JEWISH NOBEL
PRIZE WINNERS IN LITERATURE (12% of world total,
27% of US total)
Listed below are recipients of the Nobel Prize in
literature who were, or are, Jewish (or of half-Jewish descent, as noted).
- Paul von Heyse
#,1 (1910)
- Henri Bergson
# (1927)
- Boris Pasternak
# (1958)
- Shmuel Agnon
# (1966)
- Nelly Sachs
# (1966)
- Saul Bellow
# (1976)
- Isaac Bashevis Singer
# (1978)
- Elias Canetti
# (1981)
- Joseph Brodsky
# (1987)
- Nadine Gordimer
# (1991)
- Imre Kertész 2
(2002)
- Elfriede Jelinek
3 (2004)
- Harold Pinter
4 (2005)
NOTES # Encyclopaedia
Judaica (1997 CD ROM edition). (This source was
listed by the
Library
Journal as one of
its "Top 50 Reference Works of the Millennium.") 1. Jewish mother, non-Jewish father; see
http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/literature/laureates/1910/heyse-autobio.html. 2. See http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/literature/laureates/2002/kertesz-bio.html. 3. Jewish father, non-Jewish mother. In a
1998 interview, Jelinek stated "Mein Vater war auch Jude"; see http://www.hagalil.com/archiv/98/12/jellinek.htm and
http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/literature/laureates/2004/bio-bibl.html. 4. See http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/literature/laureates/2005/bio-bibl.html. In Conversations with Pinter, by Mel Gussow
(Grove, New York, 1996, p.103), Pinter describes his mother and father as "very
solid, very respectable, Jewish, lower middle class
people."
Listed below is a
selection of prominent fiction and nonfiction authors who were, or are, Jewish
(or of partial Jewish descent, as noted). For lists of Jewish
playwrights, screenwriters, poets, and other Jewish writers, see Jews in
Literature.
유태인출신 유명 작가와 작품
Shmuel Agnon, The Bridal
Canopy A Guest for
the Night, The Day
Before Yesterday 1966 Nobel Prize in Literature
- Vasily
Aksyonov 1, The Burn, Generations
of Winter, The
Island of Crimea
- Aharon
Appelfeld, Badenheim 1939, The Immortal Bartfuss, The Age of
Wonders, The Story of a Life: A
Memoir (2004 Prix Médicis
étranger)
- Sholem Asch, The
Nazarine, The Apostle,
Three Cities, Salvation, East River
- Isaac Asimov, I,
Robot, Foundation
Trilogy
- Paul Auster, The New
York Trilogy, Leviathan (1993 Prix Médicis étranger)
- Isaac Babel, Red
Cavalry, Odessa
Tales
- Giorgio Bassani, The Garden
of the Finzi-Continis
- Vicki Baum,
Grand Hotel
- Saul Bellow, The
Adventures of Augie March, Henderson the Rain King, Herzog, Mr. Sammler's Planet, Humboldt's Gift (1976 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction); 1976 Nobel
Prize in Literature
- Henri Bergson, L'Evolution
Créatrice (Creative Evolution); 1927 Nobel Prize in Literature
- Biblical
Authors, The Bible (Jewish and Christian
Scriptures)
- Robert Bloch, Psycho
- Kazimierz
Brandys, Samson, Antygona, Troy, Open City, Man Does Not
Die
- Hermann Broch, The Death
of Virgil, The
Sleepwalkers
- Max Brod,
The Redemption of Tycho
Brahe
- Anita Brookner, Hotel du
Lac (1984 Booker
Prize)
- Elias Canetti, Auto-da-Fé, Masse und Macht (Crowds and Power), Das Gewissen der Worte (The Conscience of Words);
1981 Nobel Prize in Literature
- Miguel de Cervantes
2, Don Quixote
- Michael Chabon,
The Amazing Adventures of
Kavalier & Clay (2001 Pulitzer
Prize for Fiction)
- Hélène
Cixous, Inside
(Dedans, 1969 Prix
Médicis)
- Albert
Cohen, Belle du Seigneur
- Marcia
Davenport, The Valley of Decision, Easy Side,
West Side
- Benjamin
Disraeli, Sybil, Vivian Grey, Coningsby, Tancred
- Alfred Döblin, Berlin
Alexanderplatz
- E. L. Doctorow, Ragtime, World's Fair, Billy Bathgate, City of God
- Sergei
Dovlatov 3, The Compromise, The Zone
- Maurice Druon
4, The Accursed Kings (Les Rois
Maudits), Les Grandes
Familles (1948 Prix
Goncourt)
- Ilya Ehrenburg,The Ninth
Wave, The Storm, The Thaw
- Harlan Ellison, Dangerous
Visions
- Leslie Epstein, King of the Jews: A Novel of the
Holocaust, Goldkorn Tales
- Edna Ferber, So
Big (1925 Pulitzer Prize for the
Novel), Show Boat, Cimarron, Saratoga Trunk
- Lion
Feuchtwanger, Jud Süss (Jew Süss: A
Historical Romance), Der jüdische Krieg (Josephus), Der Tag
wird kommen (The Day Will
Come)
- Anne Frank, The Diary
of a Young Girl
- Sigmund Freud, The Interpretation of Dreams, Civilization and Its Discontents,
Totem and Taboo
- Romain Gary
5, The Roots of Heaven (1956 Prix Goncourt), The Life
Before Us (1975 Prix
Goncourt), Forrest of Anger, The Dance of Gengis Cohn
- Eugenia
Ginzburg, Journey Into the Whirlwind
- Natalia Ginzburg
6, All Our
Yesterdays, Voices in the Evening
- Nadine Gordimer, A World of
Strangers, Burger's Daughter, The
Conservationist (1974 Booker
Prize); 1991 Nobel Prize in
Literature
- David Grossman,
The Yellow Wind
- Vasily
Grossman, Life and
Fate, Forever
Flowing
- Joseph Heller, Catch-22, God Knows (1985 Prix Médicis étranger)
- Mark Helprin, Winter's Tale, A
Soldier of the Great War
- Stefan Heym, The
Crusaders
- Paul Heyse
7, Children of the World, In
Paradise 1910 Nobel Prize
in Literature
- Laura Z. Hobson, Gentleman's
Agreement
- Roger Ikor, La greffe
de printemps, Les eaux
mêlées (1955 Prix Goncourt)
- Ilya Ilf, The Twelve
Chairs, The Little Golden Calf
- Elfriede Jelinek
8, Women as Lovers, Wonderful, Wonderful Times, The Piano Teacher 2004 Nobel Prize in Literature
- Ruth Prawer
Jhabvala, In Search of Love and Beauty, Heat and Dust (1975 Booker Prize)
- Erica Jong, Fear of Flying, Inventing Memory: A Novel of Mothers and
Daughters
- Franz Kafka, The Trial, The Castle, Amerika, The
- Roger Kahn, The Boys of
Summer
- MacKinlay
Kantor 9, Long Remember, Andersonville (1956 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction)
- Veniamin
Kaverin, Two
Captains
- Imre Kertész, Kaddish for
a Child Not Born 2002 Nobel Prize in Literature
- Joseph Kessel, Bell de
jour, Les Captifs, Les Coeurs purs (The Pure of
Heart), L'Armée des ombres (Army of
Shadows)
- Danilo
Kiš 10,
Garden, Ashes, Early Sorrows, Hourglass, The Encyclopedia of the
Dead
- Arthur Koestler,
Darkness at Noon, Arrow in
the Blue, The Age of
Longing, Insight and
Outlook, The
Sleepwalkers, The Act of
Creation
- György Konrád, A Feast in the Garden, Homecoming
- Jerzy Kosinski, The Painted
Bird, Being There
- Judith Krantz, Scruples, Princess Daisy
- Anna Langfus, Les bagages
de sable (The Lost Shore) (1962 Prix Goncourt)
- Stanislaw Lec, Unkempt Thoughts
- Stanislaw Lem, Summa Technologiae, Cyberiad, Solaris
- Carlo Levi,
Christ Stopped at Eboli
- Primo Levi, If This Is
a Man, The Periodic
Table, If Not Now, When?,
The Drowned and the Saved
- Ira Levin, Rosemary's
Baby, The Stepford Wives,
The Boys from Brazil
- Jonathan
Littell, Les bienveillantes (The Kindly
ones) (2006 Prix Goncourt)
- Alison Lurie
11, Foreign Affairs (1985 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction)
- Arnošt Lustig, Night and
Hope, Diamonds in the
Night, The Street of Lost
Brothers, A Prayer for Catherine
Horowitz
- Norman Mailer, The Naked
and the Dead, The Armies of the
Night (1969 Pulitzer Prize for
General Non-Fiction), The Executioner's Song (1980 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction)
- Bernard Malamud, The
Fixer (1967 Pulitzer Prize for
Fiction), The Natural, The Tenants, The Assistant
- David Malouf
26, An Imaginary Life , Fly Away Peter, The Great World, Remembering Babylon
- Nadezhda
Mandelstam, Hope Against Hope
- Klaus Mann
12, Mephisto, Der Vulkan
- André Maurois, Les Silences
du Colonel Bramble, À La
recherche de Marcel Proust, Climats, Le Cercle de famille, Ariel
- Mendele Moykher Sforim,
The Little Man, The Travels and Adventures of Benjamin the
Third
- Steven
Millhauser, Edwin
Mullhouse (1975 Prix Médicis
étranger), Martin Dressler: The Tale of an American
Dreamer (1997 Pulitzer Prize for
Fiction)
- Patrick Modiano
13, Missing Person (1978 Prix Goncourt)
- Michel de
Montaigne 14,
Essays
- Elsa Morante
15, La storia, Aracoeli (1984 Prix Médicis étranger)
- Alberto
Moravia 16, Two Women, The Conformist
- Harry Mulisch
17, The Assault, The Discovery of Heaven, The Procedure
- Irène
Némirovsky, David Golder, Le Bal, Les mouches d'automne, Le vin de solitude, Les chiens et les loups, Les Biens de ce
monde
- Amos Oz, A Tale of
Love and Darkness, My
Michael
- Cynthia Ozick, Art &
Ardor, Heir to the Glimmering
World, The Puttermesser
Papers
- Dorothy
Parker 18, The Collected Dorothy
Parker
- Boris Pasternak,
Doctor Zhivago 1958 Nobel Prize in Literature
- Georges Perec, La Vie mode
d'emploi (Life: A
User's Manual) (1978 Prix Médicis)
- I.L. Peretz, Bontshe the
Silent, The Book of Fire: Stories by I.L.
Peretz
- Belva Plain, Evergreen
- Chaim
Potok, In the Beginning, The Chosen
- Marcel Proust
19, À la Recherche
du Temps Perdu (In Search
of Lost Time alternatively translated as Remembrance of Things Past) (1919 Prix Goncourt)
- Ellery Queen
(pseudonym used by Frederic Dannay and Manfred Lee),
Ellery
Queen mystery novels, anthologies , and magazine
- Ayn Rand, Atlas
Shrugged, The
Fountainhead, We the
Living
- Mordecai
Richler, The Apprenticeship of Duddy
Kravitz
- Harold Robbins, The
Carpetbaggers
- Fernando de
Rojas, La
Celestina
- Henry Roth, Call It
Sleep
- Joseph Roth, The Radetzky March, Job
- Philip Roth, Portnoy's
Complaint, Goodbye
Columbus, American
Pastoral (1998 Pulitzer Prize for
Fiction), The Human Stain (2002 Prix Médicis étranger)
- Bernice Rubens, Madame
Sousatzka, The Elected Member (1970 Booker Prize), A Solitary
Grief
- Anatoly Rybakov, Children of
the Arbat, Heavy Sand
- Carl Sagan, The Dragons of Eden (1978 Pulitzer Prize for General Non-Fiction)
- J. D.
Salinger 20, The Catcher in the Rye
- Nathalie
Sarraute, Tropismes, The Planetarium, The Age of Suspicion, The Golden Fruits, Between Life and Death
- Budd Schulberg, What Makes
Sammy Run?
- Bruno Schulz, The Street
of Crocodiles, Sanatorium under
the Sign of the Hourglass
- André
Schwarz-Bart, Le Dernier des Justes (The Last of
the Just) (1959 Prix
Goncourt)
- Erich Segal, Love
Story
- Anna Seghers, The Seventh
Cross
- Meir Shalev, TheBlue
Mountain, Esau, The Loves of Judith
- Irwin Shaw, Rich Man,
Poor Man, The Young
Lions
- Sidney Sheldon, The Other
Side of Midnight, Rage of
Angels
- Sholem Aleichem, Tevye the
Dairyman and Other Stories, Some
Laughter, Some Tears: Tales From the Old World and the New
- Isaac Bashevis
Singer, The Magician of Lublin, Enemies: A Love Story, Satan in Goray, The Family Moskat, The Slave 1978 Nobel Prize in
Literature
- Muriel Spark
21, The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie
- Manès Sperber, Burned Bramble, All
Our Yesterdays
- Art
Spiegelman, Maus
(1992 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction)
- Danielle Steel
22,
Best-selling romance novels (more than 500 million copies
sold)
- Gertrude Stein, The
Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas
- Milton
Steinberg, As a Driven Leaf
- George Steiner, The Portage
to San Cristóbal of A.H.
- Irving Stone, The Agony
and the Ecstasy, Lust for
Life
- Arkady and Boris
Strugatsky 23, Roadside
Picnic, Monday Begins on Saturday
- Jacqueline
Susann, Valley of
the Dolls
- Italo Svevo, The
Confessions of Zeno
- Alvin Toffler, Future
Shock
- Yuri Trifonov
24,
House on the Enbankment
- Elsa Triolet, A Fine of
200 Francs (1944 Prix
Goncourt)
- Barbara Tuchman, The Guns of
August (1963 Pulitzer Prize for
General Non-Fiction)
- Scott Turow, Presumed
Innocent, Burden of
Proof, The Laws of Our
Fathers, Reversible
Errors, Ordinary
Heroes
- Lyudmila
Ulitskaya, Sonechka (1996 Prix Médicis étranger), Kukotsky's Case
- Leon Uris, Exodus, Mila 18
- Vladimir Voinovich
25,
The Life and Extraordinary Adventures of Private
Ivan Chonkin
- Irving Wallace,
The Prize
- Edward Wallant, The Pawnbroker, The Human Season
- Jerome Weidman,
I Can Get It for You
Wholesale
- Franz Werfel, The Forty
Days of Musa Dagh, The Song of
Bernadette
- Nathanael West, Miss Lonelyhearts, The Day of the Locust, A Cool Million
- Elie Wiesel, Night, Dawn, The Accident, The Gates
of the Forrest, A Beggar in
Jerusalem (Le Mendiant de
Jérusalem, 1968 Prix Médicis), All Rivers
Run to the Sea: Memoirs, And the Sea is Never
Full: Memoirs 1986 Nobel Peace Prize
- Herman Wouk, The Caine
Mutiny (1952 Pulitzer Prize for
Fiction), The Winds of War, War and Remembrance, This is My God
- A. B. Yehoshua, A Late Divorce, Five Seasons, Mr.
Mani
- Israel Zangwill, Children of
the Ghetto
- Arnold Zweig,
The Case of Sergeant
Grischa
- Stefan Zweig, Amok, The Royal Game, The World of Yesterday
NOTES 1. Jewish mother (Eugenia Ginzburg), non-Jewish
father. 2. See, e.g., The Cambridge
Companion to Cervantes, edited by Anthony Cascardi (Cambridge University
Press, Cambridge, 2002, p.4). Writing of Cervantes' parents Rodrigo de Cervantes
and Leonor de Cortinas, Cascardi states in the Introduction: "While the family
may have had some claim to nobility they often found themselves in financial
straits. Moreover, they were almost certainly of converso origin, that is, converts to
Catholicism of Jewish ancestry." While this view is now very widely held, it
has not yet been definitively established. 3. Jewish father, non-Jewish
mother. 4. Jewish father (Lazare Kessel, the brother of novelist Joseph
Kessel). 5. Although born Roman Kacew to a Jewish couple, Nina and Leyba
Kacew (who separated shortly after his birth), Gary claimed that he "never knew
with any certainty who his father was"; see Romain Gary: The Man Who Sold His Shadow, by
Ralph Schoolcraft (University of Pennsylvania Press, Philadelphia, 2002, pp. 1,
48). 6.
Jewish father, non-Jewish mother. 7. Jewish mother, non-Jewish father. 8.
Jewish father, non-Jewish mother. 9. Born Benjamin MacKinlay
Kantor to a Jewish father and a non-Jewish mother. See My Father's Voice: MacKinlay Kantor Long
Remembered, by Tim Kantor (McGraw-Hill, New York, 1988, pp. 28-29, 40,
48-49, 92). 10. Jewish father, non-Jewish mother. 11. Jewish
father, non-Jewish mother. 12. Jewish mother, non-Jewish father. 13.
Jewish father,
non-Jewish mother. 14. According to both Donald Frame in Montaigne, a biography (Hamilton, London,
1965, pp. 16-28) and Cecil Roth in "The Jewish Ancestry of Michel de Montaigne"
[Chapter 14 of Personalities and Events in
Jewish History (Jewish Publication Society of America, Philadelphia,
1953, pp. 212-225)], Montaigne's maternal grandfather was a Jewish converso however, Montaigne's maternal
grandmother came from an "Old Christian" (i.e., non-converso) family, as did his father. 15.
Jewish mother, non-Jewish father. 16. Jewish father, non-Jewish
mother. 17. Jewish
mother, non-Jewish father. 18. Jewish father, non-Jewish mother. 19. Jewish
mother, non-Jewish father. 20. Jewish father, non-Jewish mother; raised
Jewish. 21. Jewish father, mother of partial Jewish
descent. Although Spark had always maintained that only her mother's maternal
grandfather was Jewish, documents in the possession of the office of the Chief
Rabbi in London indicate that both of her mother's maternal grandparents were
Jewish, which is consistent with her grandmother having been buried in the
Jewish section of the Piershill Cemetery in Edinburgh. In 1998, Spark conceded
that "it's quite possible that Adelaide [her maternal grandmother] was born a
Jew, that I got it wrong." See 15 April 1998 article "Document sparks family
feud over writer's Jewish origins," by Dean Nelson in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. 22.
Jewish father,
non-Jewish mother. 23. Jewish father, non-Jewish mother; see final paragraph
of http://www.abstrugatskie.ru/strug_famil/. 24. Jewish mother, non-Jewish
father. 25. Jewish
mother, non-Jewish father. 26. Jewish mother, non-Jewish
father.
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