The nomination and deliberations for the Nobel Prizes are kept secret for fifty years -- but then the archives are opened up, and so one of the enjoyable beginning-of-the-year news stories every year is the behind-the-scenes revelations from the Nobel(s -- though really the only one that attracts much attention is the Literature prize) fifty years ago.
The Nobel Prize in Literature 1964 went to Jean-Paul Sartre -- who declined the prize. He had been a contender before: nominated fourteen times in previous years, starting in 1957, and with four nominations in 1963.
Disappointingly, the Nobel site has not (yet) updated their Nomination Archive database to include 1964, but they have now revealed that 76 candidates were in the running that year, including 19 first timers -- and at Svenska Dagbladet Kaj Schueler has the first overview of what the archives reveal:
The Nobel Prize in Literature 1964 went to Jean-Paul Sartre -- who declined the prize. He had been a contender before: nominated fourteen times in previous years, starting in 1957, and with four nominations in 1963.
Disappointingly, the Nobel site has not (yet) updated their Nomination Archive database to include 1964, but they have now revealed that 76 candidates were in the running that year, including 19 first timers -- and at Svenska Dagbladet Kaj Schueler has the first overview of what the archives reveal:
- Apparently 1965 laureate Mikhail Sholokhov was Sartre's biggest competition. (They made the right choice.)
- Others in the running included a large Swedish contingent, with several future Nobel laureates among them: Eyvind Johnson, Harry Martinson, Gunnar Ekelöf, Vilhelm Moberg, and Nelly Sachs
- First-time nominees in 1964 included one great miss -- Paul Celan -- and future laureates Miguel Ángel Asturias (1967) and Camilo José Cela (1989)