And the Winner is… (Nobel Prize in Literature Edition)

The Swedish Academy’s mandate for the Nobel Prize in Literature is simple, with the annual prize going to a writer who “in the field of literature, produced the most outstanding work in an idealistic direction.” Because the pool of eligible writers spans the globe and includes winners of major awards like the Pulitzer, the Booker, and the National Book Award, it’s not often an easy prize to predict, though everyone, everywhere certainly has their favorites. 

The 2025 Nobel Prize in Literature has been awarded to Hungarian author László Krasznahorkai “for his compelling and visionary oeuvre that, in the midst of apocalyptic terror, reaffirms the power of art.” The winner of numerous other prizes including the 2019 National Book Award for Baron Wenckheim’s Homecoming and the 2015 International Booker Prize is known for hauntingly hypnotic novels like Satantango, where the absurdity of humanness meets a world coming undone.

“Without fantasy, it’s an absolute different life. To read books gives us more power to survive these very difficult times on Earth.”

— László Krasznahorkai

If you’re looking to broaden your experience of World Literature — from novels in translation, to poetry or modern classics — here are a few more of our favorites from a collection of Nobel Laureates. 

Han Kang

The 2024 Nobel Prize for Literature was awarded to South Korean author Han Kang “for her intense poetic prose that confronts historical traumas and exposes the fragility of human life.” After winning the International Booker Prize in 2023 for her novel, The Vegetarian, Kang shared with the committee, “When I write fiction, I put a lot of emphasis on the senses. I want to convey vivid senses like hearing and touch, including visual images. I infuse these sensations into my sentences like an electric current.”

Jon Fosse

The 2023 Nobel Prize for Literature was awarded to Norwegian Jon Fosse for “his innovative plays and prose which give voice to the unsayable.” Le Monde calls Fosse, “the Beckett of the twenty-first century,” and a number of his books have been translated into English, including A Shining, a finalist for the National Book Award for translated literature.

Annie Ernaux 

Annie Ernaux (Nobel 2022) is an iconic French author known for the way she unsentimentally dives deep into memory, gender, class and politics. The Years covers 1941-2006, intertwining the personal and the public. In A Girl’s Story, Ernaux revisits her 18-year-old self and her painful experiences in a relationship with vulnerability and precision. Her translator and longtime American publisher joined us on our Poured Over podcast to discuss Ernaux, her work and the art of translation.

Abdulrazak Gurnah 

Abdulrazak Gurnah (Nobel 2021) is the author of ten novels, including Afterlives, Desertion and By the Sea. Gurnah is often recognized for the way he unflinchingly and compassionately calls out the effects of colonialism. To learn more, listen to Gurnah on our Poured Over podcast as he discusses his work, winning the Nobel and more.

Olga Tokarczuk 

Olga Tokarczuk (Nobel 2018) is a Polish writer known for stories that cross boundaries and ruminate on the limitations of humanity. With books like Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead and Flights, Tokarczuk leaves readers considering the murkiness of borders both physical and mental.

Kazuo Ishiguro 

If you’re looking for novels that will make you feel every emotion at once, then Kazuo Ishiguro (Nobel 2017) is the author for you. With novels like Never Let Me Go and the now classic The Remains of the Day, Ishiguro stuns with stories about our connections to the people and the world around us. 

Alice Munro 

Lorrie Moore (I Am Homeless If This is Not My Home), Margaret Atwood (The Testaments), Sheila Heti (Pure Color), Julian Barnes (Elizabeth Finch) and Khalid Hosseini (And the Mountains Echoed) have all been influenced by the stories and novels of Alice Munro (Nobel 2013). Runaway, an anthology of stories about love and betrayal, and Lives of Girls and Women, her novel about a young girl’s coming-of-age in 1940’s rural Ontario, are both terrific places to start if you’re new to Munro.

Mario Vargas Llosa 

Mario Vargas Llosa (Nobel 2010) is a Peruvian writer whose works map power structures and display individual acts of resistance, revolt and defeat. The Feast of the Goat and The War of the End of the World are both tragic works of historical fiction that dive deep into Latin American history and the bloodshed in moments of political turmoil.

Toni Morrison 

Toni Morrison’s (Nobel 1993) visionary novels shine a light on American reality and have influenced countless writers around the world. Start with Beloved, a Pulitzer Prize-winning novel about the devastation of slavery and the hope of community, and then pick up Song of Solomon, a coming-of-age story about identity, self-discovery and family history and marvel at Morrison’s writing.

Louise Glück 

With an unmistakable poetic voice, Louise Glück (Nobel 2020) makes individual experiences feel universal. Winning the Pulitzer Prize for The Wild Iris in 1993, Glück’s poetry often ruminates on themes of time and mortality. Discover more of her works when you pick up Poems 1962-2012 — a collection that spans much of Glück’s influential career.  

Seamus Heaney 

Seamus Heaney was tapped by the Nobel committee for delivering “works of lyrical beauty and ethical depth, which exalt everyday miracles and the living past.” His translation of Beowulf is a gripping and original rendition of the well-known epic poem, and his 100 Poems draws from his entire career.

V. S. Naipaul 

V.S. Naipaul (Nobel 2001) received the prize for the way he shed light onto suppressed history through his books.  A Bend in the River, the story of a young Indian man living in a town caught between the past and present, is often hailed as one of Naipaul’s greatest books. You also won’t want to miss A House for Mister Biswas, a darkly comedic story inspired by Naipaul’s own father.

J. M. Coetzee 

The author of 23 books, J. M. Coetzee (Nobel 2003) writes about outsiders and power. Start with Waiting for the Barbarians, a clever and complex story about the tension between oppressor and oppressed or his bestselling novel Disgrace, a compulsively readable lament.

Doris Lessing 

Doris Lessing (Nobel 2007) was described by the Nobel committee as “that epicist of the female experience, who with scepticism, fire and visionary power has subjected a divided civilisation to scrutiny.” Best known for The Golden Notebook (widely considered a feminist classic by many, though not the author herself), her body of work also includes a gothic horror story, The Fifth Child. 

Nadine Gordimer 

Nadine Gordimer’s (Nobel 1991) novels center on apartheid and themes of injustice and the cruelties of South Africa’s racial division. Both The Conservationist and July’s People demonstrate the complexities of the emotional and political territory of the apartheid in searing stories of the power inequalities present in the nation. 

Octavio Paz 

Naguib Mahfouz 

Naguib Mahfouz (Nobel 1988) is so far the only Egyptian writer to be awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature. Recognized for his richly nuanced works, Mahfouz is best known for The Cairo Trilogy, a series of novels that traces three generations of a family from 1919 through 1944.

Wole Soyinka 

Wole Soyinka (Nobel 1986) is the first Sub-Saharan African winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature. His debut, The Interpreters, tells the story of five young men studying abroad and reconciling the men they’re becoming with their cultural traditions. In both that novel and Chronicles from the Land of the Happiest People on Earth, Soyinka tells the story with satire and wit in ways that pierce straight to the soul. 

Saul Bellow  

Bellow’s fans include writers like Ayad Akhtar (Homeland Elegies), Jeffrey Eugenides (The Marriage Plot), Salman Rushdie (Victory City), A.S. Byatt (Possession), Ian McEwan (Lessons) and Martin Amis (The Zone of Interest). We recommend starting with either Humbolt’s Gift or The Adventures of Augie March to experience the best of Bellow. 

Elfriede Jelinek