1960 Nobel Prize in Literature
{{Infobox award
| name = 20px 1960 Nobel Prize in Literature
| subheader = Saint-John Perse
| awarded_for =
| presenter = Swedish Academy
| year = 1901
| website = {{official website|https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/literature/1960/summary/}}
| holder_label = 1960 laureate
| holder =
| image = Saint-John Perse 1960.jpg
| caption = "for the soaring flight and the evocative imagery of his poetry which in a visionary fashion reflects the conditions of our time."
| host =
| date = {{plainlist|
- 26 October 1960 (announcement)
- 10 December 1960
(ceremony)
}}
| location = Stockholm, Sweden
| previous = 1959
| main = Nobel Prize in Literature
| next = 1961
}}
The 1960 Nobel Prize in Literature was awarded to the French poet Saint-John Perse (1887–1975) "for the soaring flight and the evocative imagery of his poetry which in a visionary fashion reflects the conditions of our time" [https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/literature/1960/summary/ The Nobel Prize in Literature 1960] nobelprize.org{{cite web|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1960/10/27/archives/saintjohn-perse-french-poet-wins-nobel-prize-for-literature-nobel.html|title=Saint-John Perse, French Poet, Wins Nobel Prize for Literature|date=27 October 1960|website=The New York Times|author=Werner Wiskari}}
Laureate
{{main|Saint-John Perse}}
Sain-John Perse, pseudonym for Alexis Leger, was born in Pointe-à-Pitre, Guadeloupe, where his family owned two plantations: a coffee and a sugar plantation. His family went back to France in 1899 and settled in Pau. In 1911, he published his first poetry collection Éloges and Other Poems which was almost completely ignored at the time, and one of the few writers who paid it any attention was Marcel Proust, who praised him as a creative young poet, but afterwards, in 1912, he started earning steady success with the help of Valery Larbaud and André Gide. His poetry, admired especially by literary circles, has been compared to that of Arthur Rimbaud. In 1914, he joined the French diplomatic service and spent many years abroad in various countries. While working as a consul in China, he wrote Anabase ("Anabasis", 1924), an epic poem that puzzled many critics. In 1940, he began a long exile in the U.S. in Washington, D.C. wherein much of his poetry has a profoundly personal tone, as in Exil (1942; "Exile"), Vents (1946; "Winds") and Amers (1957; "Seamarks").{{Cite web|url=https://www.britannica.com/biography/Saint-John-Perse |title=Saint-John Perse |publisher=britannica.com }}
Deliberations
=Nominations=
Saint-John Perse was nominated for the prize 15 times, including one nomination by 1937 Nobel laureate Roger Martin du Gard in 1956 and three nominations by the 1948 Nobel Prize laureate T. S. Eliot in 1955, 1958 and 1960.{{Cite web|url=https://www.nobelprize.org/nomination/archive/show_people.php?id=12089 |title=Nomination archive Saint-John Perse |date=21 May 2024 |publisher=nobelprize.org }}
In total, the Nobel committee received 70 nominations including nominations for 58 authors, including Ivo Andrić (awarded in 1961), John Steinbeck (awarded in 1962), Jean-Paul Sartre (awarded in 1964), Robert Frost, André Malraux, Romulo Gallegos, Aldous Huxley, Louis Aragon, Johan Falkberget, Karl Jaspers, Martin Heidegger, Alberto Moravia, Ignazio Silone, Ezra Pound, Julien Gracq, E. M. Forster, Ramón Menéndez Pidal, Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan, Junichiro Tanizaki, Miguel Torga and Tarjei Vesaas.{{Cite web|url=https://www.nobelprize.org/nomination/archive/list.php?prize=4&year=1960 |title=Nomination archive 1960|date=21 May 2024 |publisher=nobelprize.org }} Fourteen of the nominees were newly nominated namely Heinrich Böll (awarded in 1972), Wesley LaViolette, Aquilino Ribeiro, Marie Noël, Jean Price-Mars, James Thurber, Franz Theodor Csokor, Stratis Myrivilis, Elias Venezis, Aksel Sandemose, John Boyton Priestley and René Char. There were only four women nominated namely Maria Dąbrowska, Marie Noël, Juana de Ibarbourou and Karen Blixen.
The authors Sibilla Aleramo, Vicki Baum, Ya'akov Cahan, Ralph Chubb, Hjalmar Dahl, Harold Lenoir Davis, Leonora Eyles, Paul Fort, Ethel Voynich, Ferdynand Goetel, Sigurd Hoel, Zora Neale Hurston, Raïssa Maritain, John P. Marquand, Elsie J. Oxenham, Pierre Reverdy, Nevil Shute, Tetsuro Watsuji and Richard Wright died in 1960 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
| Ivo Andrić (1892–1975) | {{flag|Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia|name=Yugoslavia}} | novel, short story, poetry | {{unbulleted list|Eyvind Johnson (1900–1976)|Harry Martinson (1904–1978)|Association of Writers of Yugoslavia}} |
| 2
| Louis Aragon (1897–1982) | {{flag|France}} | novel, short story, poetry, essays | Henry Olsson (1896–1985) |
| 3
| Werner Bergengruen (1892–1964) | {{flag|West Germany}} | novel, short story, poetry | Wolfgang Stammler (1886–1965) |
| 4
| Karen Blixen (1885–1962) | {{flag|Denmark}} | novel, short story, memoir | Günther Jungbluth (1912–1976) |
| 5
| Heinrich Böll (1917–1985) | {{flag|West Germany}} | novel, short story | Gustav Korlén (1915–2014) |
| 6
| René Char (1907–1988) | {{flag|France}} | poetry | Georges Blin (1917–2005) |
| 7
| Franz Theodor Csokor (1885–1969) | {{flag|Austria}} | drama, essays, poetry, autobiography | The Austrian PEN-Club |
| 8
| Maria Dąbrowska (1889–1965) | {{flag|Polish People's Republic|name=Poland}} | novel, short story, essays, drama, literary criticism | The Polish PEN-Club |
| 9
| Henry de Montherlant (1895–1972) | {{flag|France}} | essays, novel, drama | Henri Morier (1910–2004) |
| 10
| Gonzague de Reynold (1880–1970) | {{flag|Switzerland}} | history, essays, biography, memoir | Swiss Writers Association |
| 11
| Johan Falkberget (1879–1967) | {{flag|Norway}} | novel, short story, essays | {{unbulleted list|Johannes Andreasson Dale (1898–1975)|Harald Bayer (1891–1960)|Hans Heiberg (1904–1978)|Kristian Smidt (1916–2013)}} |
| 12
| Edward Morgan Forster (1879–1970) | {{flag|United Kingdom}} | novel, short story, drama, essays, biography, literary criticism | Eyvind Johnson (1900–1976) |
| 13
| Robert Frost (1874–1963) | {{flag|United States}} | poetry, drama | {{unbulleted list|Walter Havighurst (1901–1994)|Nils Erik Enkvist (1925–2009)|Hans Galinsky (1909–1991)}} |
| 14
| Christopher Fry (1907–2005) | {{flag|United Kingdom}} | poetry, drama, screenplay | Arthur Henkel (1915–2005) |
| 15
| Rómulo Gallegos (1884–1969) | {{flag|Venezuela}} | novel, short story | {{unbulleted list|Several South American proposers|The Brazilian PEN-Club}} |
| 16
| Armand Godoy (1880–1964) | {{flag|Cuba}} | poetry, translation | Anna Hyatt Huntington (1876–1973) |
| 17
| Julien Gracq (1910–2007) | {{flag|France}} | novel, poetry, drama, literary criticism | Eyvind Johnson (1900–1976) |
| 18
| Robert Graves (1895–1985) | {{flag|United Kingdom}} | history, novel, poetry, literary criticism, essays | {{unbulleted list|Johannes Edfelt (1904–1997)|Johannes Andreasson Dale (1898–1975)}} |
| 19
| Graham Greene (1904–1991) | {{flag|United Kingdom}} | novel, short story, autobiography, essays | Kristian Smidt (1916–2013) |
| 20
| Gunnar Gunnarsson (1889–1975) | {{flag|Iceland}} | novel, short story, poetry | Stellan Arvidson (1902–1997) |
| 21
| Martin Heidegger (1889–1976) | {{flag|West Germany}} | philosophy, essays | Paul Böckmann (1899–1987) |
| 22
| Taha Hussein (1889–1973) | {{flag|United Arab Republic|name=Egypt}} | novel, short story, poetry, translation | Olle Hedberg (1899–1974) |
| 23
| Aldous Huxley (1894–1963) | {{flag|United Kingdom}} | novel, short story, essays, poetry, screenplay, drama, philosophy | R. Fricker (?) |
| 24
| Juana de Ibarbourou (1892–1979) | {{flag|Uruguay}} | poetry, essays |
| 25
| Karl Jaspers (1883–1969) | {{flag|West Germany}} | philosophy | {{unbulleted list|Hermann Kasack (1896–1966)|Erich Kästner (1899–1974)}} |
| 26
| Miroslav Krleža (1893–1981) | {{flag|Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia|name=Yugoslavia}} | poetry, drama, short story, novel, essays |
| 27
| Wesley LaViolette (1894–1978) | {{flag|United States}} | poetry, essays | Vinayaka Krishna Gokak (1909–1992) |
| 28
| Wilhelm Lehmann (1882–1968) | {{flag|Venezuela}} | novel, short story, poetry, essays | Friedrich Sengle (1909–1994) |
| 29
| André Malraux (1901–1976) | {{flag|France}} | novel, essays, literary criticism | Claude Digeon (1920–2008) |
| 30
| Max Mell (1882–1971) | {{flag|Austria}} | drama, novel, screenplay | {{unbulleted list|Otto Höfler (1901–1987)|Rudolf Jagoditsch (1892–1976)}} |
| 31
| Ramón Menéndez Pidal (1869–1968) | {{flag|Francoist Spain|name=Spain}} | philology, history | {{unbulleted list|Academia Argentina de Letras|Jules Horrent (1920–1981)|Gunnar Tilander (1894–1973)}} |
| 32
| Alberto Moravia (1907–1990) | {{flag|Italy}} | novel, literary criticism, essays, drama | Eyvind Johnson (1900–1976) |
| 33
| Stratis Myrivilis (1890–1969) | {{flag|Kingdom of Greece|name=Greece}} | novel, short story | The Greek Authors' Union |
| 34
| Junzaburō Nishiwaki (1894–1982) | {{flag|Japan}} | poetry, literary criticism | Naoshirō Tsuji (1899–1979) |
| 35
| Marie Noël (1883–1967) | {{flag|France}} | poetry, autobiography | Maurice Bémol (1900–1961) |
| style="background:gold;white-space:nowrap"| 36
|style="background:gold;white-space:nowrap"| Saint-John Perse (1887–1975) |style="background:gold;white-space:nowrap"| {{flag|France}} |style="background:gold;white-space:nowrap"| poetry |style="background:gold;white-space:nowrap"| {{unbulleted list|20px Thomas Stearns Eliot (1888–1965)|Eyvind Johnson (1900–1976)}} |
| 37
| Ezra Pound (1885–1972) | {{flag|United States}} | poetry, essays | Ingvar Andersson (1899–1974) |
| 38
| Jean Price-Mars (1876–1969) | {{flag|Haiti}} | essays, philosophy | {{unbulleted list|Henri Daniel-Rops (1901–1965)|Georges Duhamel (1884–1966)}} |
| 39
| John Boynton Priestley (1894–1984) | {{flag|United Kingdom}} | novel, drama, screenplay, literary criticism, essays | G. Wilson Knight (1897–1985) |
| 40
| Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan (1888–1975) | {{flag|India}} | philosophy, essays, law | Nirmal Kumar Sidhanta (1929–2014) |
| 41
| Aquilino Ribeiro (1885–1963) | {{flag|Estado Novo (Portugal)|name=Portugal}} | novel, short story, biography, literary criticism, memoir, translation |
| 42
| Mario Roques (1875–1961) | {{flag|Peru}} | history, philology, essays | Ida-Marie Frandon (1907–1997) |
| 43
| Aksel Sandemose (1899–1965) | {{flag|Denmark}} | novel, essays | Eyvind Johnson (1900–1976) |
| 44
| Jean-Paul Sartre (1905–1980) | {{flag|France}} | philosophy, novel, drama, essays, screenplay | Kristian Smidt (1916–2013) |
| 45
| Rudolf Alexander Schröder (1878–1962) | {{flag|West Germany}} | poetry, songwriting, translation | Erich Kästner (1899–1974) |
| 46
| Ignazio Silone (1900–1978) | {{flag|Italy}} | novel, short story, essays, drama | Eyvind Johnson (1900–1976) |
| 47
| John Steinbeck (1902–1968) | {{flag|United States}} | novel, short story, screenplay | Henry Olsson (1896–1985) |
| 48
| Jules Supervielle (1884–1960) | {{flag|France}} | poetry, novel, short story | Jean Fabre (1904–1974) |
| 49
| Jun'ichirō Tanizaki (1886–1965) | {{flag|Japan}} | novel, short story | Sigfrid Siwertz (1882–1970) |
| 50
| Herman Teirlinck (1879–1967) | {{flag|Belgium}} | novel, poetry, essays, drama | Theodor Frings (1886–1968) |
| 51
| James Thurber (1894–1961) | {{flag|United States}} | essays, short story, drama | {{unbulleted list|Robert Henry Elias (1914–2008)|Arthur Mizener (1907–1988)|Stephen Emerson Whicher (1915–1961)}} |
| 52
| Miguel Torga (1907–1995) | {{flag|Estado Novo (Portugal)|name=Portugal}} | poetry, short story, novel, drama, autobiography | {{unbulleted list|Several professors|Émile Planchard (1905–1990)}} |
| 53
| George Macauley Trevelyan (1876–1962) | {{flag|United Kingdom}} | biography, autobiography, essays, history | Harry Martinson (1904–1978) |
| 54
| Elias Venezis (1904–1973) | {{flag|Kingdom of Greece|name=Greece}} | novel, short story | {{unbulleted list|Stylianos Kapsomenos (1907–1978)|Nikolaos Andriōtēs (1906–1976)|Emmanuel Kriaras (1906–2014)|The Greek Authors' Union}} |
| 55
| Tarjei Vesaas (1897–1970) | {{flag|Norway}} | poetry, novel | Sigmund Skard (1903–1995) |
| 56
| Simon Vestdijk (1898–1971) | {{flag|Netherlands}} | novel, poetry, essays, translation | Sigfrid Siwertz (1882–1970) |
| 57
| Heimito von Doderer (1896–1966) | {{flag|Austria}} | novel, short story, poetry, essays | Ernst Alker (1895–1972) |
| 58
| Karl Heinrich Waggerl (1897–1973) | {{flag|Austria}} | novel, short story, poetry, essays | Friedrich Wild (1888–1966) |
Prize decision
The main contenders for the 1960 Nobel Prize in Literature were Saint-John Perse, who had been nominated by the 1948 Nobel laureate T. S. Eliot, and the Yugoslavian author Ivo Andrić. The members of the Nobel committee were divided between the candidates. Committee chairman Anders Österling and Sigfrid Siwertz supported a prize to Ivo Andrić, while Eyvind Johnson and Henry Olsson advocated a prize to Saint-John Perse. Österling found Perse a worthy candidate but a too esoteric poet with "a resonance that is too limited to be appropriately made the subject of a global award such as the Nobel Prize." Olsson, on the other hand, in comparing the two candidates, found that Perse in almost every aspect appeared "as Andrić's opposite and is as global as the other is regional". Olsson and Johnson also argued that Perse was well known and widely acknowledged as a great poet. Österling unsuccessfully argued for a prize to Ivo Andrić, noting the Yugoslav author's "mastered style" that would open "a previously unknown page in the world chronicle and appeals to us from the depths of the tormented national soul", adding that a prize to Andrić would also have the advantage of correcting "the justified criticism of the geographical distribution of the Nobel Prize in Literature.” Andrić was subsequently awarded the prize the following year.{{cite web|url=https://www.svd.se/a/893e54e0-8c63-3c2e-92de-c4f3a8366039/hard-kamp-om-perse |title=Hård kamp om Perse |author=Schueler, Kaj |work=Svenska Dagbladet |date=7 January 2011 |lang=Swedish}}
Award ceremony
File:Saint-John Perse (remise du prix nobel).jpg
At the award ceremony in Stockholm on 10 December 1960, Anders Österling, permanent secretary of the Swedish Academy, said:
{{Quote|
One can only admire the integrity of his poetic attitude, the lofty insistence with which he perseveres in the only mode of expression that allows him to realize his intentions, an exclusive but always pertinent form. The inexhaustible luxuriance of the picturesque style of his rhapsodies is intellectually demanding and may weary the reader of whom the poet demands such efforts of concentration. He takes his metaphors from all disciplines, from all eras, from all mythologies, from all regions; his cycles of poems call to mind those great sea shells from which a cosmic music seems to emanate. This expansive imagination is his strength. Exile, separation – evocations whose voiceless murmur gives his poetry its general tonality; and through the double theme of man’s strength and helplessness a heroic appeal can be perceived, an appeal which is perhaps expressed more distinctly than before in the poet’s latest work, Chronique (Chronicle), 1960, filled with a breath of grandeur, in which the poet recapitulates everything, at the end of the day, while making veiled allusions to the present state of the world. And he even makes a prophetic appeal to Europe to have it consider this fateful moment, this turning point in the course of history. The poem ends with these words: “Great age, here we are. Take measure of the heart of man”.{{cite web|url=https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/literature/1960/ceremony-speech/ |title=Award ceremony speech |publisher=nobelprize.org}}}}
External links
- [https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/literature/1960/ceremony-speech/ Award ceremony speech]