those I have read, I liked Hesse and Andrić the most.

[Behemoth]

Derek Walcott, Samuel Beckett and Boris Pasternak. An eclectic combination, I know, but Omeros, Waiting for Godot and Doctor Zhivago are three of the most powerful works of literature that I have ever read, and these authors will always remain special to me. (BTW I don't know if Beckett and Pasternak actually won the prize for these particular works, but they're my favourites :D)

[Scharphedin2]

I could never pick one favorite, or even half a dozen... too many great authors on that list.

However, Halldor Laxness from Iceland has not been mentioned, and may be one of the least well known of the Nobel laureates. Yet, in sheer volume, consistency of quality and artistic scope and vision of his entire authorship, Laxness is probably every bit the equal of authors like Mann and Steinbeck, who also wrote voluminously. His books often sparkle with that fairy dust that is so typically Icelandic, and which in a South American novelist would be termed "magic realism," and the books often parallel Hesse's in the way that they describe the spiritual (and artistic) developments of their protagonists.

If curious, pick up Independent People or World Light to get a general idea, then read everything else you can lay your hands on.

A wonderful by-product of reading Laxness is of course that he will transport you to one of the most special places on this earth, which is Iceland.

[ozbey]

John Steinbeck,Ernest Hemingway,but especially Jean - Paul Sartre and Derek Walcott(because of their rejections)

[stlukesguild]

Favorite? As in singular? Perhaps Faulkner (or Marquez) as novelists and Eugenio Montale or Yeats for poetry... but there are some many other "greats": Boris Pasternak (brilliant poet), Par Lagerkvist, T.S. Eliot, Hermann Hesse, Thomas Mann, Gunter Grass, Jose Saramago, Czeslaw Milosz, I.B. Singer, Pablo Neruda, Samuel Beckett, etc...

[chasestalling]

hemingway

[Aiculík]

Boris Pasternak (brilliant poet)

Really? I may give it a try... I only read his novel, Doctor Zhivago and was a bit disappointed... but maybe I'll like his poetry better.

[Turk]

I am not sure. Maybe Steinbeck as novelist. I also think he's one of best American novelists and better than Hemingway.

[Tasartir]

Faulkner by far! Beckett is not even a close runner-up for me.

[Dark Star]

Really? I may give it a try... I only read his novel, Doctor Zhivago and was a bit disappointed... but maybe I'll like his poetry better.

Doctor Zhivago is known to be one of his weaker works, so this is not a surprise.


I could never pick one favorite, or even half a dozen... too many great authors on that list.

However, Halldor Laxness from Iceland has not been mentioned, and may be one of the least well known of the Nobel laureates. Yet, in sheer volume, consistency of quality and artistic scope and vision of his entire authorship, Laxness is probably every bit the equal of authors like Mann and Steinbeck, who also wrote voluminously. His books often sparkle with that fairy dust that is so typically Icelandic, and which in a South American novelist would be termed "magic realism," and the books often parallel Hesse's in the way that they describe the spiritual (and artistic) developments of their protagonists.

If curious, pick up Independent People or World Light to get a general idea, then read everything else you can lay your hands on.

A wonderful by-product of reading Laxness is of course that he will transport you to one of the most special places on this earth, which is Iceland.

Thank you! I would have passed over him since I didn't recognize the name if it wasn't for this post. I love Norse mythology and pretty much collect anything Scandinavian or along those lines that I can get my hands on.

[ida]

for today - William Faulkner.

[rgdmalaysia]

Knut Hamsun
Yasunari Kawabata
Yeats
Naguib Mahfouz
Halldor Laxness

[jlb4tlb]

I would have to say Steinbeck. Lots of great authors on the list.

[Bakiryu]

Gabriel García Márquez
Pablo Neruda
William Faulkner
T.S. Eliot
Gabriela Mistral
Yeats
Rudyard Kipling

[NickAdams]

Samuel Beckett ... William Faulkner .. Ernest Hemingway.

It's so hard to choose, but as Larry David said: you can only have one.

Samuel Beckett!

[Virgil]

Faulkner, Yeats, T.S. Eliot for me.

[Idril]

Halldór Laxness, Selma Lagerlöf, Mikhail Sholokhov, Günter Grass, John Galsworthy and Gabriel Garcia Márquez

[thelastmelon]

Haven't read many, but I love Selma Lagerlöf.

[rgdmalaysia]

I could never pick one favorite, or even half a dozen... too many great authors on that list.

However, Halldor Laxness from Iceland has not been mentioned, and may be one of the least well known of the Nobel laureates. Yet, in sheer volume, consistency of quality and artistic scope and vision of his entire authorship, Laxness is probably every bit the equal of authors like Mann and Steinbeck, who also wrote voluminously. His books often sparkle with that fairy dust that is so typically Icelandic, and which in a South American novelist would be termed "magic realism," and the books often parallel Hesse's in the way that they describe the spiritual (and artistic) developments of their protagonists.

If curious, pick up Independent People or World Light to get a general idea, then read everything else you can lay your hands on.

A wonderful by-product of reading Laxness is of course that he will transport you to one of the most special places on this earth, which is Iceland.

I missed your post the first time I went through this thread but I just wanted to say I couldn't agree more. He is a terrific writer with many great works to his credit.

I would also add that the magic realism you mentioned allows Laxness to balance and minimize the misfortunes that befall his characters....And be prepared the characters in his books often have terrible, terrible things happen to them.

Independent People is of course the masterwork and should be on any best of list....The end where father and daughter make up and end their estrangement is deeply moving.

I also really liked Paradise Reclaimed (which is similar in theme to Independent People) and Iceland's Bell. The Fish Can Sing is a slight change of pace from his other works and it is interesting to contrast it with them

The Atom Station and Edge of the Glacier I also read but they are lighter novels with less weight to them IMO.

I've not read World Light but thanks for the recommendation...I will look for it.