Top 10 Jewish Nobel Laureates – Thursday’s Top Ten List

Created by Matthew J. Goldberg, tipofthegoldberg.com

The (Alfred) Nobel Foundation of Stockholm, Sweden has been awarding the Nobel Prize since 1901 in five different categories—chemistry, literature, “peace”, physics and physiology or medicine.

Winners of the Nobel Prize in Literature are known as Nobel Laureates, and per wikipedia.org, there have been 13 Jewish Nobel Laureates. Indeed, Jewish individuals have won 20% or more of the Nobel Prizes awarded in all five categories the last 111 years. Not bad for a tribe that comprises less than ¼ of one percent of the world’s population!

Today we will focus on the last 10 winners of the Nobel Prize for Literature; the first two shared the 1966 award. The last Jewish winner prior to that dynamic duo was Boris Pasternak (of Dr. Zhivago fame) who was pressured by the USSR into declining the prize.

Rather than rank these wonderfully gifted men and women of letters, they are listed alphabetically along with their years of acceptance, their timelines and the citations they received from the Nobel Foundation.

1. SHMUEL YOSEF AGNON (1966; 1888-1970)

Shmuel Yosef (also known as Shai or S.Y.) Agnon was an influential modern Hebrew novelist. Born in Galicia, he made aliyah and lived in Jerusalem until his passing. Agnon was cited “for his profoundly characteristic narrative art with motifs from the life of the Jewish people.”

Agnon shared the 1966 award with…

*1. NELLY SACHS (1966; 1891-1970)

Ms. Sachs was a German poet and playwright who memorably gave voice to much of the grief experienced by Jews after the rise of the Nazis. Upon accepting her award in 1966, she poignantly remarked, “…Agnon represents Israel whereas I represent the tragedy of the Jewish people.”

Her citation read: “for her outstanding lyrical and dramatic writing, which interprets Israel’s destiny with touching strength.”

 3. SAUL BELLOW (1915-2005; 1976)

Born in Quebec, Canada, to Russian-Jewish immigrants, Bellow is mostly associated with Chicago, which serves as the backdrop for most of his novels, including The Adventures of Augie March, Henderson, the Rain King and Herzog.

With his Nobel Prize, a Pulitzer Prize, a national Medal of the Arts and three National Book Awards, a case can be made that Bellow is the most decorated author in worldwide literature.

He was honored “for the human understanding and subtle analysis of contemporary culture that are combined in his work.”

4. (JOSEPH) BRODSKY (1940–1996; 1987)

Brodsky was born in Leningrad (Russia) but was charged with “social parasitism” and expelled from his homeland before emigrating to America in 1972. He was a poet and essayist, and a professor at prestigious Western universities, including Cambridge, Michigan and Yale.

He won the Nobel Prize “for an all-embracing authorship, imbued with clarity of thought and poetic intensity.”

5. ELIAS CANETTI (1905–1994; 1981)

Canetti, a Sephardic Jew, was born in Bulgaria but also lived in Austria, Germany and Switzerland before he graduated from high school. He was fluent in several languages, including Ladino, Bulgarian, English, French and German.

A man of the world mostly feted for his memoirs, Canetti wrote primarily in German, obtained British citizenship and lived most of his final 20 years in Zurich. The Nobel Committee honored him “for writings marked by a broad outlook, a wealth of ideas and artistic power.”

6. NADINE GORDIMER (1923­– ; 1991)

Ms. Gordimer is a South African social activist, playwright and novelist born to Jewish parents from Latvia and London. She was active in the anti-apartheid movement, once joined the African National Congress and has also lent her support to the fight against AIDS/HIV.

Ms. Gordiner, who has written many several short stories for The New Yorker, won the 1991 Prize as someone “who through her magnificent epic writing has – in the words of Alfred Nobel – been of very great benefit to humanity”

7. ELFRIEDE JELINEK (1946–; 2004)

Elfriede Jelinek is an Austrian poet, playwright and novelist who is acclaimed for her strong feminist and politically controversial writings. She was unable to accept her award in person due to her own agoraphobia (essentially, a fear of being unable to escape from a public place) and social phobia.

She won “for her musical flow of voices and counter-voices in novels and plays that with extraordinary linguistic zeal reveal the absurdity of society’s clichés and their subjugating power”

8. IMRE KURTESZ (1929; 2002)

Kurtesz was only 14 when he was deported to the concentration camps of Auschwitz and Buchenwald from his native Budapest. The Hungarian novelist’s best known works are titled Fatelessness (Sorstalanság, in his native Hungarian) and Kaddish for a Child Not Born (Kaddis a meg nem született gyermekért).

The current resident of Berlin, Germany was honored “for writing that upholds the fragile experience of the individual against the barbaric arbitrariness of history.”

9. HAROLD PINTER (1930-2008; 2005)

Pinter, born and raised in London, enjoyed a long career as a playwright, screenwriter, director and actor. He adapted several of his own works for the big screen, including the Birthday Party, The Homecoming and Betrayal.

He is one of Britain’s (and the world’s) most influential modern dramatists and earned his Nobel Prize as a writer “who in his plays uncovers the precipice under everyday prattle and forces entry into oppression’s closed rooms.”

10. Isaac Bashevis Singer (1902-1991; 1978)

One of the world’s great storytellers, Singer was born impoverished in a Jewish Quarter of Warsaw, Poland, prior to leaving for the United States in 1935. He was a greatly influential journalist, novelist, short story writer and children’s author who wrote primarily in Yiddish.

Influenced by Torah, the Talmud and Kabbalah—as well as the great Russian novelists (including Tolstoy and Dostoevsky)—Singer explored dualities and complexities with insight, humanity and humor.

Among his many works are: In My Father’s Court; The Spinoza of Market Street; Enemies: a Love Story; Yentl: The Yeshiva Boy and The Golem.

Singer became a Nobel Laureate “for his impassioned narrative art which, with roots in a Polish-Jewish cultural tradition, brings universal human conditions to life.”

To conclude with a famous lyric from Fiddler on the Roof, “to life, l’chayim!”

…

That wraps up the first Top 10 list of 2012; if you have any observations or suggestions for this column or future lists, please comment below or send me an email.

Matthew J. (call him Matt) Goldberg will be presenting a Jewish-style Top Ten list every Thursday on this site.

For information about Matt’s books, sports columns, speaking events and requests for appearances and custom writing, please visit www.tipofthegoldberg.com, or contact him via email. His new Facebook Fan Page (“to like, to like, l’chayim”) can be found here.