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1955 Nobel Prize in Literature
1955 Nobel Prize in Literature
Halldór Kiljan Laxness
	"for his vivid epic power which has renewed the great narrative art of Iceland."
Date	6 October 1955 (announcement); 10 December 1955 ; (ceremony);
Location	Stockholm, Sweden
Presented by	Swedish Academy
First awarded	1901
Website	Official website

The 1955 Nobel Prize in Literature was awarded to the Icelandic writer Halldór Kiljan Laxness (1902–1998) "for his vivid epic power which has renewed the great narrative art of Iceland."^[1] He is the first and only Icelandic recipient of the Nobel prize in all categories. The literary critic Sveinn Hoskuldsson described him, saying:

"His chief literary works belong to the genre... [of] narrative prose fiction. In the history of our literature Laxness is mentioned beside Snorri Sturluson, the author of "Njals saga", and his place in world literature is among writers such as Cervantes, Zola, Tolstoy, and Hamsun... He is the most prolific and skillful essayist in Icelandic literature both old and new..."^[2]

Laureate

Halldór Laxness wrote novels, poetry, journalism, essays and plays. The conventional Icelandic saga influenced Laxness, best known for three series of books that are set in Iceland and in some way incorporate social realism and were written in the 1930s. Salka Valka: A Novel of Iceland (1931–1932), a two part series that describes life in an Icelandic fishing village; Sjálfstaett fólk: Hetjusaga ("Independent People: An Epic", 1934–35), a two part series about crofters on the moor; and Heimsljós ("World Light", 1937–1940), a four-part series based on the life of poet Magnus Hjaltason Magnusson. His other famous works include The Great Weaver from Kashmir ("Vefarinn mikli frá Kasmír", 1927), Atómstöðin ("The Atom Station", 1948), Brekkukotsannáll ("The Fish Can Sing", 1957), and Kristnihald undir Jökli ("Christianity at Glacier", 1968).^[3]^[4]

Deliberations

Nominations

In total, the Nobel Committee received 59 nominations for 46 writers. 17 of the nominees were newly nominated including Ezra Pound, Edith Sitwell, Adriaan Roland Holst, William Somerset Maugham, Eugenio Montale (awarded in 1975), Henri Bosco, Ernst Robert Curtius, Giorgos Seferis (awarded in 1963), Saint-John Perse (awarded in 1960), Carlos Vaz Ferreira, and Giovanni Papini. Three of the nominees were women namely the British critic Edith Sitwell, the Estonian poet Marie Under, and the Danish author Karen Blixen.^[5]

The authors James Agee, Ruby Mildred Ayres, Gilbert Cannan, Dale Carnegie, Beatrice Chase, Robert P. Tristram Coffin, Lawrence Pearsall Jacks, Joseph Jefferson Farjeon, Constance Holme, Hong Shen, Mariano Latorre, Roger Mais, Saadat Hasan Manto, Adrienne Monnier, Robert Riskin, Robert E. Sherwood, Alexandru Teodor Stamatiad, Wallace Stevens, Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, and Augustin Josip Ujević died in 1955 without having been nominated for the prize.

Official list of nominees and their nominators for the prize
No.	Nominee	Country	Genre(s)	Nominator(s)
1	Mark Aldanov (1886–1957)	Soviet Union ( Ukraine) France	biography, novel, essays, literary criticism	Samson Soloveitchik (1887–1974)
2	Eugène Baie (1874–1964)	Belgium	law, essays	Royal Academy of Science, Letters and Fine Arts of Belgium
3	Julien Benda (1867–1956)	France	novel, philosophy, essays, literary criticism	Holger Sten (1907–1971)
4	Gottfried Benn (1886–1956)	West Germany	poetry, essays	Bertil Malmberg (1889–1958)
5	Karen Blixen (1885–1962)	Denmark	novel, short story, memoir	Nils Ahnlund (1889–1957)
6	Henri Bosco (1888–1976)	France	novel, short story	Raymond Las Vergnas (1902–1994)
7	Arthur Bryant (1899–1985)	United Kingdom	history	Eric Reginald Vincent (1894–1978)
8	Albert Camus (1913–1960)	France ( Algeria)	novel, short story, essays, philosophy, drama	Bo Bergman (1869–1967) Henrik Samuel Nyberg (1889–1974) Birger Ekeberg (1880–1968)
9	Hans Carossa (1878–1956)	West Germany	poetry, autobiography, essays	Maurice Le Boucher (1882–1964)
10	Paul Claudel (1868–1955)	France	poetry, drama, essays, memoir	Erik Hjalmar Linder (1906–1994)
11	Ernst Robert Curtius (1886–1956)	West Germany	philology, literary criticism	Max Vasmer (1886–1962)
12	Georges Duhamel (1884–1966)	France	novel, short story, poetry, drama, literary criticism	Maurice Le Boucher (1882–1964) André Plassart (1889–1978)
13	Johan Falkberget (1879–1967)	Norway	novel, short story, essays	Harald Beyer (1891–1960) Hans Heiberg (1904–1978)
14	Lion Feuchtwanger (1884–1958)	Germany	novel, drama	Victor Klemperer (1881–1960)
15	Edward Morgan Forster (1879–1970)	United Kingdom	novel, short story, drama, essays, biography, literary criticism	Denys Page (1908–1978)
16	Robert Frost (1874–1963)	United States	poetry, drama	Cecil Day-Lewis (1904–1972)
17	Igor Gouzenko (1919–1982)	Soviet Union Canada	novel, essays	Eugene Hudson Long (1908–1990) Gerald Warner Brace (1901–1978)
18	Gunnar Gunnarsson (1889–1975)	Iceland	novel, short story, poetry	Harry Martinson (1904–1978) Henry Olsson (1896–1985) Stellan Arvidson (1902–1997)
19	Leslie Poles Hartley (1895–1972)	United Kingdom	novel, short story, essays	Geoffrey Tillotson (1905–1969)
20	Aldous Huxley (1894–1963)	United Kingdom	novel, short story, essays, poetry, screenplay, drama, philosophy	Geoffrey Bullough (1901–1982)
21	Juan Ramón Jiménez (1881–1958)	Spain	poetry, novel	Hjalmar Gullberg (1898–1961)
22	Rudolf Kassner (1873–1959)	Austria	philosophy, essays, translation	The Austrian PEN-Club
23	Nikos Kazantzakis (1883–1957)	Greece	novel, philosophy, essays, drama, memoir, translation	Lorentz Eckhoff (1884–1974) Society of Men of Letters of Greece
24	Halldór Laxness (1902–1998)	Iceland	novel, short story, drama, poetry	Steingrímur Þorsteinsson (1911–1973) Jón Helgason (1899–1986) Sigurður Nordal (1886–1974) Sverker Ek (1887–1981) Elias Wessén (1889–1981) Stellan Arvidson (1902–1997)
25	André Malraux (1901–1976)	France	novel, essays, literary criticism	Gladys Turquet-Milnes (1887–1977)
26	William Somerset Maugham (1874–1965)	United Kingdom	novel, short story, drama, essays	Geoffrey Bullough (1901–1982)
27	Ramón Menéndez Pidal (1869–1968)	Spain	philology, history	Gunnar Tilander (1894–1973) Rudolf Grossmann (1892–1980)
28	Eugenio Montale (1896–1981)	Italy	poetry, translation	Thomas Stearns Eliot (1888–1965)
29	Alberto Moravia (1907–1990)	Italy	novel, literary criticism, essays, drama	Carlo Dionisotti (1908–1998)
30	Seán O'Casey (1880–1964)	Ireland	drama, memoir	Una Ellis-Fermor (1894–1958)
31	Giovanni Papini (1881–1956)	Italy	essays, novel, short story, poetry, literary criticism, philosophy	Henri de Ziégler (1885–1970)
32	Saint-John Perse (1887–1975)	France	poetry	Thomas Stearns Eliot (1888–1965) Dag Hammarskjöld (1905–1961)
33	Ezra Pound (1885–1972)	United States	poetry, essays	Constantine Athanasius Trypanis (1909–1993)
34	Adriaan Roland Holst (1888–1976)	Netherlands	poetry	Jan Kamerbeek Jr. (1905–1977)
35	Jules Romains (1885–1972)	France	poetry, drama, screenplay	Alfred Jolivet (1885–1966)
36	Reinhold Schneider (1903–1958)	West Germany	poetry, novel, drama, essays	Eduard von Jan (1885–1971)
37	Giorgos Seferis (1900–1971)	Greece	poetry, memoir, essays	Romilly Jenkins (1907–1969)
38	Mikhail Sholokhov (1905–1984)	Soviet Union	novel	Sergei Sergeyev-Tsensky (1875–1958)
39	Edith Sitwell (1887–1964)	United Kingdom	poetry, essays, memoir	Gladys Doidge Willcock (?)
40	Gustav Suits (1883–1956)	Soviet Union ( Estonia)	poetry, essays	William Kleesmann Matthews (1901–1958)
41	George Macauley Trevelyan (1876–1962)	United Kingdom	biography, autobiography, essays, history	Winston Churchill (1874–1965)
42	Marie Under (1883–1980)	Soviet Union ( Estonia)	poetry	William Kleesmann Matthews (1901–1958)
43	Giuseppe Ungaretti (1888–1970)	Italy	poetry, essays, literary criticism	Giuseppe de Robertis (1888–1963) Robert Vivier (1894–1989) Thomas Stearns Eliot (1888–1965)
44	Carlos Vaz Ferreira (1872–1958)	Uruguay	philosophy, law, essays	Academia Nacional de Letras
45	Tarjei Vesaas (1897–1970)	Norway	poetry, novel	Sigmund Skard (1903–1995)
46	Simon Vestdijk (1898–1971)	Netherlands	novel, poetry, essays, translation	Jan Kamerbeek Jr. (1905–1977)

Prize decision

Laxness had been a candidate for the prize since 1948. In 1955 he was shortlisted along with Juan Ramón Jiménez (awarded in 1956) and Ramón Menéndez Pidal. A shared prize between Laxness and his countryman Gunnar Gunnarsson was proposed but rejected by the Nobel committee.^[6]

The members of the Swedish Academy were divided in support of the final three candidates. Three rounds of voting were required to decide the laureate. On the first voting Jiménez received the highest number of votes, but not the required majority of the votes. On the third voting Laxness received a majority of the votes, 10 votes, and could be declared the winner of the 1955 Nobel Prize in Literature.^[6]

Award Ceremony

In the presentation address for the Nobel prize Elias Wessén stated:

"He is an excellent painter of Icelandic scenery and settings. Yet this is not what he has conceived of as his chief mission. 'Compassion is the source of the highest poetry. Compassion with Asta Sollilja on earth,' he says in one of his best books… And a social passion underlies everything Halldór Laxness has written. His personal championship of contemporary social and political questions is always very strong, sometimes so strong that it threatens to hamper the artistic side of his work. His safeguard then is the astringent humour which enables him to see even people he dislikes in a redeeming light, and which also permits him to gaze far down into the labyrinths of the human soul."^[7]