Companion of Literature
{{Short description|Literary award of the Royal Society of Literature}}
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The title Companion of Literature{{cite web|url=https://www.lexico.com/definition/companion_of_literature|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200220014644/https://www.lexico.com/definition/companion_of_literature|url-status=dead|archive-date=February 20, 2020|title=Definition of Companion of Literature|publisher=Lexico, Oxford Dictionary}} is the highest award bestowed by the Royal Society of Literature. The title was inaugurated in 1961, and is held by up to twelve living writers at any one time.{{cite web|url=https://rsliterature.org/award/companions-of-literature/|title=Companions of Literature|publisher=Royal Society of Literature}}
Recipients
Those who have been awarded the honour are listed below, by the year in which it was granted; those still living are indicated in bold. In 2020, six authors were announced as recipients of the title "Companion of Literature", the first honorees since 2012.{{cite news|url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/2020/nov/30/royal-society-of-literature-reveals-historic-changes-to-improve-diversity|title=Royal Society of Literature reveals historic changes to improve diversity|first=Alison|last=Flood|newspaper=The Guardian|date=30 November 2020}}
=1961=
- Winston Churchill (30 November 1874 – 24 January 1965)
- E. M. Forster (1 January 1879 – 7 June 1970)
- John Masefield (1 June 1878 – 12 May 1967)
- W. Somerset Maugham (25 January 1874 – 16 December 1965)
- G. M. Trevelyan (16 February 1876 – 21 July 1962)
=1962=
- Edmund Blunden (1 November 1896 – 20 January 1974)
- Aldous Huxley (26 July 1894 – 22 November 1963)
=1963=
- Edith Sitwell (7 September 1887 – 9 December 1964)
- Evelyn Waugh (28 October 1903 – 10 April 1966)
=1964=
- Elizabeth Bowen (7 June 1899 – 22 February 1973)
- Cecil Day-Lewis (27 April 1904 – 22 May 1972)
=1967=
- Osbert Sitwell (6 December 1892 – 4 May 1969)
=1968=
- John Betjeman (28 August 1906 – 19 May 1984)
- Ivy Compton-Burnett (5 June 1884 – 27 August 1969)
- Compton Mackenzie (17 January 1883 – 30 November 1972)
- Rebecca West (21 December 1892 – 15 March 1983)
=1972=
- Lord David Cecil (9 April 1902 – 1 January 1986)
- Cyril Connolly (10 September 1903 – 26 November 1974)
- L. P. Hartley (30 December 1895 – 13 December 1972)
- Angus Wilson (11 August 1913 – 31 May 1991)
=1974=
- Ruth Pitter (7 November 1897 – 29 February 1992)
- Kenneth Clark (13 July 1903 – 21 May 1983)
- Arthur Koestler (5 September 1905 – 1 March 1983)
=1978=
- Philip Larkin (9 August 1922 – 2 December 1985)
- David Garnett (9 March 1892 – 17 February 1981)
- Stephen Spender (28 February 1909 – 16 July 1995)
=1983=
- Samuel Beckett (13 April 1906 – 22 December 1989)
- William Golding (19 September 1911 – 19 June 1993)
- Graham Greene (2 October 1904 – 3 April 1991)
=1987=
- Rosamund Lehmann (3 February 1901 – 12 March 1990)
- Iris Murdoch (15 July 1919 – 8 February 1999)
- V. S. Pritchett (16 December 1900 – 20 March 1997)
- Steven Runciman (7 July 1903 – 1 November 2000)
=1991=
- Anthony Burgess (25 February 1917 – 22 November 1993)
- Seamus Heaney (13 April 1939 – 30 August 2013)
- Patrick Leigh Fermor (11 February 1915 – 10 June 2011)
- Muriel Spark (1 February 1918 – 13 April 2006)
=1994=
- Sybille Bedford (16 March 1911 – 17 February 2006)
- V. S. Naipaul (17 August 1932 – 11 August 2018)
- William Trevor (24 May 1928 – 20 November 2016)
=1998=
- D. J. Enright (11 March 1920 – 31 December 2002)
- Harold Pinter (10 October 1930 – 24 December 2008)
=2001=
- Charles Causley (24 August 1917 – 4 November 2003)
- Doris Lessing (22 October 1919 – 17 November 2013)
=2004=
- Michael Holroyd (27 August 1935 – )
- Tom Stoppard (3 July 1937 – )
=2007=
- Michael Frayn (8 September 1933 – )
- Peter Porter (16 February 1929 – 23 April 2010)
=2012=
- Brian Friel (c. 9 January 1929 – 2 October 2015)
- Margaret Atwood (18 November 1939 – )
- Alice Munro (10 July 1931 – 13 May 2024)
=2020=
- Anita Desai (24 June 1937 – )
- Kazuo Ishiguro (8 November 1954 – )
- Hilary Mantel (6 July 1952 – 22 September 2022)
- Edna O’Brien (15 December 1930 – 27 July 2024)
- Philip Pullman (19 October 1946 – )
- Colin Thubron (14 June 1939 – )