Thursday, October 10, 2019

Old Books by (Mostly) Dead Nobel Laureates 2019

Congratulations to Olga Tokarczuk and Peter Handke!
This year the Nobel committee delivered a double whammy, making up for last year’s aborted 2018 prize (it’s a long story) as well as bestowing this year’s regularly scheduled 2019 prize. Old Books by Dead Guys congratulates both lucky winners, Poland’s Olga Tokarczuk (2018 prize) and Austria’s Peter Handke (2019 prize). As is often the case, I haven’t heard of either one of them because I’m too busy reading old books by dead guys, but I may get around to reading their critically acclaimed works in decades to come.

Each year Old Books by Dead Guys presents the cumulative list of works by Nobel laureates that have been reviewed at this blog. From now on, this list will be featured as a permanent page on the blog, with a link in the navigation bar, and will be regularly updated to serve as a reference for those interested in exploring the works of the Nobel laureates.


Over the past year, Old Books by Dead Guys has reviewed 22 works by Nobel laureates. Making their first appearance on the list this year are France’s Henri Bergson and François Mauriac, Sweden’s Sigrid Undset, Finland’s Frans Eemil Sillanpää, Russia’s Mikhail Sholokhov, Portugal’s José Saramago, Turkey’s (still very much alive) Orhan Pamuk, and a monumental trilogy by Denmark’s Johannes V. Jensen. Plus, more new works by the likes of Henryk Sienkiewicz, Hermann Hesse, John Steinbeck, and more! Check out the authors below and click on the titles to read the complete reviews.

Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson (1903 Nobel) Norway 🇳🇴

Henryk Sienkiewicz (1905 Nobel) Poland 🇵🇱


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

Selma Lagerlöf (1909 Nobel) Sweden 🇸🇪


Paul von Heyse (1910 Nobel) Germany 🇩🇪


Maurice Maeterlinck (1911 Nobel) Belgium 🇧🇪


Gerhart Hauptmann (1912 Nobel) Germany 🇩🇪


Rabindranath Tagore (1913 Nobel) India 🇮🇳

Romain Rolland (1915 Nobel) France 🇫🇷

Verner von Heidenstam (1916 Nobel) Sweden 🇸🇪

Henrik Pontoppidan (1917 Nobel) Denmark 🇩🇰

Carl Spitteler (1919 Nobel) Switzerland 🇨🇭

Knut Hamsun (1920 Nobel) Norway 🇳🇴

Anatole France (1921 Nobel) France 🇫🇷


Wladyslaw Reymont (1924 Nobel) Poland 🇵🇱


George Benard Shaw (1925 Nobel) Ireland 🇮🇪


Henri Bergson (1927 Nobel) France 🇫🇷

Sigrid Undset (1928 Nobel) Norway 🇳🇴
  • Jenny (1911) - 2.5 stars

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

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

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

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


Frans Eemil Sillanpää (1939 Nobel) Finland 🇫🇮

Johannes Vilhelm Jensen (1944 Nobel) Denmark 🇩🇰

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

Bertrand Russell (1950 Nobel) United Kingdom 🇬🇧


Pär Lagerkvist (1951 Nobel) Sweden 🇸🇪


François Mauriac (1952 Nobel) 
France 🇫🇷

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

Halldór Laxness (1955 Nobel) Iceland 🇮🇸

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

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

Mikhail Sholokhov (1965 Nobel) Soviet Union 🇷🇺

José Saramago (1998 Nobel) Portugal 🇵🇹

Orhan Pamuk (2006 Nobel) Turkey 🇹🇷
  • Snow (2002) - 3.5 stars

Mo Yan (2012 Nobel) China 🇨🇳

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

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

See you next year, Nobel!

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