10 Nobel laureates and tips from their oeuvre.
While not all great writers have received a Nobel Prize for Literature (yet), this prestigious award is nevertheless an interesting way of discovering new books. Here are my 10 favourite Nobel laureates.
Note: While I mainly read in English, I also sometimes read novels in German or French, or translations of other languages. I have, however, focused mainly on the English writers in this list, as I know and love those the most - with one exception. This does obviously not mean that there are not many other great writers in other parts of the literary world too; specifically among Nobel laureates for example Czeslaw Milosz, Jean-Paul Sartre or Elfriede Jelinek - they are just not among my favourites, and reading translations is somehow not quite the same thing as the original for me.
John Steinbeck (American), 1902-1968
Year of Nobel Prize: 1962
Recommended reading: Grapes of Wrath, East of Eden, Of Mice and Men, Tortilla Flat, Cannery Row
J.M. Coetzee (South African-Australian), 1940-
Year of Nobel Prize: 2003
Recommended reading: Disgrace, Waiting for the Barbarians, Life & Times of Michael K.
Toni Morrisson (American), 1931-2019
Year of Nobel Prize: 1993
Recommended reading: Beloved, Song of Solomon
George Bernard Shaw (English), 1856-1950
Year of Nobel Prize: 1925
Recommended reading: Pygmalion
William Golding (British), 1911-1993
Year of Nobel Prize: 1983
Recommended reading: The Lord of the Flies
Kazuo Ishiguro (Japanese-British), 1954-
Year of Nobel Prize: 2017
Recommended reading: The Remains of the Day, Never Let Me Go, The Buried Giant, A Pale View of Hills, When We Were Orphans
Thomas Mann (German), 1875-1955
Year of Nobel Prize: 1929
Recommended reading: Buddenbrooks, Death in Venice
Alice Munro (Canadian), 1931-
Year of Nobel Prize: 2013
Recommended reading: any short story collection, especially "The Love of a Good Woman" and "Runaway"
Ernest Hemingway (American), 1899-1961
Year of Nobel Prize: 1954
Recommended reading: The Sun Also Rises, The Old Man and the Sea, For Whom the Bell Tolls, A Farewell to Arms, all short stories (especially the collection "Men Without Women")
Rudyard Kipling (English), 1865-1936
Year of Nobel Prize: 1907
Recommended reading: The Jungle Book