1944 Nobel Prize in Literature
1944 Nobel Prize in Literature | |
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Johannes V. Jensen | |
Date |
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Location | Stockholm, Sweden |
Presented by | Swedish Academy |
First awarded | 1901 |
Website | Official website |
The 1944 Nobel Prize in Literature was awarded to the Danish author Johannes V. Jensen "for the rare strength and fertility of his poetic imagination with which is combined an intellectual curiosity of wide scope and a bold, freshly creative style." He is the fourth Danish recipient of the literary prize.
Laureate
Jensens early works was in the fin-de-siècle pessimism style. He found his own voice as a writer with Himmerlandshistorier ("Himmerland Stories", 1898–1910), comprising a series of tales set in the part of Denmark where he was born. This was followed by the acclaimed historical novel The Fall of the King (1900-1901) centred on the Danish 16th century King Christian II. The novel series Den lange rejse ("The Long Journey", 1908–22), spanning the early history of humanity in six volumes with a focus on evolutionary theory, is regarded as Jensens greatest achievement. In addition to these books, Jensen wrote numerous prose works and essays and was also a prominent poet. His Digte ("Poems", 1906) is regarded as the start of modernist poetry in Denmark.
Nominations
Jensen had been nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature on 53 occasions since 1925. He was nominated every year between 1931 and 1944. In 1942 the Nobel committee received seven nominations for Jensen, followed by two nominations in 1943 and two nominations in 1944.
In total, the Nobel committee received 24 nominations for 21 individuals including Gabriela Mistral (awarded in 1945), Hermann Hesse (awarded in 1946), Enrique Larreta, Johan Huizinga, Georges Duhamel, John Steinbeck (awarded in 1962) and Paul Valéry. Four were newly nominated namely Abol-Gassem E’tessam Zadeh, Luis Nueda y Santiago, Charles Ferdinand Ramuz and Arnulf Øverland. Maria Madalena de Martel Patrício, Henriette Charasson, Elisaveta Bagryana and Gabriela Mistral were the only women nominated.
The authors George Ade, Joaquín Álvarez Quintero, Marc Bloch, Max Brand, Édouard Bourdet, Joseph Campbell, Jean Cavaillès, Irvin S. Cobb, Olive Custance, Eugénio de Castro, Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, Enrique Díez Canedo, Agnes Mary Frances Duclaux, Edith Durham, Benjamin Fondane, Giovanni Gentile, Henri Ghéon, Jean Giraudoux, Philippe Henriot, Max Jacob, Napoleon Lapathiotis, Stephen Leacock, Elsa Lindberg-Dovlette, Filippo Tommaso Marinetti, Kaj Munk, Robert Nichols, Augusta Peaux, Karel Poláček, Armand Praviel, Arthur Quiller-Couch, Jacques Roumain, Israel Joshua Singer, Ida Tarbell, Florence Trail, Margery Williams, and Harold Bell Wright died in 1944 without having been nominated for the prize.
No. | Nominee | Country | Genre(s) | Nominator(s) |
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1 | Elisaveta Bagryana (1893–1991) | Bulgaria | poetry, translation | Stefan Mladenov (1880–1963) |
2 | Nikolai Berdyaev (1874–1948) | Soviet Union ( Ukraine) |
philosophy, theology | Alf Nyman (1884–1968) |
3 | René Béhaine (1880–1966) | France | novel, short story, essays | Maurice Mignon (1882–1962) |
4 | Edmund Blunden (1896–1974) | United Kingdom | poetry, essays, biography | Heinrich Wolfgang Donner (1904-1980) |
5 | Henriette Charasson (1884–1972) | France | poetry, essays, drama, novel, literary criticism, biography |
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6 | Maria Madalena de Martel Patrício (1884–1947) | Portugal | poetry, essays | António Baião (1878–1961) |
7 | Teixeira de Pascoaes (1877–1952) | Portugal | poetry | João António Mascarenhas Júdice (1898–1957) |
8 | Georges Duhamel (1884–1966) | France | novel, short story, poetry, drama, literary criticism | Hjalmar Hammarskjöld (1862–1953) |
9 | Abol-Gassem E'tessam Zadeh (?) | Iran | novel, essays | Issa Sepahbodi (1896–?) |
10 | Vilhelm Grønbech (1873–1948) | Denmark | history, essays, poetry | Sven Lönborg (1871–1959) |
11 | Hermann Hesse (1877–1962) | Germany Switzerland |
novel, poetry, essays, short story | Anders Österling (1884–1981) |
12 | Johan Huizinga (1872–1945) | Netherlands | history | Willem van Eysinga (1878–1961) |
13 | Johannes Vilhelm Jensen (1873–1950) | Denmark | novel, short story, essays |
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14 | Enrique Larreta (1875–1961) | Argentina | history, essays, drama, novel |
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15 | Gabriela Mistral (1889–1957) | Chile | poetry | Hjalmar Hammarskjöld (1862–1953) |
16 | Charles Langbridge Morgan (1894–1958) | United Kingdom | drama, novel, essays, poetry | Sigfrid Siwertz (1882–1970) |
17 | Luis Nueda y Santiago (1883–1952) | Spain | essays | Julio Casares (1877–1964) |
18 | Arnulf Øverland (1889–1968) | Norway | poetry, essays | Rolv Thesen (1896–1966) |
19 | Charles Ferdinand Ramuz (1878–1947) | Switzerland | novel, poetry, short story | Sigfrid Siwertz (1882–1970) |
20 | John Steinbeck (1902–1968) | United States | novel, short story, screenplay | Erik Lönnroth (1910–2002) |
21 | Paul Valéry (1871–1945) | France | poetry, philosophy, essays, drama | Ernst Paulus Bendz (1880–1966) |