4 Scandinavian Writers that Won Novel Prizes

Over the past couple of centuries, many Scandinavian authors have earnt themselves the Literature Nobel Prize thanks to their outstanding written works. Let’s take a look at some of them and find some interesting relevant facts.

Selma Lagerlöf

This Swedish author, who was also a teacher and a member of the women’s suffrage movement, received her Nobel Prize in Literature on December 10th, 1909. She was the first woman to receive this international recognition and it happened after quite a bit of quarrelling within the Swedish Academy.

Back when the Soviet Union was threatening and invading Finland, she sent her gold medal and prize to the Finnish government to raise money to fight off the invasion. Although the government did return the medal to her, they were touched by this powerful gesture from the author.

Frans EemilSillanpää

This Finnish writer received his Nobel Prize in Literature in the year 1939, and just like Selma Lagerlöf, he donated his medal to help fund the efforts against the Soviet Union. His prize was earnt because of the way he had expressed the Finish way of life and the way Finnis people interacted with nature.

As a curious after note, there is an asteroid named after Frans EemilSillanpää by YrjöVäisälä, a Finish astronomer who discovered it in January 26th of the year 1938.

Halldór Laxness

Granted with the capacity to instil new life into Icelandic literature, this author received his Nobel Prize in Literature in the year 1955. Laxness is the only writer from that country to have received such recognition and has been compared to the likes of Cervantes, Zola, and his fellow Scandinavian Hamsun.

Sigrid Undset

Yet another noble female author who donated the Literature Nobel Prize golden medal she won in 1928 to aid the efforts of the Finnish in fighting the Soviet Union’s invasion. Sigrid’s most prominent work is a trilogy she published in the course of two years, from 1920 and 1922, named Kristin Lavransdatter.

All of the Scandinavian countries contemplated within the realm of Scandinavian literature have at least one Nobel Prize in Literature. From the first woman to ever receive the award to a famous trilogy writer, the wide variety of Scandinavian literature is always well appreciated both by scholars and by readers.