Old Books by (Mostly) Dead Nobel Laureates 2021

Congratulations to Abdulrazak Gurnah!

It was announced early this morning that novelist Abdulrazak Gurnah has won the 2021 Nobel Prize in Literature. Gurnah, the author of Paradise (1994) and Desertion (2005) was born in Zanzibar (an autonomous region of Tanzania) and emigrated to England at the age of 18. As is often the case with the current Nobel winners, I had never heard of him, but that won’t stop us from celebrating the institution of the Nobel Prize as we do every October.

Each year Old Books by Dead Guys presents the ever-growing cumulative list of works by Nobel laureates that have been reviewed at this blog. (You can also find this list by clicking on “Nobel Laureates” in the above menu bar.) Writers making their first appearance on this list in the past year include French-Algerian author Albert Camus (1957 Nobel), Colombian-Mexican author Gabriel García Marquez (1982 Nobel), Nigerian author Wole Soyinka (1986 Nobel), Spanish author Camilo José Cela (1989 Nobel), and German author Günter Grass (1999 Nobel). Plus, I’ve added new books by France’s Romain Rolland, the Soviet Union’s Mikhail Sholokhov, and more. Check out the authors below and click on the titles to read the complete reviews.

Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson (1903 Nobel) Norway 🇳🇴

• Arne: A Sketch of Norwegian Country Life (1859) - 3 stars
• A Happy Boy (1860) - 4.5 stars
• “The Father” (1860) in Stories by Foreign Authors: Scandinavian (1898) - 4.5 stars
• “The Railroad and the Churchyard” (1882) in Stories by Foreign Authors: Scandinavian (1898) - 4.5 stars
• Absolom’s Hair (English edition, 1908) - 3 stars

Henryk Sienkiewicz (1905 Nobel) Poland 🇵🇱

• In Vain (1876) - 2.5 stars
• “The Light-House Keeper of Aspinwall” (1881) in Stories by Foreign Authors: Polish, Greek, Belgian, Hungarian (1898) - 4.5 stars
• Without Dogma (1891) - 4 stars
• “Bartek the Conqueror” (1882) in Tales by Polish Authors (1915) - 5 stars
• With Fire and Sword (1884) - 4 stars
• The Deluge (1886) - 5 stars
• Pan Michael (1888) - 5 stars
• Lillian Morris and Other Stories (1894) - 4 stars
• Quo Vadis (1895) - 4.5 stars
• Children of the Soil (1895) - 1 star
• Hania (1897) - 2.5 stars
• Sielanka: An Idyll (1898) - 4 stars
• So Runs the World (1898) - 2.5 stars
• Life and Death and Other Legends and Stories (1904) - 3.5 stars
• On the Field of Glory (1906) - 3 stars
• In Desert and Wilderness (1911) - 2.5 stars

Rudyard Kipling (1907 Nobel) United Kingdom (born in India) 🇬🇧

• “The Man Who Would Be King” (1888) in Stories by English Authors: The Orient (1896) - 2 stars
• “The Courting of Dinah Shadd” (1890) in International Short Stories: English (1910) - 1 star
• Kim (1901) - 2 stars

Selma Lagerlöf (1909 Nobel) Sweden 🇸🇪

• The Treasure (1903) - 5 stars

Paul von Heyse (1910 Nobel) Germany 🇩🇪

• “The Fury” (1853) in Stories by Foreign Authors: German I (1898) - 2.5 stars
• Children of the World (1873) - 4.5 stars

Maurice Maeterlinck (1911 Nobel) Belgium 🇧🇪

• “The Massacre of the Innocents” (1886) in Stories by Foreign Authors: Polish, Greek, Belgian, Hungarian (1898) - 5 stars
• Wisdom and Destiny (1898) - 2.5 stars
• Death (1911) - 4.5 stars

Gerhart Hauptmann (1912 Nobel) Germany 🇩🇪

• Atlantis (1912) - 2.5 stars

Rabindranath Tagore (1913 Nobel) India 🇮🇳

• Mashi and Other Stories (1918) - 3.5 stars

Romain Rolland (1915 Nobel) France 🇫🇷

• Jean-Christophe, Volume 1: Dawn, Morning, Youth, Revolt (1911) - 4.5 stars
• Jean-Christophe, Volume 2: The Marketplace, Antoinette, The House ( 1911) - 3 stars
• Pierre and Luce (1920) - 4 stars

Verner von Heidenstam (1916 Nobel) Sweden 🇸🇪

• The Soothsayer (1919) - 2.5 stars
• The Birth of God (1920) - 2 stars

Henrik Pontoppidan (1917 Nobel) Denmark 🇩🇰

• Emmanuel, or Children of the Soil (English edition, 1896) - 4.5 stars

Carl Spitteler (1919 Nobel) Switzerland 🇨🇭

• Two Little Misogynists (1907) - 3 stars

Knut Hamsun (1920 Nobel) Norway 🇳🇴

• Hunger (1890) - 3.5 stars
• Shallow Soil (1893) - 4.5 stars
• Pan (1894) - 4 stars
• Under the Autumn Star (1906) - 4 stars
• A Wanderer Plays on Muted Strings (1909) - 4 stars
• Look Back on Happiness (1912) - 2.5 stars
• Growth of the Soil (1917) - 5 stars

Anatole France (1921 Nobel) France 🇫🇷

• “The Juggler of Notre Dame” (1892) in Stories by Foreign Authors: French I (1898) - 4 stars
• The Gods Are Athirst (1912) - 3 stars

Wladyslaw Reymont (1924 Nobel) Poland 🇵🇱

• The Comedienne (1896) - 3 stars
• “In the Old Town at Lodz” in Anthology of Modern Slavonic Literature in Prose and Verse - 4.5 stars
• The Peasants (1904-1909) - 5 stars
• “The Trial” in More Tales by Polish Authors (1916) - 4.5 stars
• “A Polish Scene” in Selected Polish Tales (1921) - 3 stars
• “Death” in Selected Polish Tales (1921) - 2 stars

George Benard Shaw (1925 Nobel) Ireland 🇮🇪

• “The Miraculous Revenge” in Little Blue Book No. 215 (ca. 1923) - 1.5 stars

Henri Bergson (1927 Nobel) France 🇫🇷

• An Introduction to Metaphysics (1903) - 2 stars

Sigrid Undset (1928 Nobel) Norway 🇳🇴

• Jenny (1911) - 2.5 stars

Sinclair Lewis (1930 Nobel) United States of America 🇺🇸

• Free Air (1919) - 2.5 stars
• Main Street (1920) - 3 stars
• Babbitt (1922) - 4.5 stars
• It Can’t Happen Here (1935) - 3.5 stars

John Galsworthy (1932 Nobel) United Kingdom 🇬🇧

• The Man of Property (1906) - 3 stars
• “Buttercup Night” (1914) in Atlantic Narratives: Modern Short Stories (1918) - 4 stars

Ivan Bunin (1933 Nobel) France (born in Russia) 🇫🇷 🇷🇺

• The Gentleman from San Francisco and Other Stories (1922) - 4.5 stars

Eugene O’Neill (1936 Nobel) United States of America 🇺🇸

• “Tomorrow” (1917) - 4 stars
• The Straw (1919) - 2 stars
• Beyond the Horizon (1920) - 3.5 stars
• Gold (1920) - 3 stars
• Anna Christie (1921) - 4.5 stars
• Diff’rent (1921) - 3.5 stars
• The First Man (1922) - 3 stars
• The Hairy Ape (1922) - 4 stars
• Welded (1924) - 1 star
• All God’s Chillun Got Wings (1924) - 2.5 stars
• Desire Under the Elms (1924) - 3 stars
• The Fountain (1926) - 3.5 stars

Pearl S. Buck (1938 Nobel) United States of America (raised in China) 🇺🇸

• East Wind, West Wind (1930) - 3 stars
• The Good Earth (1931) - 5 stars
• Sons (1933) - 4 stars
• A House Divided (1935)- 4.5 stars
• Other Gods (1940) - 3 stars
• Dragon Seed (1942) - 4 stars
• The Promise (1943) - 4 stars
• China Flight (1943) - 3.5 stars
• The Townsman (1945) - 2 stars
• Peony (1948) - 4 stars
• Command the Morning (1959) - 4.5 stars
• The Living Reed: A Novel of Korea (1963) - 3 stars
• Death in the Castle (1965) - 2 stars

Frans Eemil Sillanpää (1939 Nobel) Finland 🇫🇮

• People in the Summer Night (1934) - 4 stars

Johannes Vilhelm Jensen (1944 Nobel) Denmark 🇩🇰

• Fire and Ice (The Long Journey, Volume 1) (1908-1922) - 5 stars
• The Cimbrians (The Long Journey, Volume 2) (1908-1922) - 5 stars
• Christopher Columbus (The Long Journey, Volume 3) (1908-1922) - 5 stars

Hermann Hesse (1946 Nobel) Switzerland (born in Germany) 🇨🇭 🇩🇪

• Peter Camenzind (1904) - 3.5 stars
• Beneath the Wheel (1906) - 3 stars
• Gertrude (1910) - 4 stars
• Rosshalde (1914) - 3 stars
• Knulp (1915) - 4.5 stars
• Demian (1919) - 3 stars
• Klingsor’s Last Summer (1920) - 3.5 stars
• Siddhartha (1922) - 4 stars
• Steppenwolf (1927) - 4.5 stars
• Narcissus and Goldmund (1930) - 4 stars
• The Journey to the East (1932) - 1.5 stars
• The Glass Bead Game (1943) - 3.5 stars
• Stories of Five Decades (1972) - 4 stars
• The Fiction of Hermann Hesse (an overview)

Bertrand Russell (1950 Nobel) United Kingdom 🇬🇧

• The Problems of Philosophy (1912) - 5 stars
• Proposed Roads to Freedom (1918) - 4 stars
• The Philosophy of Bertrand Russell (1940) by George Santayana - 2.5 stars

Pär Lagerkvist (1951 Nobel) Sweden 🇸🇪

• Barabbas (1950) - 4 stars

François Mauriac (1952 Nobel) France 🇫🇷

• The Kiss to the Leper (1922) - 4 stars

Ernest Hemingway (1954 Nobel) United States of America 🇺🇸

• A Farewell to Arms (1929) - 3.5 stars

Halldór Laxness (1955 Nobel) Iceland 🇮🇸

• “New Iceland” (1927) in Seven Icelandic Short Stories (1961) - 4.5 stars
• The Atom Station (1948) - 2 stars

Albert Camus (1957 Nobel) France (born in Algeria) 🇫🇷

• The Stranger (1942) - 5 stars

Borris Pasternak (1958 Nobel) Russia (Soviet Union) 🇷🇺

• Doctor Zhivago (1957) - 4 stars

John Steinbeck (1962 Nobel) United States of America 🇺🇸

• The Harvest Gypsies (1936) - 4 stars
• In Dubious Battle (1936) - 3.5 stars
• Of Mice and Men (1937)- 4.5 stars
• The Long Valley (1938) - 4.5 stars
• Cannery Row (1945) - 3.5 stars
• The Log from the Sea of Cortez (1951) - 3.5 stars

Mikhail Sholokhov (1965 Nobel) Soviet Union 🇷🇺

• And Quiet Flows the Don (1932) - 5 stars
• The Don Flows Home to the Sea (1940) - 5 stars

Gabriel García Marquez (1982 Nobel) Colombia 🇨🇴

• One Hundred Years of Solitude (1967) - 3.5 stars

Wole Soyinka (1986 Nobel) Nigeria 🇳🇬

• The Interpreters (1965) - 2 stars

Camilo José Cela (1989 Nobel) Spain 🇪🇸

• The Family of Pascual Duarte (1942) - 4.5 stars

José Saramago (1998 Nobel) Portugal 🇵🇹

• The Cave (2000) - 3.5 stars

Günter Grass (1999 Nobel) Germany 🇩🇪

• The Tin Drum (1959) - 1.5 stars

Orhan Pamuk (2006 Nobel) Turkey 🇹🇷

• Snow (2002) - 3.5 stars

Mo Yan (2012 Nobel) China 🇨🇳

• Life and Death Are Wearing Me Out (2006) - 4 stars

Bob Dylan (2016 Nobel) United States of America 🇺🇸

• Chronicles: Volume One (2004) - 4 stars
• The Songs He Didn’t Write: Bob Dylan Under the Influence (2008) by Derek Barker - 5 stars
• Bob Dylan: Like a Complete Unknown (2011) by David Yaffe - 3 stars
• Dylan: Disc by Disc (2015) by John Bream - 4.5 stars
• Bob Dylan: The Essential Interviews (2017), edited by Jonathan Cott - 4 stars
• Bob Dylan: A Spiritual Life (2017) by Scott M. Marshall - 4.5 stars

Olga Tokarczuk (2018 Nobel) Poland 🇵🇱

• Flights (2007) - 3.5 stars

Bonus: Albert Einstein (1921 Nobel in Physics) Germany/Switzerland 🇩🇪 🇨🇭

• Essays in Humanism (1950) - 4 stars