1941 Nobel Prize in Literature

The 1941 Nobel Prize in Literature
"in the field of literature, produced the most outstanding work in an idealistic direction".
Location	Stockholm
Country	Sweden
Presented by	Swedish Academy
Hosted by	Per Hallström
First awarded	1901
1941 laureate	none
Website	1941 Nobel Prize in Literature

The 1941 Nobel Prize in Literature was not awarded due to the ongoing World War II that started in September 1, 1939. Instead, the prize money was allocated with 1/3 to the Main Fund and with 2/3 to the Special Fund of this prize section. This was the fifth occasion in Nobel history that the prize was not conferred.

Nominations

Despite no author(s) being awarded for the 1941 prize due to the ongoing second world war, a number of literary critics, societies and academics continued sending nominations to the Nobel Committee of the Swedish Academy, hoping that their nominated candidate may be considered for the prize. In total, the academy received 21 nominations for 15 individuals.

Three of the nominees were nominated first-time namely Manoel Wanderley, Ruth Comfort Young, and Branislav Petronijević. The highest number of the nominations – three nominations – was for the Danish author Johannes Vilhelm Jensen, who was awarded in 1944. Four of the nominees were women namely Gabriela Mistral (awarded in 1945), Henriette Charasson, Maria Madalena de Martel Patrício, and Ruth Comfort Young.

The authors James Joyce, Sherwood Anderson, William Arthur Dunkerley, Banjo Paterson, Robert Byron, Oskar Baum, Tadeusz Boy-Żeleński, Émile Nelligan, José de la Cuadra, Norberto Romualdez, Penelope Delta, Marina Tsvetaeva, May Ziadeh, Hasegawa Shigure, Karin Boye, Evelyn Underhill, Elizabeth von Arnim, Gertrude Eileen Trevelyan, Elizabeth Madox Roberts, and Virginia Woolf died in 1941 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	René Béhaine (1880–1966)	France	novel, short story, essays	François Dumas (1861–1948)
2	Manoel Wanderley (?) (probably Manuel Bandeira (1886–1968))	Brazil	poetry, literary criticism, essays, translation	Francisco de Aquino Correa, S.D.B. (1885–1956)
3	Johan Falkberget (1879–1967)	Norway	novel, short story, essays	Richard Beck (1897–1980)
4	Branislav Petronijević (1875–1954)	Serbia	philosophy	Vladeta Popović (1894–1951) Marko Car (1859–1953)
5	Henriette Charasson (1884–1972)	France	poetry, essays, drama, novel, literary criticism, biography	Jacques Chevalier (1882–1962)
6	Vilhelm Grønbech (1873–1948)	Denmark	history, essays, poetry	Sven Lönborg (1871–1959)
7	Johannes Vilhelm Jensen (1873–1950)	Denmark	novel, short story, essays	Vilhelm Cederschiöld (1882–1959) Frederik Poulsen (1876–1950) Carl Adolf Bodelsen (1894–1978)
8	Edmund Blunden (1896–1974)	United Kingdom	poetry, essays, biography	Heinrich Wolfgang Donner (1904-1980)
9	Maria Madalena de Martel Patrício (1884–1947)	Portugal	poetry, essays	António Baião (1878–1961)
10	Paul Claudel (1868–1955)	France	poetry, drama, essays, memoir	Peter Hjalmar Rokseth (1891–1945)
11	Vilhelm Ekelund (1880–1949)	Sweden	poetry, essays	Hans Larsson (1862–1944) Pär Lagerkvist (1891–1974)
12	Ruth Comfort Young (1882–1954)	United States	drama, screenplay, novel, short story, poetry	Benjamin Biesel (1890–1979) Victor Bennett (?)
13	Johan Huizinga (1872–1945)	Netherlands	history	Hjalmar Hammarskjöld (1862–1953) Willem van Eysinga (1878–1961)
14	Felix Timmermans (1886–1947)	Belgium	novel, short story, drama, poetry, essays	Hjalmar Hammarskjöld (1862–1953)
15	Gabriela Mistral (1889–1957)	Chile	poetry