The 1963

Nobel Prize in Literature ) , image = Nobel Prize.png , caption = , awarded_for = Outstanding contributions in literature , presenter = Swedish Academy , holder = Annie Ernaux (2022) , location = Stockholm, Sweden , year = 1901 , ...

was awarded the Greek poet and diplomat

Giorgos Seferis Giorgos or George Seferis (; gr, Γιώργος Σεφέρης ), the pen name of Georgios Seferiades (Γεώργιος Σεφεριάδης; March 13 – September 20, 1971), was a Greek poet and diplomat. He was one of the most important G ...

(1900–1971) "for his eminent lyrical writing, inspired by a deep feeling for the Hellenic world of culture."Nobel Prize in Literature 1963
nobelprize.org He is the first Greek laureate to win the

Nobel Prize The Nobel Prizes ( ; sv, Nobelpriset ; no, Nobelprisen ) are five separate prizes that, according to Alfred Nobel's will of 1895, are awarded to "those who, during the preceding year, have conferred the greatest benefit to humankind." Alfr ...

(followed later by

Odysseas Elytis Odysseas Elytis ( el, Οδυσσέας Ελύτης , pen name of Odysseas Alepoudellis, el, Οδυσσέας Αλεπουδέλλης; 2 November 1911 – 18 March 1996) was a Greek poet, man of letters, essayist and translator, regarded as th ...

in 1979).

Laureate

Giorgos Seferis was born in

Smyrna Smyrna ( ; grc, Σμύρνη, Smýrnē, or , ) was a Greek city located at a strategic point on the Aegean coast of Anatolia. Due to its advantageous port conditions, its ease of defence, and its good inland connections, Smyrna rose to promi ...

(present day Izmir, Turkey). When his family moved to France in 1918, he studied law at the University of Paris and became interested in literature. He then went to Athens in 1925 and began a long diplomatic career. During

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

, Seferis accompanied the Free Greek Government in exile and returned to liberated Athens in 1944. Many of his, which are replete with themes of alienation, traveling, and death, are set against the backdrop of his extensive travels as a diplomat. ''Turning Point'', his debut book of poems, was released in 1931. In his later poetry, Seferis frequently weaves together modern speech and experience with Homeric myth, notably in works like ''Mythistorema'' (1935) and ''Imerologio Katastromatos I-III'' (1940-1955).

Deliberations

Nominations

Seferis was first nominated in

1955 Events January * January 3 – José Ramón Guizado becomes president of Panama. * January 17 – , the first nuclear-powered submarine, puts to sea for the first time, from Groton, Connecticut. * January 18– 20 – Battle of Yijian ...

Romilly Jenkins Romilly James Heald Jenkins (1907 – 30 September 1969) was a British scholar in Byzantine and Modern Greek studies. He occupied the prestigious seat of ''Koraes Professor of Modern Greek and Byzantine History, Language and Literature'' at King's ...

(1907–1969), an English professor in Byzantine and Modern Greek literature, and was followed by nominations from T. S. Eliot,

C. A. Trypanis Constantine Athanasius Trypanis ( el, Κωνσταντίνος Αθανάσιος Τρυπάνης; 22 January 1909 – 18 January 1993) was a Greek classicist, literary critic, translator and poet. Biography Born in Chios, Greece, Trypanis receiv ...

and

Eyvind Johnson Eyvind Johnson (29 July 1900 – 25 August 1976) was a Swedish novelist and short story writer. Regarded as the most groundbreaking novelist in modern Swedish literature he became a member of the Swedish Academy in 1957 and shared the 1974 Nob ...

until he was eventually awarded. He only received 5 nominations. In total, the

Nobel Committee A Nobel Committee is a working body responsible for most of the work involved in selecting Nobel Prize laureates. There are five Nobel Committees, one for each Nobel Prize. Four of these committees (for prizes in physics, chemistry, physiolog ...

of the Swedish Academy received 121 nominations for 81 distinguished authors such as

Jorge Luis Borges Jorge Francisco Isidoro Luis Borges Acevedo (; ; 24 August 1899 – 14 June 1986) was an Argentine short-story writer, essayist, poet and translator, as well as a key figure in Spanish-language and international literature. His best-known bo ...

Jean-Paul Sartre Jean-Paul Charles Aymard Sartre (, ; ; 21 June 1905 – 15 April 1980) was one of the key figures in the philosophy of existentialism (and phenomenology), a French playwright, novelist, screenwriter, political activist, biographer, and litera ...

(awarded in

1964 Events January * January 1 – The Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland is dissolved. * January 5 - In the first meeting between leaders of the Roman Catholic and Orthodox churches since the fifteenth century, Pope Paul VI and Patriarch ...

Martin Buber Martin Buber ( he, מרטין בובר; german: Martin Buber; yi, מארטין בובער; February 8, 1878 – June 13, 1965) was an Austrian Jewish and Israeli philosopher best known for his philosophy of dialogue, a form of existentialism c ...

E. M. Forster Edward Morgan Forster (1 January 1879 – 7 June 1970) was an English author, best known for his novels, particularly ''A Room with a View'' (1908), ''Howards End'' (1910), and ''A Passage to India'' (1924). He also wrote numerous short stori ...

Graham Greene Henry Graham Greene (2 October 1904 – 3 April 1991) was an English writer and journalist regarded by many as one of the leading English novelists of the 20th century. Combining literary acclaim with widespread popularity, Greene acquir ...

Salvador de Madariaga Salvador de Madariaga y Rojo (23 July 1886 – 14 December 1978) was a Spanish diplomat, writer, historian, and pacifist. He was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature, and the Nobel Peace Prize. He was awarded the Charlemagne Prize in 197 ...

André Malraux Georges André Malraux ( , ; 3 November 1901 – 23 November 1976) was a French novelist, art theorist, and minister of cultural affairs. Malraux's novel ''La Condition Humaine'' (Man's Fate) (1933) won the Prix Goncourt. He was appointed by P ...

, and

Ramón Menéndez Pidal Ramón Menéndez Pidal (; 13 March 1869 – 14 November 1968) was a Spanish philologist and historian."Ramon Menendez Pidal", ''Almanac of Famous People'' (2011) ''Biography in Context'', Gale, Detroit He worked extensively on the history of t ...

. The highest number of nominations (with 8 nominations) was for the American poet

Robert Frost Robert Lee Frost (March26, 1874January29, 1963) was an American poet. His work was initially published in England before it was published in the United States. Known for his realistic depictions of rural life and his command of American colloq ...

. 22 of the nominees were nominated for the first time like

Marcel Jouhandeau Marcel Jouhandeau (July 26, 1888 Guéret – April 7, 1979) was a French writer. Biography Born in Guéret, Creuse, France, Marcel Jouhandeau grew up in a world of women presided over by his grandmother. Under the influence of a young woman from ...

Vladimir Nabokov Vladimir Vladimirovich Nabokov (russian: link=no, Владимир Владимирович Набоков ; 2 July 1977), also known by the pen name Vladimir Sirin (), was a Russian-American novelist, poet, translator, and entomologist. Bo ...

Michel Butor Michel Butor (; 14 September 1926 – 24 August 2016) was a French poet, novelist, teacher, essayist, art critic and translator. Life and work Michel Marie François Butor was born in Mons-en-Barœul, a suburb of Lille, the third of seven childre ...

Yukio Mishima , born , was a Japanese author, poet, playwright, actor, model, Shintoist, Nationalism, nationalist, and founder of the , an unarmed civilian militia. Mishima is considered one of the most important Japanese authors of the 20th century. He was ...

Jean Cocteau Jean Maurice Eugène Clément Cocteau (, , ; 5 July 1889 – 11 October 1963) was a French poet, playwright, novelist, designer, filmmaker, visual artist and critic. He was one of the foremost creatives of the su ...

André Breton André Robert Breton (; 19 February 1896 – 28 September 1966) was a French writer and poet, the co-founder, leader, and principal theorist of surrealism. His writings include the first ''Surrealist Manifesto'' (''Manifeste du surréalisme'') o ...

Nelly Sachs Nelly Sachs (; 10 December 1891 – 12 May 1970) was a German-Swedish poet and playwright. Her experiences resulting from the rise of the Nazis in World War II Europe transformed her into a poignant spokesperson for the grief and yearnings of he ...

(awarded in

1966 Events January * January 1 – In a coup, Colonel Jean-Bédel Bokassa takes over as military ruler of the Central African Republic, ousting President David Dacko. * January 3 – 1966 Upper Voltan coup d'état: President Maurice Yaméogo i ...

René Étiemble René Ernest Joseph Eugène Étiemble (26 January 1909 in Mayenne, Mayenne – 7 January 2002 in Vigny) was an essayist, scholar, novelist, and promoter of Middle Eastern and Asian cultures. Known commonly by his family name alone, Etiemble h ...

, and

Yevgeny Yevtushenko Yevgeny Aleksandrovich Yevtushenko ( rus, links=no, 1=Евге́ний Алекса́ндрович Евтуше́нко; 18 July 1933 – 1 April 2017) was a Soviet and Russian poet. He was also a novelist, essayist, dramatist, screenwriter, ...

. Five of the nominees were women, namely

Ingeborg Bachmann Ingeborg Bachmann (25 June 1926 – 17 October 1973) was an Austrian poet and author. Biography Bachmann was born in Klagenfurt, in the Austrian state of Carinthia, the daughter of Olga (née Haas) and Matthias Bachmann, a schoolteacher. Her fa ...

Juana de Ibarbourou Juana Fernández Morales de Ibarbourou, also known as Juana de América, (March 8, 1892 – July 15, 1979) was a Uruguayan poet and one of the most popular poets of Spanish America. Her poetry, the earliest of which is often highly erotic, is no ...

Gertrud von le Fort The Baroness Gertrud von Le Fort (full name ''Gertrud Auguste Lina Elsbeth Mathilde Petrea Freiherr, Freiin von Le Fort''; 11 October 1876 – 1 November 1971) was a German writer of novels, poems and essays. Life Le Fort was born in the city ...

, Kate Roberts, and

. Surprisingly, two heads of state and government were nominated: French president

Charles de Gaulle Charles André Joseph Marie de Gaulle (; ; (commonly abbreviated as CDG) 22 November 18909 November 1970) was a French army officer and statesman who led Free France against Nazi Germany in World War II and chaired the Provisional Government ...

and Senegalese president

Léopold Sédar Senghor Léopold Sédar Senghor (; ; 9 October 1906 – 20 December 2001) was a Senegalese poet, politician and cultural theorist who was the first president of Senegal (1960–80). Ideologically an African socialist, he was the major theoretician o ...

. The authors

Ion Agârbiceanu Ion Agârbiceanu (first name also Ioan, last name also Agărbiceanu and Agîrbiceanu; September 12, 1882 – May 28, 1963) was an Austro-Hungarian-born Romanian writer, journalist, politician, theologian and Greek-Catholic priest. Born among the ...

Herbert Asbury Herbert Asbury (September 1, 1891 – February 24, 1963) was an American journalist and writer best known for his books detailing crime during the 19th and early-20th centuries, such as ''Gem of the Prairie: An Informal History of the Chicago U ...

Luis Cernuda Luis Cernuda Bidón (September 21, 1902 – November 5, 1963) was a Spanish poet, a member of the Generation of '27. During the Spanish Civil War, in early 1938, he went to the UK to deliver some lectures and this became the start of an exile t ...

, W. E. B. Du Bois,

Pola Gojawiczyńska Pola Gojawiczyńska, real name Apolonia Gojawiczyńska, née Koźniewska (1 April 1896 – 29 March 1963) was a Polish writer. Biography Early life She was born in Warsaw as a daughter of a craftsman-carpenter. She studied in a public schoo ...

Edith Hamilton Edith Hamilton (August 12, 1867 – May 31, 1963) was an American educator and internationally known author who was one of the most renowned classicists of her era in the United States. A graduate of Bryn Mawr College, she also studied in Germany ...

Christopher Hassall Christopher Vernon Hassall (24 March 1912 – 25 April 1963) was an English actor, dramatist, librettist, lyricist and poet, who found his greatest fame in a memorable musical partnership with the actor and composer Ivor Novello after work ...

Nâzım Hikmet Mehmed Nâzım Ran (15 January 1902 – 3 June 1963), Note: 403 Forbidden error received 10 October 2022. commonly known as Nâzım Hikmet (), was a Turkish-Polish poet, playwright, novelist, screenwriter, director, and memoirist. He was ...

Ernst Kantorowicz Ernst Hartwig Kantorowicz (May 3, 1895 – September 9, 1963) was a German historian of medieval political and intellectual history and art, known for his 1927 book '' Kaiser Friedrich der Zweite'' on Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II, and ''The Kin ...

C. S. Lewis Clive Staples Lewis (29 November 1898 – 22 November 1963) was a British writer and Anglican lay theologian. He held academic positions in English literature at both Oxford University (Magdalen College, 1925–1954) and Cambridge Univers ...

, Marie Linde,

Brinsley MacNamara John Weldon (6 September 1890 – 4 February 1963; alternatively "A. E. Weldon"), known by his pen- and stage-name Brinsley MacNamara, was an Irish writer, playwright, and the registrar of the National Gallery of Ireland. He is the author of ...

Louis MacNeice Frederick Louis MacNeice (12 September 1907 – 3 September 1963) was an Irish poet and playwright, and a member of the Auden Group, which also included W. H. Auden, Stephen Spender and Cecil Day-Lewis. MacNeice's body of work was widely a ...

Margaret Murray Margaret Alice Murray (13 July 1863 – 13 November 1963) was an Anglo-Indian Egyptology, Egyptologist, archaeology, archaeologist, anthropology, anthropologist, historian, and folkloristics, folklorist. The first woman to be appointed as a l ...

Clifford Odets Clifford Odets (July 18, 1906 – August 14, 1963) was an American playwright, screenwriter, and actor. In the mid-1930s, he was widely seen as the potential successor to Nobel Prize-winning playwright Eugene O'Neill, as O'Neill began to withdra ...

, Yōko Ōta,

Sylvia Plath Sylvia Plath (; October 27, 1932 – February 11, 1963) was an American poet, novelist, and short story writer. She is credited with advancing the genre of confessional poetry and is best known for two of her published collections, ''The ...

Theodore Roethke Theodore Huebner Roethke ( ; May 25, 1908 – August 1, 1963) was an American poet. He is regarded as one of the most accomplished and influential poets of his generation, having won the Pulitzer Prize for poetry in 1954 for his book ''The Wa ...

Kay Sage Katherine Linn Sage (June 25, 1898 – January 8, 1963), usually known as Kay Sage, was an American Surrealist artist and poet active between 1936 and 1963. A member of the Golden Age and Post-War periods of Surrealism, she is mostly recognized f ...

Tristan Tzara Tristan Tzara (; ; born Samuel or Samy Rosenstock, also known as S. Samyro; – 25 December 1963) was a Romanian and French avant-garde poet, essayist and performance artist. Also active as a journalist, playwright, literary and art critic, comp ...

Hilda Vīka Hilda Vīka (5 November 1897 – 14 February 1963), also known as Hilda Vīka-Eglīte, was a Latvian artist and writer. She made stylised watercolour and oil paintings of everyday life and dreamy visions. She wrote poetry, short stories and novels ...

William Carlos Williams William Carlos Williams (September 17, 1883 – March 4, 1963) was an American poet, writer, and physician closely associated with modernism and imagism. In addition to his writing, Williams had a long career as a physician practicing both pedia ...

, and Stark Young died in 1963 without having been nominated for the prize. The American poet

died months before the announcement.

Prize decision

The Nobel committee of the

Swedish Academy The Swedish Academy ( sv, Svenska Akademien), founded in 1786 by King Gustav III of Sweden, Gustav III, is one of the Swedish Royal Academies, Royal Academies of Sweden. Its 18 members, who are elected for life, comprise the highest Swedish lang ...

was unanimous to propose that the prize should be awarded to Giorgos Seferis. Seferis was one of the final three candidates for the prize along with

W.H. Auden Wystan Hugh Auden (; 21 February 1907 – 29 September 1973) was a British-American poet. Auden's poetry was noted for its stylistic and technical achievement, its engagement with politics, morals, love, and religion, and its variety in ...

and

Pablo Neruda Ricardo Eliécer Neftalí Reyes Basoalto (12 July 1904 – 23 September 1973), better known by his pen name and, later, legal name Pablo Neruda (; ), was a Chilean poet-diplomat and politician who won the 1971 Nobel Prize in Literature. Nerud ...

(awarded in

1971 * The year 1971 had three partial solar eclipses ( February 25, July 22 and August 20) and two total lunar eclipses (February 10, and August 6). The world population increased by 2.1% this year, the highest increase in history. Events Ja ...

). The permanent secretary of the Swedish Academy and chairman of the Nobel committee

Anders Österling Anders Österling (13 April 1884 – 13 December 1981) was a Swedish poet, critic and translator. In 1919 he was elected as a member of the Swedish Academy when he was 35 years old and served the Academy for 62 years, longer than any other memb ...

felt "that there now was an opportunity to pay a beautiful tribute to modern Hellas, a language area that so far had been waiting too long

o be O, or o, is the fifteenth letter and the fourth vowel letter in the Latin alphabet, used in the modern English alphabet, the alphabets of other western European languages and others worldwide. Its name in English is ''o'' (pronounced ), pl ...

honored in this context". The candidacies of

Samuel Beckett Samuel Barclay Beckett (; 13 April 1906 – 22 December 1989) was an Irish novelist, dramatist, short story writer, theatre director, poet, and literary translator. His literary and theatrical work features bleak, impersonal and tragicomic expe ...

(awarded in 1969) and

were dismissed by Österling arguing that neither author lived up to the Nobel prize's "ideal intentions". Österling was also hesitant to award Pablo Neruda and the long time candidate

Mikhail Sholokhov Mikhail Aleksandrovich Sholokhov ( rus, Михаил Александрович Шолохов, p=ˈʂoləxəf; – 21 February 1984) was a Russian novelist and winner of the 1965 Nobel Prize in Literature. He is known for writing about life ...

for political reasons, but both of them were subsequently awarded the prize.

was nominated for the first time by committee member

Karl Ragnar Gierow Karl Ragnar Knut Gierow (2 April 190430 October 1982) was a Swedish theater director, author and translator. Biography Gierow was born and grew up in Helsingborg. He enrolled at Lund University in 1922, and received a licentiate degree in 1934. ...

. While the committee felt that it was too early for her candidacy, Gierow proposed that the poet should be taken into consideration and Sachs was eventually awarded the prize in

Notes

References

External links

{{Nobel Prize in Literature

1963 Events January * January 1 – Bogle–Chandler case: Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation scientist Dr. Gilbert Bogle and Mrs. Margaret Chandler are found dead (presumed poisoned), in bushland near the Lane Cov ...

Nobel