1932 Nobel Prize in Literature
{{Infobox award
| name = 20px 1932 Nobel Prize in Literature
| subheader = John Galsworthy
| awarded_for =
| presenter = Swedish Academy
| year = 1901
| website = {{official website|https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/literature/1932/summary/}}
| holder_label = 1932 laureate
| holder =
| image = John Galsworthy 2.jpg
| caption = "for his distinguished art of narration which takes its highest form in The Forsyte Saga."
| host =
| date = {{plainlist|
- 10 November 1932 (announcement)
- 10 December 1932
(ceremony)
}}
| location = Stockholm, Sweden
| previous = 1931
| main = Nobel Prize in Literature
| next = 1933
}}
The 1932 Nobel Prize in Literature was awarded to the British author John Galsworthy (1867–1933) "for his distinguished art of narration which takes its highest form in The Forsyte Saga".{{Cite web |url=https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/literature/1932/summary/ |title=The Nobel Prize in Literature 1932 |publisher=nobelprize.org }} Galsworthy was only the second English author to receive the Nobel Prize in Literature since its inception in 1901.{{efn|group=notes|The first English author to receive the prize was Rudyard Kipling, in 1907. Between the two awards, the prize had gone to three non-English authors who wrote in English: W. B. Yeats (1923), Bernard Shaw (1925), and Sinclair Lewis (1930); Rabindranath Tagore (1913) also sometimes wrote in English.}}
Laureate
{{Main|John Galsworthy}}
John Galsworthy is best known for the novel sequence The Forsyte Saga which chronicles the lives of three generations of a large, upper-middle-class family at the turn of the 19th/20th century. Galsworthy was also a successful playwright who examined controversial ethical or social problems in plays such as Strife (1909), Justice (1910) and Loyalties (1922).{{Cite encyclopedia |url=https://www.britannica.com/biography/John-Galsworthy |title=John Galsworthy |encyclopedia=Encyclopædia Britannica }}{{cite web|url=https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/literature/1932/galsworthy/facts/|title=John Galsworthy – Facts|website=nobelprize.org}}
=''The Forsyte Saga''=
The first book in this extensive series was published in 1906. The upper middle classes and Galsworthy's own upbringing were harshly criticized in The Man of Property. Galsworthy did not start working on it right away; he had to wait fifteen years, during which World War I broke out, before he started again with In Chancery (1920) and To Let (1921). He had penned a sizable quantity of plays, short stories, and novels in the interim. The three volumes of A Modern Comedy, The White Monkey (1924), The Silver Spoon (1926), Swan Song (1928), and its two interludes, A Silent Wooing and Passersby (1927), carried on the Forsyte Saga. These should be supplemented with a collection of short stories called On Forsyte Change (1930). Of Galsworthy's 20 novels, nine are about the Forsytes (the last three tangentially so) and the other eleven are all one-off stories.
Nominations
John Galsworthy was nominated six times (1919–1922, 1931 and 1932) before he was awarded the prize in 1932. His first nomination came from Erik Axel Karlfeldt (1864–1931), the permanent secretary of the Swedish Academy. Others were from the persistent recommendation by other academy members such as Anders Österling, Martin Lamm, and Henrik Schück.{{Cite web|url=https://www.nobelprize.org/nomination/archive/show_people.php?id=3315 |title=Nomination archive – John Galsworthy |date=21 May 2024 |publisher=nobelprize.org }}
In total, the Nobel Committee received 48 nominations for 31 writers which included Ramón Menéndez Pidal, Ivan Bunin (awarded in 1933), Frans Eemil Sillanpää (awarded in 1939), Johannes V. Jensen (awarded in 1944), Paul Valéry, Kostis Palamas, Olav Duun, and H. G. Wells. Nine of the nominees were newly nominated namely Percival Elgood, Michael Blümelhuber, Grigol Robakidze, Axel Munthe, Francesco Orestano, Karel Čapek, Vilhelm Ekelund, Manuel Gálvez and Upton Sinclair. The Spanish author Concha Espina de la Serna was the only female nominee.{{Cite web|url=https://www.nobelprize.org/nomination/archive/list.php?prize=4&year=1932 |title=Nomination archive – Literature 1932 |date=21 May 2024 |publisher=nobelprize.org }}
The authors Christopher Brennan, Mona Caird, Charles W. Chesnutt, Hart Crane, Evelyn Everett-Green, J. Meade Falkner, Kenneth Grahame, Ella Hepworth Dixon, Augusta Gregory, Jonas Mačiulis (known as Maironis), Gustav Meyrink, Harold Monro, Iacob Negruzzi, Giuseppe Peano, Sibylle Riqueti de Mirabeau (known as Gyp), Ahmed Shawqi, Frederick Jackson Turner, Edgar Wallace, Henry S. Whitehead and Emma Wolf died in 1932 without having been nominated for the prize.
| class="sortable wikitable mw-collapsible"
|+ class="nowrap" | Official list of nominees and their nominators for the prize |
|
! scope=col | No. ! scope=col | Nominee ! scope=col | Country ! scope=col | Genre(s) ! scope=col | Nominator(s) |
| 1
|Michael Blümelhuber (1865–1936) |{{flag|Republic of Austria|name=Austria}} |essays, poetry |Oswald Redlich (1858–1944) |
| 2
|Johan Bojer (1872–1959) |{{flag|Norway}} |novel, drama |Anders Sandvig (1862–1950) |
| 3
|Georg Bonne (1859–1945) |{{flag|Weimar Republic|name=Germany}} |essays |{{unbulleted list|Oswald Floeck (1874–1943)|Günther Müller (1925–2020)}} |
| 4
|Olaf Bull (1883–1933) |{{flag|Norway}} |poetry |{{unbulleted list|Francis Bull (1887–1974)|Jens Thiis (1870–1942)}} |
| 5
|Ivan Bunin (1870–1953) |{{flag|Soviet Union}} |short story, novel, poetry |{{unbulleted list|Ettore Lo Gatto (1890–1983)|Michael Rostovtzeff (1870–1952)|Vladimir Frant͡sev (1867–1942)|Olaf Broch (1867–1961)|Sigurd Agrell (1881–1937)}} |
| 6
|Karel Čapek (1890–1938) |{{flag|Czechoslovakia}} |drama, novel, short story, essays, literary criticism |10 professors of the University in Prague |
| 7
|Hans Driesch (1867–1941) |{{flag|Weimar Republic|name=Germany}} |philosophy |{{unbulleted list|Ernest Bovet (1870–1941)|Fritz Kern (1884–1950)}} |
| 8
|Olav Duun (1876–1939) |{{flag|Norway}} |novel, short story |{{unbulleted list|Helga Eng (1875–1966)|Halvdan Koht (1873–1965)}} |
| 9
|Vilhelm Ekelund (1880–1949) |{{flag|Sweden}} |poetry, essays |Alexander Seippel (1851–1938) |
| 10
|Percival Elgood (1863–1941) |{{flag|United Kingdom}} |history |Arthur James Grant (1862–1948) |
| 11
|Paul Ernst (1866–1933) |{{flag|Weimar Republic|name=Germany}} |novel, short story, drama, essays |Fredrik Böök (1883–1961) |
| 12
|Concha Espina de la Serna (1869–1955) |{{flag|Spanish Republic|name=Spain}} |novel, short story |{{unbulleted list|Rudolf J. Slabý (1885–1957)|John Driscoll Fitz-Gerald (1873–1946)}} |
| 13
|John Galsworthy (1867–1933) |{{flag|United Kingdom}} |novel, drama, essays, short story, memoir |Henrik Schück (1855–1947) |
| 14
|Manuel Gálvez (1882–1962) |{{flag|Argentina}} |novel, poetry, drama, essays, history, biography |{{unbulleted list|Jeremiah D. M. Ford (1873–1958)|28 professors from the University of Buenos Aires}} |
| 15
|Bertel Gripenberg (1878–1947) |{{flag|Finland}} |poetry, drama, essays |Arno Cederberg (1885–1948){{efn|group=notes|name=en|Frans Eemil Sillanpää and Bertel Gripenberg were nominated together by Arno R. Cederberg, though the nominations have different entry numbers.}} |
| 16
|Johannes Vilhelm Jensen (1873–1950) |{{flag|Denmark}} |novel, short story, poetry |{{unbulleted list|Paul Rubow (1896–1972)|Hans Brix (1870–1961)|Johannes Brøndum-Nielsen (1881–1977)}} |
| 17
|Johannes Jørgensen (1866–1956) |{{flag|Denmark}} |novel, poetry, biography |Viggo Brøndal (1887–1942) |
| 18
|Rudolf Kassner (1873–1959) |{{flag|Republic of Austria|name=Austria}} |philosophy, essays, translation |Several professors{{efn|group=notes|Rudolf Kassner was nominated by a number of German, Austrian and Swiss professors, most of whom were eligible to nominate a candidate.}} |
| 19
|Ramón Menéndez Pidal (1869–1968) |{{flag|Spanish Republic|name=Spain}} |philology, history |{{unbulleted list|Erik Staaff (1867–1936)|30 members of the Royal Spanish Academy}} |
| 20
|Dmitry Merezhkovsky (1865–1941) |{{flag|Soviet Union}} |novel, essays, poetry, drama |Sigurd Agrell (1881–1937) |
| 21
|Axel Munthe (1857–1949) |{{flag|Sweden}} |memoir, essays |Rolf Lagerborg (1874–1959) |
| 22
|Francesco Orestano (1873–1945) |{{flag|Kingdom of Italy|name=Italy}} |philosophy, essays |Pietro Bonfante (1864–1932) |
| 23
|Kostis Palamas (1859–1943) |{{flag|Second Hellenic Republic|name=Greece}} |poetry, essays |Simos Menardos (1871–1933) |
| 24
|Grigol Robakidze (1880–1962) |{{flag|Georgian Soviet Socialist Republic|name=Georgia}} |novel, short story, poetry, drama |Richard Meckelein (1880–1948) |
| 25
|Edwin Arlington Robinson (1869–1935) |{{flag|United States|1912}} |poetry, drama |Hjalmar Hammarskjöld (1862–1953) |
| 26
|Ivan Shmelyov (1873–1950) |{{flag|Soviet Union}} |novel, short story |Nicolaas van Wijk (1880–1941) |
| 27
|Frans Eemil Sillanpää (1888–1964) |{{flag|Finland}} |novel, short story, poetry |{{unbulleted list|Torsten Evert Karsten (1870–1942)|Eemil Nestor Setälä (1864–1935)|Rafael Erich (1879–1946)|Arno Cederberg (1885–1948){{efn|name=en}}}} |
| 28
|Upton Sinclair (1878–1968) |{{flag|United States|1912}} |novel, short story, drama, autobiography, essays |{{unbulleted list|800 nominators{{efn|group=notes|800 nominations from all over the world were collected and sent together, by Ernest S. Greene (1864–1936), secretary of a committee in New York, United States. Among the nominators were members of the French and Spanish Academies, and professors (eligible to nominate) from several universities.}}}} |
| 29
|Paul Valéry (1871–1945) |{{flag|French Third Republic|name=France}} |poetry, philosophy, essays, drama |{{unbulleted list|5 members of the Académie Française|23 professors{{efn|group=notes|Several were members of the French Academy (Académie Française), and Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres.}}}} |
| 30
|Herbert George Wells (1866–1946) |{{flag|United Kingdom}} |novel, short story, essays, history, biography |20px Sinclair Lewis (1885–1951) |
| 31
|Anton Wildgans (1881–1932) |{{flag|Republic of Austria|name=Austria}} |poetry, drama |{{unbulleted list|24 professors from the University of Vienna|Axel Romdahl (1880–1951)}} |
Reactions
The choice of John Galsworthy caused a group of young Swedish authors to protest against the Swedish Academy's conservatism by sending a telegram to the Russian author Maxim Gorky, expressing their regret that he had not been awarded the prize.Gustav Källstrand Andens Olympiska Spel. Nobelprisets historia Fri Tanke 2021, p. 451
Galsworthy himself did not think he deserved the award. "As the least worthy of the Nobel prizemen honoured today I shall have but few words to say", he wrote in his acceptance speech.James Gindin "A retrospective introduction" The Life and Art of John Galsworthy: An Alien's Fortress, MacMillan 1987
Award ceremony
At the award ceremony in Stockholm on 10 December 1932, Anders Österling of the Swedish Academy praised the Forsyte Saga as "a masterpiece of an energetic, firm, and independent account of human nature", noting that the two trilogies "together form an unusual literary accomplishment. The novelist has carried the history of his time through three generations, and his success in mastering so excellently his enormously difficult material, both in its scope and in its depth, remains an extremely memorable feat in English literature"{{Cite web |url=https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/literature/1932/ceremony-speech/ |title=Award ceremony speech |publisher=nobelprize.org }}
Due to poor health, John Galsworthy was not able to travel to Stockholm for the award ceremony. He died only a few weeks later.
Notes
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References
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