Top 5 Favorite Nobel Prize Winners?

[garzuit]

No chronological order:
Octavio Paz
J.M. Coetzee
William Faulkner
Pablo Neruda (it's still despicable that he wrote an ode to Stalin and he was blind -to say the least- about all the communist dictatorships, but there's no question he was the best poet of his generation)
and Winston Churchill... just kidding!
Bertrand Russell. He was a mathematician! His book Principia Mathematica was fundamental to put Set Theory in solid, formal grounds. Plus he was a brilliant philosopher, a defender of secularism and a pacifist. What else do you want?

 

[tiganeasca]

No discernible order:

LeClezio
Hesse and Mann
Mahfouz
Faulkner
Lagerkvist


PS I should add that not only are these lists fascinating in and of themselves, I am intrigued some of the names that have not appeared even a single time, such as Pamuk, Naipaul, Singer, Solzhenitsyn. I'm not arguing that they "belong" in any top 5 list...just intrigued to see who's in AND who's "out."

 

[garzuit]

Naipaul is mentioned in this same page by user Myshkin. He almost made my list. A House for Mr. Biswas was a revelation for me.

 

[tiganeasca]

Naipaul is mentioned in this same page by user Myshkin. He almost made my list. A House for Mr. Biswas was a revelation for me.

You're absolutely right; I stand corrected. My point still stands.

 

[JCamilo]

Kipling
Yeats
Kawabata
Eliot
Neruda

 

[redhead]

^you know what they say, you never walk in the same river twice,

Not the same river, but you (the person, the reader) have also changed over time--

Yeah, that's definitely true. Oe has been one of my favorites/influences in my own work for so long it seemed weird to go back to a list I had made when I had barely read anything by him.

Garzuit: What non-mathematical works by Russell do you like?

Tiganeasca: More often for the Nobel than any other prize, I'll be reading a winner and think, "Oh this is a good book, I can see why they won." But the novel/essay/poem itself doesn't do all that much for me on a personal level. Ex. On an objective level, I think Morrison and Naipaul are wonderful novelists and I wouldn't argue with their award, but subjectively they don't speak to me in the way that my favorites do.

 

[Bartleby]

For now, having read only a few of them, and mostly one book or so by each author, this is my list:

Luigi Pirandello (one, no one, and one hundred thousand)
William Faulkner (the sound of the fury)
Samuel Beckett (read three plays)
José Saramago (read a lot of his novels)
Herta Muller (the fox was ever the hunter)
Svetlana Alexievitch (war's unwomanly face)

I know I'm cheating with six, but I couldn't cut one of them, not now. Many of the laureates I haven't read yet, some of which I suspect will become favourites, I'm planning to read plenty of nobel winners next year so I'm eager to see how my list will change

 

[garzuit]

Garzuit: What non-mathematical works by Russell do you like?

In my defense, the thread asked for "favorite" winners, not most deserving, hehe.

So while I admire Russell and his essays (Why I Am Not A Christian comes to mind), he didn't write literature.

If forced, I would erase him and put Mario Vargas Llosa, who is also a very lucid essayist, by the way.

 

[tiganeasca]

Tiganeasca: More often for the Nobel than any other prize, I'll be reading a winner and think, "Oh this is a good book, I can see why they won." But the novel/essay/poem itself doesn't do all that much for me on a personal level. Ex. On an objective level, I think Morrison and Naipaul are wonderful novelists and I wouldn't argue with their award, but subjectively they don't speak to me in the way that my favorites do.

Absolutely 100% agree. My only "point" was that it is fascinating to me to see these lists; since we were asked for "favorites," not "best," I enjoy seeing which writers speak to a reading public and which seem not to. Hardly scientific in any possible way, still, this is a thread of serious readers and the various lists (and omissions) are just downright intriguing.

 

[Ben Jackson]

I think this thread is very similar to Favourite Nobel Prize Winners thread.

 

[alik-vit]

I thought long and hard))))))):

Joseph Brodsky
Wislawa Szymborska
Samuel Beckett
Isaac Bashevis Singer
Czeslaw Milosz

 

[wordeater]

1. Gabriel Garcia Marquez: One Hundred Years of Solitude; Chronicle of a Death Foretold
2. Hermann Hesse: Siddharta; Steppenwolf
3. Thomas Mann: Death in Venice; Doktor Faustus
4. Doris Lessing: The Golden Notebook; The Fifth Child
5. Orhan Pamuk: Snow; Nights of the Plague

 

[sibkron]

Hermann Hesse
Thomas Mann
Samuel Beckett
John Maxwell Coetzee
Gabriel García Márquez

 

[MichaelHW]

Tagore was a wonderful writer. I must admit I have only read a few texts so far.
Hemingway is ok, but I am little fed up with his stuff
Hesse has the most amazing texts when he is not too intellectual (I am no fan steppenwolf etc)
George Bernard Shaw was amazing. He is still funny after so many years.
I also like O'Neill.
Kipling is great when he is not nauseatingly jingoist.

I am a little afraid to touch these nobel laureates. I keep thinking people will think me stupid if I find some of what they write boring. Even if something is technically brilliant, it doesn't mean that I have any interest in it. It depends on whether the storyline captures my interest. When I read the different themes that occupied galsworthy and bjørnson, I just yawn. I am not talking about Justice by Galsworthy or Bjørnson's colorful peasant stories. I mean Galworthy on the dilemmas of aristocracy and Bjørnson's stage plays on Christian angst etc.

 

[childeroland]

Faulkner
Beckett
Eliot
Simon
Yeats

 

[Ben Jackson]

Eliot
Elytis
Paz
Beckett
Transtromer

 

[Benny Profane]

1) Günter Grass;
2) Camilo José Cela;
3) Saint-John Perse;
4) Hermann Hesse;
5) William Faulkner

 

[Z--]

My favorite Nobel winners alongside my favorite works from each. I'm exploring a number of winners this year, so as expected, this list is subject to change.

Beckett (Trilogy)
Faulkner (Absalom, Absalom!)
Mahfouz (Cairo Trilogy)
Marquez (100 Years of Solitude)
Mann (The Magic Mountain)

 

[Dante]

– W.B. Yeats
– E. Hemingway
– A. Camus
– E. Montale
– W. Szymborska

Oh man, this has been tough.

 

[redhead]

The Nobel Prize in Literature has made some pretty controversial picks and snubs over the years, but they have had brilliant picks more than a lot of people care to admit. So, who are your top 5 authors that have won the award?

1. Saul Bellow
2. Gabriel Garcia Marquez
3. Jose Saramago
4. Hermann Hesse
5. Samuel Beckett and Patrick White

Maybe that last one is cheating, but I can't bring myself to kick any of those 2 off my list.

I was thinking the same thing, DouglasM. My list now would be, in no particular order: Kenzaburo Oe, Mo Yan, Claude Simon, Saul Bellow, William Faulkner. Only one writer from my list 5 years ago remains.

Need to update this for 2023, but I might as well wait for Thursday...