Nobel Laureates in Literature

In the Spring of 1994, I taught at Uppsala University in Sweden--one of the highlights of the academic part of my career. I was what's known as a Fulbright Senior Lecturer. I taught a couple courses and had a fine time in Sweden. My grandfather came from Sweden, and his niece lived in Uppsala, so I often had dinner with her, spoke Swedish, and revisited old times. She lived--and still lives--and Murargatan--"Brick Street."

The year before, Toni Morrison had won the Nobel Prize in Literature, and the English Department at Uppsala had managed to have her visit while she was in Sweden to pick up the prize in Stockholm: what a great opportunity. I was sorry to have missed her visit but very glad she had visited.

If you're the sort of person who sometimes likes to base a schedule of reading on lists of one kind or another, then you may be interested in the last decade's worth (or so) of Nobel Laureates in Literature:

2008 Jean-Marie Gustave le Clezio
2007 Doris Lessing
2006 Orhan Pamuk
2005 Harold Pinter
2004 Elfried Jelinek
2003 J.M. Coetzee
2002 Imre Kertesz
2001 V.S. Naipaul
2000 Gao Xingjian
1999 Gunter Grass
1998 Jose Saramago
1997 Dario Fo
1996 Wislawa Szsborska
1995 Seamus Heaney
1994 Kenaburo Oe
1993 Toni Morrison
1992 Derek Walcott
1991 Nadine Gordimer
1990 Octavio Paz

For a complete list that goes back to 1901, please see . . .

http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/literature/laureates/