1940 Nobel Prize in Literature

1940 Nobel Prize in Literature
"in the field of literature, produced the most outstanding work in an idealistic direction".
Location	Stockholm, Sweden
Country
Presented by	Swedish Academy
First awarded	1901
1940 laureate	none
Official website	Official website

The 1940 Nobel Prize in Literature was not awarded when the Nobel committee's deliberations were upset by the start of World War II in September 1, 1939. Instead, the prize money was allocated with 1/3 to the Main Fund and with 2/3 to the Special Fund of this prize section. This was the fourth occasion in Nobel history that the prize was not conferred.

Nominations

Despite no author(s) being awarded for the 1940 prize due to the ongoing second world war, numerous literary critics, societies and academics continued sending nominations to the Nobel Committee of the Swedish Academy, hoping that their nominated candidate may be considered for the prize. In total, the academy received 26 nominations for 19 individuals.

Seven of the nominees were nominated first-time such as Carl Sandburg, Gabriela Mistral (awarded in 1945), Lin Yutang, Bert Bailey, and Edmund Blunden. The highest number of the nominations – three nominations – was for the French writer Henriette Charasson. Three of the nominees were women, namely Gabriela Mistral, Henriette Charasson, and Maria Madalena de Martel Patrício.

The authors Isaak Babel, Walter Benjamin, E. F. Benson, Marie Bregendahl, John Buchan, Mikhail Bulgakov, Mikhail Bulgakov, Tomás Carrasquilla, Charley Chase, Lucio D'Ambra, William Henry Davies, Mary Bathurst Deane, Charles Edgar du Perron, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Hamlin Garland, Emma Goldman, Anton Hansen (known as A. H. Tammsaare), Thomas Little Heath, Nicolae Iorga, Ze'ev Jabotinsky, Panuganti Lakshminarasimha Rao, Jan Lorentowicz, Edwin Markham, Hendrik Marsman, Ricardo Miró, Eileen Power, Ameen Rihani, T. O'Conor Sloane, Santōka Taneda, Menno ter Braak, Leon Trotsky, Nathanael West, and Humbert Wolfe died in 1940 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	Albert Edward Bailey (1868–1953)	Australia	drama, screenplay	Georges Rency (1875–1951)
2	Edmund Blunden (1896–1974)	United Kingdom	poetry, essays, biography	Heinrich Wolfgang Donner (1904-1980)
3	Gösta Carlberg (1909–1973)	Sweden	novel, poetry, short story, essays	Einar Tegen (1884–1965)
4	Henriette Charasson (1884–1972)	France	poetry, essays, drama, novel, literary criticism, biography	Pierre Moreau (1895–1972) Serge Barrault (1887–1976) Jacques Chevalier (1882–1962)
5	António Correia de Oliveira (1878–1960)	Portugal	poetry	António Mendes Correia (1888–1960)
6	Maria Madalena de Martel Patrício (1884–1947)	Portugal	poetry, essays	António Baião (1878–1961)
7	Georges Duhamel (1884–1966)	France	novel, short story, poetry, drama, literary criticism	Anders Österling (1884–1981)
8	Johan Falkberget (1879–1967)	Norway	novel, short story, essays	Eivind Berggrav (1884–1959) Fredrik Paasche (1886–1943)
9	Vilhelm Grønbech (1873–1948)	Denmark	history, essays, poetry	Sven Lönborg (1871–1959)
10	Johan Huizinga (1872–1945)	Netherlands	history	Hjalmar Hammarskjöld (1862–1953) 5 members of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences
11	Johannes Vilhelm Jensen (1873–1950)	Denmark	novel, short story, essays	Vilhelm Andersen (1864–1953) Carl Adolf Bodelsen (1894–1978)
12	Lin Yutang (1895–1976)	China	novel, philosophy, essays, translation	Sven Hedin (1865–1952) Pearl Buck (1892–1973)
13	Gabriela Mistral (1889–1957)	Chile	poetry	Yolando Pino Saavedra (1901–1992) Luís Galdames Galdames (1881–1941)
14	Kostis Palamas (1859–1943)	Greece	poetry, essays	Iōannēs Kalitsounakēs (1878–1966)
15	Carl Sandburg (1878–1967)	United States	poetry, essays, biography	Sinclair Lewis (1885–1951)
16	Alfonso Strafile (1872–?)	Italy United States	essays	Domenico Vittorini (1892–1958)
17	Stijn Streuvels (1871–1969)	Belgium	novel, short story	Fredrik Böök (1883–1961)
18	Felix Timmermans (1886–1947)	Belgium	novel, short story, drama, poetry, essays	Paul Sobry (1895–1954)
19	Paul Valéry (1871–1945)	France	poetry, philosophy, essays, drama	Rolf Lagerborg (1874–1959)