1930 Nobel Prize in Literature
The 1930 Nobel Prize in Literature was awarded to the American novelist Sinclair Lewis (1885–1951) "for his vigorous and graphic art of description and his ability to create, with wit and humour, new types of characters."[1][2] He is the first American Nobel laureate in literature.
1930 Nobel Prize in Literature
Deliberations[edit]
Nominations[edit]
Lewis had not been nominated before for the prize, making him one of the laureates who won on a rare occasion when they have been awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature the same year they were first nominated.[5] He received only one nomination from Swedish Academy member Henrik Schück (1855–1947).[6]
In total, the Swedish Academy's Nobel Committee received 47 nominations for 30 writers. Thirteen of the authors were first-time nominated among them Theodore Dreiser, Edgar Lee Masters, Frans Eemil Sillanpää (awarded in 1939), Arvid Järnefelt, Paul Valéry, Lion Feuchtwanger, Rudolf Kassner, and Clotilde Crespo de Arvelo. The highest number of nomination was for the French poet and essayist Paul Valéry with six nominations. There were three female nominees: Concha Espina de la Serna, Clotilde Crespo de Arvelo and Edith Wharton.[7]
The authors Arthur St John Adcock, Vladimir Arsenyev, Florence Bell, Edward Bok, Alice Williams Brotherton, Mary Whiton Calkins, Herbert Croly, Georges de Porto-Riche, Arthur Conan Doyle, Florbela Espanca, Mary Eleanor Wilkins Freeman, Thomas Nicoll Hepburn, Pavlos Karolidis, D. H. Lawrence, William John Locke, Vladimir Mayakovsky, Olena Pchilka, Maria Polydouri, Marion Manville Pope, George Haven Putnam, Karam Singh, Arthur Way, Lucien Wolf, Joseph Wright, and Manuel Zeno Gandía died in 1930 without having been nominated for the prize.