The first concession of Nobel Prize for Literature It took place in 1901. Alfred Nobel, inventor of dynamite and creator of the prizes, requested that it be awarded each year “to the one who has produced the most remarkable work in the literary field.” The first woman to win a Nobel Prize was Marie Curiewho won the physics prize in 1903. However, it took almost a decade for the first writer to win this prize. It was Swedish Selma Lagerlöfin 1909.
With the designation of Han KangNobel Prize in Literature 2024, the list of laureates since 1901 stands at eighteen women compared to 103 men. The South Korean is also the first Asian woman in history to win the world’s most prestigious literary prize, since Doris Lesingwinner in 2007, was born in Iran, but was of British nationality.
It is evident that in recent years the Swedish Academy has followed equal criteria in choosing winners. It is telling that nine of the eighteen women winners of the Nobel Prize for Literature, or half, won it in the 21st century. The Austrian Elfriede Jelinekthe British Doris LesingRomanian Herta Mullerthe Canadian Alice MunroBelarusian Svetlana Alexievichthe varnish Olga Tokarczukthe American Louise Gluck and the French Annie Ernaux.
During this century, Han Kang has been the youngest to achieve itat 53, surpassing Herta Müller and Olga Tokarczuk, who were 56 when they reached it in 2009 and 2018 respectively.
Since 2018 precisely, until 2024, a scrupulous alternation has been maintained, in terms of gender, when the winners of the Nobel Prize for Literature are announced. Tokarczuk (2018), Glück (2020) and Ernaux (2022) are the latest writers to receive the world’s most important literary recognition, while German Peter Handke (2019), the Tanzanian Abdulrazak Gurnah (2021) and Norwegian Jon Fosse (2023) complete the quota of men over the last five years.
Before all those mentioned, the women who won the Nobel Prize for Literature in the 20th century were the Swedes. Selma Lagerlöf (1909), Italian Grace Deledda (1926), Norwegian Sigrid Undset (1928), The American Pearl S. Buck (1938), Chilean Gabriela Mistral (1945), German Nelly Sachs (1966), the South African Nadine Gordimer (1991), The American Tony Morrison (1993) and the Polish project Wisława Szymborska (1996).
