JEWISH NOBEL PRIZE WINNERS
IN LITERATURE
(12% of world total, 27% of US total)
JINFO.ORG
Listed below are
recipients of the Nobel Prize in literature who were, or
are, Jewish (or of half-Jewish descent, as noted).
- Paul von Heyse #,1 (1910)
- Henri Bergson # (1927)
- Boris Pasternak # (1958)
- Shmuel Agnon # (1966)
- Nelly Sachs # (1966)
- Saul Bellow # (1976)
- Isaac Bashevis Singer # (1978)
- Elias Canetti # (1981)
- Joseph Brodsky # (1987)
- Nadine Gordimer # (1991)
- Imre Kertész 2 (2002)
- Elfriede Jelinek 3 (2004)
- Harold Pinter 4 (2005)
NOTES
# Encyclopaedia Judaica
(1997 CD ROM edition). (This source was listed by the Library
Journal as one of its "Top 50 Reference Works of the
Millennium.")
1. Jewish mother, non-Jewish father; see first paragraph
of autobiography: http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/literature/laureates/1910/heyse-autobio.html.
2. See first paragraph
of biography: http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/literature/laureates/2002/kertesz-bio.html.
3. Jewish father, non-Jewish mother. In a 1998
interview, Jelinek stated "Mein Vater
war auch Jude"; see fourth question in interview:
http://www.hagalil.com/archiv/98/12/jellinek.htm
and
first paragraph of bio-bibliographical notes: http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/literature/laureates/2004/bio-bibl.html.
4. See first paragraph of bio-bibliographical notes: http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/literature/laureates/2005/bio-bibl.html.
In Conversations with
Pinter, by Mel Gussow (Grove, New York, 1996,
p.103), Pinter describes his mother and father as "very
solid, very respectable, Jewish, lower middle class
people."