1955 Nobel Prize in Literature

The 1955 Nobel Prize in Literature
Halldór Kiljan Laxness
"for his vivid epic power which has renewed the great narrative art of Iceland."
Date	6 October 1955
Location	Stockholm
Country	Sweden
Presented by	Swedish Academy
Hosted by	Anders Österling
First awarded	1901
Website	1955 Nobel Prize in Literature

The 1955 Nobel Prize in Literature was awarded to the Icelandic writer Halldór Kiljan Laxness (1902–1998) "for his vivid epic power which has renewed the great narrative art of Iceland." He is the first and only Icelandic recipient of the Nobel prize in all categories. The literary critic Sveinn Hoskuldsson described him, saying:

"His chief literary works belong to the genre... [of] narrative prose fiction. In the history of our literature Laxness is mentioned beside Snorri Sturluson, the author of "Njals saga", and his place in world literature is among writers such as Cervantes, Zola, Tolstoy, and Hamsun... He is the most prolific and skillful essayist in Icelandic literature both old and new..."

Laureate

Main article: Halldór Laxness

Halldór Laxness wrote novels, poetry, journalism, essays and plays. He is best known for three series of books that are set in Iceland and in some way incorporate social realism and were written in the 1930s. Salka Valka: A Novel of Iceland (1931–1922) describes life in an Icelandic fishing village; Sjálfstaett fólk: Hetjusaga ("Independent People: An Epic", 1934–35) is a four-part series based on the life of poet Magnus Hjaltason Magnusson; and Heimsljós ("World Light", 1937–1940) is a four-part series. The conventional Icelandic saga influenced Laxness' later works. His other famous works include Vefarinn mikli frá Kasmír ("The Great Weaver from Kashmir", 1927), Atómstöðin ("The Atom Station", 1948), and Brekkukotsannáll ("The Fish Can Sing", 1957).

Deliberations

Nominations

In total, the Nobel Committee received 59 nominations for 46 individuals. 17 of the nominees were newly nominated including Ezra Pound, Edith Sitwell, Adriaan Roland Holst, William Somerset Maugham, Eugenio Montale (awarded in 1975), Henri Bosco, Ernst Robert Curtius, Giorgos Seferis (awarded in 1963), Saint-John Perse (awarded in 1960), Carlos Vaz Ferreira, and Giovanni Papini. Three of the nominees were women namely the British critic Edith Sitwell, the Estonian poet Marie Under, and the Danish author Karen Blixen.

The authors Wallace Stevens, Robert P. Tristram Coffin, Robert Riskin, Robert E. Sherwood, Dale Carnegie, James Agee, Gilbert Cannan, Joseph Jefferson Farjeon, Roger Mais, Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, Mariano Latorre, Alexandru Teodor Stamatiad, Augustin Josip Ujević, Saadat Hasan Manto, Hong Shen, Constance Holme, Adrienne Monnier, Beatrice Chase, and Ruby Mildred Ayres died in 1955 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	Saint-John Perse (1887–1975)	France	poetry	Thomas Stearns Eliot (1888–1965) Dag Hammarskjöld (1905–1961)
2	Eugenio Montale (1896–1981)	Italy	poetry, translation	Thomas Stearns Eliot (1888–1965)
3	Giuseppe Ungaretti (1888–1970)	Italy	poetry, essays, literary criticism	Giuseppe de Robertis (1888–1963) Robert Vivier (1894–1989) Thomas Stearns Eliot (1888–1965)
4	Lion Feuchtwanger (1884–1958)	Germany	novel, drama	Victor Klemperer (1881–1960)
5	Igor Gouzenko (1919–1982)	Russia Canada	novel, essays	Eugene Hudson Long (1908–1990) Gerald Warner Brace (1901–1978)
6	Robert Frost (1874–1963)	United States	poetry, drama	Cecil Day-Lewis (1904–1972)
7	Ramón Menéndez Pidal (1869–1968)	Spain	philology, history	Gunnar Tilander (1894–1973) Rudolf Grossmann (1892–1980)
8	Leslie Poles Hartley (1895–1972)	United Kingdom	novel, short story, essays	Geoffrey Tillotson (1905–1969)
9	George Macauley Trevelyan (1876–1962)	United Kingdom	biography, autobiography, essays, history	Winston Churchill (1874–1965)
10	Eugène Baie (1874–1964)	Belgium	law, essays	Royal Academy of Science, Letters and Fine Arts of Belgium
11	Gustav Suits (1883–1956)	Estonia	poetry, essays	William Kleesmann Matthews (1901–1958)
12	Marie Under (1883–1980)	Estonia	poetry
13	Mark Aldanov (1886–1957)	Ukraine France	biography, novel, essays, literary criticism	Samson Soloveitchik (1887–1974)
14	Nikos Kazantzakis (1883–1957)	Greece	novel, philosophy, essays, drama, memoir, translation	Lorentz Eckhoff (1884–1974) Society of Men of Letters of Greece
15	Edward Morgan Forster (1879–1970)	United Kingdom	novel, short story, drama, essays, biography, literary criticism	Denys Page (1908–1978)
16	Reinhold Schneider (1903–1958)	Germany	poetry, novel, drama, essays	Eduard von Jan (1885–1971)
17	Ernst Robert Curtius (1886–1956)	Germany	philology, literary criticism	Max Vasmer (1886–1962)
18	Edith Sitwell (1887–1964)	United Kingdom	poetry, essays, memoir	Gladys Doidge Willcock (?)
19	Tarjei Vesaas (1897–1970)	Norway	poetry, novel	Sigmund Skard (1903–1995)
20	William Somerset Maugham (1874–1965)	United Kingdom	novel, short story, drama, essays	Geoffrey Bullough (1901–1982)
21	Aldous Huxley (1894–1963)	United Kingdom	novel, short story, essays, poetry, screenplay, drama, philosophy
22	Johan Falkberget (1879–1967)	Norway	novel, short story, essays	Harald Beyer (1891–1960) Hans Heiberg (1904–1978)
23	Ezra Pound (1885–1972)	United States	poetry, essays	Constantine Athanasius Trypanis (1909–1993)
24	Seán O'Casey (1880–1964)	Ireland	drama, memoir	Una Ellis-Fermor (1894–1958)
25	Karen Blixen (1885–1962)	Denmark	novel, short story, memoir	Nils Ahnlund (1889–1957)
26	Albert Camus (1913–1960)	France	novel, short story, essays, philosophy, drama	Bo Bergman (1869–1967) Henrik Samuel Nyberg (1889–1974) Birger Ekeberg (1880–1968)
27	Gottfried Benn (1886–1956)	Germany	poetry, essays	Bertil Malmberg (1889–1958)
28	Halldór Laxness (1902–1998)	Iceland	novel, short story, drama, poetry	Steingrímur Þorsteinsson (1911–1973) Jón Helgason (1899–1986) Sigurður Nordal (1886–1974) Sverker Ek (1887–1981) Elias Wessén (1889–1981) Stellan Arvidson (1902–1997)
29	Gunnar Gunnarsson (1889–1975)	Iceland	novel, short story, poetry	Harry Martinson (1904–1978) Henry Olsson (1896–1985) Stellan Arvidson (1902–1997)
30	Henri Bosco (1888–1976)	France	novel, short story	Raymond Las Vergnas (1902–1994)
31	Carlos Vaz Ferreira (1872–1958)	Uruguay	philosophy, law, essays	Academia Nacional de Letras
32	André Malraux (1901–1976)	France	novel, essays, literary criticism	Gladys Turquet-Milnes (1887–1977)
33	Jules Romains (1885–1972)	France	poetry, drama, screenplay	Alfred Jolivet (1885–1966)
34	Alberto Moravia (1907–1990)	Italy	novel, literary criticism, essays, drama	Carlo Dionisotti (1908–1998)
35	Georges Duhamel (1884–1966)	France	novel, short story, poetry, drama, literary criticism	Maurice Le Boucher (1882–1964) André Plassart (1889–1978)
36	Hans Carossa (1878–1956)	Germany	poetry, autobiography, essays	Maurice Le Boucher (1882–1964)
37	Adriaan Roland Holst (1888–1976)	Netherlands	poetry	Jan Kamerbeek Jr. (1905–1977)
38	Simon Vestdijk (1898–1971)	Netherlands	novel, poetry, essays, translation
39	Arthur Bryant (1899–1985)	United Kingdom	history	E. R. Vincent (1894–1978)
40	Mikhail Sholokhov (1905–1984)	Russia	novel	Sergei Sergeyev-Tsensky (1875–1958)
41	Giovanni Papini (1881–1956)	Italy	essays, novel, short story, poetry, literary criticism, philosophy	Henri de Ziégler (1885–1970)
42	Rudolf Kassner (1873–1959)	Austria	philosophy, essays, translation	The Austrian PEN-Club
43	Julien Benda (1867–1956)	France	novel, philosophy, essays, literary criticism	Holger Sten (1907–1971)
44	Paul Claudel (1868–1955)	France	poetry, drama, essays, memoir	Erik Hjalmar Linder (1906–1994)
45	Giorgos Seferis (1900–1971)	Greece	poetry, memoir, essays	Romilly Jenkins (1907–1969)
46	Juan Ramón Jiménez (1881–1958)	Spain	poetry, novel	Hjalmar Gullberg (1898–1961)

Award Ceremony

In the presentation address for the Nobel prize Elias Wessén stated:

"He is an excellent painter of Icelandic scenery and settings. Yet this is not what he has conceived of as his chief mission. 'Compassion is the source of the highest poetry. Compassion with Asta Sollilja on earth,' he says in one of his best books… And a social passion underlies everything Halldór Laxness has written. His personal championship of contemporary social and political questions is always very strong, sometimes so strong that it threatens to hamper the artistic side of his work. His safeguard then is the astringent humour which enables him to see even people he dislikes in a redeeming light, and which also permits him to gaze far down into the labyrinths of the human soul."

External links

• Award Ceremony speech nobelprize.org
• The Nobel Prize Award Ceremony 1955 nobelprize.org