Nobel Shouldas

The Nobel Prize has, in recent years, made public the nomination archives for their awards. Below, I've mapped out who *should have* won, specifically addressing two areas 1) Major authors the committee overlooked, and 2) Increased non-European diversity. There is definitely an English-language slant, given my knowledge.

The only major author I couldn't fit in was Orwell, who was never nominated, but really was only available between 1945-49 before he died. Some of my choices, admittedly, while technically possible, would have shown great foresight on the part of the committee (like Kafka). I also took advantage of the years no award was given to squeeze in more authors.

HG Wells, Aldous Huxley, and Jorge Borges were all added in years not nominated, but are asterisked since they were later nominated in other years. Those in blue are the ones I've not read, so can't comment on.

YEAR	WINNER	NOMINEE WHO SHOULD HAVE WON	NON-NOMINATED PERSON WHO SHOULD HAVE WON
1901	Sully Prudhomme – Minor French poet	Emile Zola – Major French novelist
1902	Theodor Mommsen – German historian	Leo Tolstoy – Major Russian novelist
1903	Bjornstjerne Bjornson – Minor Norwegian poet	Henrik Ibsen – Major Norwegian playwright
1904	Frederic Mistral – Minor French Poet; Jose Echegaray – Spanish playwright		Jules Verne – Major French novelist
1905	Henryk Sienkiewicz – Polish novelist		Mark Twain – Major American novelist
1906	Giosue Carducci – Italian poet		H.G. Wells – Major English novelist*
1907	Rudyard Kipling – English author
1908	Rudolph Eucken – Minor German philosopher		August Strindberg – Major Swedish playwright
1909	Selma Lagerlof – Minor Swedish author		Joseph Conrad – Major Polish/English novelist
1910	Paul von Heyse – Minor German author	Thomas Hardy – Major English novelist
1911	Maurice Maeterlinck – Belgian playwright		Ruben Dario – Major Nicaraguan poet
1912	Gerhart Hauptmann – Major German playwright
1913	Rabindranath Tagore – Indian poet
1914	No Award		Marcel Proust – Major French novelist
1915	Romain Rolland – French novelist
1916	Verner von Heidenstam – Minor Swedish novelist		Franz Kafka – Major Czech short story author
1917	Karl Gjellerup – Minor Danish poet; Henrik Pontoppidan – Danish novelist		DH Lawrence – Major English novelist
1918	No Award		Ryonosuke Akutagawa – Major Japanese short story author
1919	Carl Spitteler – Minor Swiss poet		Lu Xun – Major Chinese short story author
1920	Knut Hamsun – Major Norwegian novelist
1921	Anatole France – French novelist
1922	Jacinto Benavente – Spanish playwright		James Joyce – Major Irish novelist
1923	William Butler Yeats – Irish poet
1924	Wladyslaw Reymont – Minor Polish novelist		Rainer Maria Rilke – Major German poet
1925	George Bernard Shaw – Major Irish playwright
1926	Grazia Deledda – Minor Italian author		F. Scott Fitzgerald – American novelist
1927	Henri Bergson – Minor French philosopher	Edith Wharton – American novelist
1928	Sigrid Undset – Norwegian novelist
1929	Thomas Mann – Major German novelist
1930	Sinclair Lewis – American novelist	Paul Valery – Major French poet
1931	Erik Axel Karlfeldt – Minor Swedish poet		Federico Garcia Lorca – Major Spanish poet
1932	John Galsworthy – English novelist
1933	Ivan Bunin – Russian short story author
1934	Luigi Pirandello – Major Italian playwright
1935	No Award		Virginia Woolf – Major English novelist
1936	Eugene O’Neill – Major American playwright
1937	Roger Martin du Gard – French novelist
1938	Pearl Buck – American novelist
1939	Frans Sillanpaa – Finnish novelist
1940	No Award		Cao Yu – Major Chinese playwright
1941	No Award		Aldous Huxley – Major English novelist*
1942	No Award		Jorge Borges – Major Argentinian short story author*
1943	No Award		Arthur Koestler – Hungarian/English novelist
1944	Johannes Jensen – Danish novelist		Bertolt Brecht – Major German playwright
1945	Gabriela Mistral – Chilean poet
1946	Hermann Hesse – Major German/Swiss novelist
1947	Andre Gide – Major French novelist
1948	T.S. Eliot – Major English/American poet
1949	William Faulkner – Major American novelist
1950	Bertrand Russell – English philosopher
1951	Par Lagerkvist – Swedish novelist
1952	Francois Mauriac – French novelist
1953	Winston Churchill – English historian		Marguerite Yourcenar – French novelist
1954	Ernest Hemingway – Major American novelist
1955	Halldor Laxness – Icelandic novelist
1956	Juan Ramon Jimenez – Spanish poet
1957	Albert Camus – Major French novelist
1958	Boris Pasternak – Major Russian author
1959	Salvatore Quasimodo – Italian poet		Joao Guimaraes Rosa – Major Brazilian novelist
1960	Saint-John Perse – Minor French poet		Tayeb Salih – Major Sudanese novelist
1961	Ivo Andric – Serbian novelist	JRR Tolkien – Major English novelist
1962	John Steinbeck – American novelist	Jean Anouilh – French playwright
1963	Giorgios Seferis – Greek poet	Vladimir Nabokov – Major Russian/American novelist
1964	Jean-Paul Sartre – Major French author
1965	Mikhail Sholokhov – Russian novelist
1966	Shmuel Agnon – Israeli novelist; Nelly Sachs – German poet	Paul Celan??   – last year of known nominees