Since 1901, the Nobel Committee has honored outstanding individuals in the fields of science, peace and literature with a medal, personal diploma, cash award, and, of course, requisite fame. In his will, Alfred Nobel noted the fourth prize area to be in literature, and since then, respected writers from broad social, cultural an critical areas have been honored, including Orhan Pamuk, Seamus Heaney, John Steinbeck and Toni Morrison.
Despite the award's status, however, some of the greatest writers to have ever lived never won the medal, including Henrik Ibsen, Graham Greene, Thomas Hardy, and W.H. Auden. Every award is sure to have some oversights, but when you consider some of the actual winners that took home the prize instead, it's a bit more difficult to view the Nobel's medal as untarnished.
Case in point: Leo Tolstoy lost to Christian Matthias Theodor Mommsen in 1902. One of these men wrote works of enduring greatness. The other? Well, the other isn't Leo Tolstoy.
So, in honor of this morning's announcement, we strive to answer: Which writers would you have expected to win a Nobel, but haven't?
We've compiled a list of a few, but who else should be honored?
Nobel Snubs
Vladimir Nabokov(01 of09)
Open Image ModalThe "Lolita" author was nominated in 1974, but lost to Swedish authors Eyvind Johnson and Harry Martinson. Both Johnson and Martinson were Nobel judges.
Philip Roth(02 of09)
Open Image ModalExhibit A for the prize's 100-year snubbing of American writers. This historical ambivalence for American literature isn't just conspiracy, either. In 2008, a member of the Nobel judging panel said: "The US is too isolated, too insular. They don't translate enough and don't really participate in the big dialogue of literature. That ignorance is restraining."
Marcel Proust(03 of09)
Open Image ModalThough he wrote one of the greatest works of the last century, the "In Search Of Lost Time" writer was never given the prize. Many cite controversial themes in his work as the principal reason for the snub.
James Joyce(04 of09)
Open Image ModalIt says something when a major influence on future winners like Samuel Beckett and Saul Bellow didn't win the award himself. Never mind the fact that Joyce pioneered the modernist movement in literature with some of the greatest writing of the 20th century.
Anton Chekhov(05 of09)
Open Image ModalThe father of the modern short story is believed to have never won the award because of historical tensions between Sweden and Russia, Chekhov's native country.
Jorge Luis Borges(06 of09)
Open Image ModalPerhaps one of the most politically-driven snubs. Some speculate Borges, though nominated multiple times, never won because he supported right-wing military dictators, including Augusto Pinochet.
Leo Tolstoy(07 of09)
Open Image ModalNominated in 1901 and 1902, Tolstoy was supposedly passed over for his eccentric religious beliefs and his increasingly radical views that surfaced as he became older. Like his countryman Chekhov, he could have also been a victim of the historical antipathy between Sweden and Russia.
Ezra Pound(08 of09)
Open Image ModalThe trailblazing poet and critic was also a friend of Ernest Hemingway and James Joyce. His own works, including his epic "The Cantos," influenced his contemporaries T.S. Eliot, W.B. Yeats, and Robert Frost, to name a few. He was likely looked over for his embrace of fascism and his hateful anti-Semitic comments.
Mark Twain(09 of09)
Open Image ModalFrom 1901 to 1912, the Nobel prize's "ideal" was characterized as "a lofty and sound idealism" by a member. Most likely, the prize's embrace of writing that held church, state, and family sacred was not at all interested in Twain's work.
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