2011  Tomas Transtromer - Sweden  (announced 10.6.11) 

2010  Mario Vargas Llosa - Peru

2009  Herta Müller - Germany
2008  Jean-Marie Gustave Le Clézio - France
2007  Doris Lessing - United Kingdom
2006   Orhan Pamuk - Turkey
2005  Harold Pinter - United Kingdom
2004  Elfriede Jelinek - Austria
2003  J.M. Coetzee - South Africa
2002  Imre Kertesz - Hungary
2001  V.S. Naipaul - Great Britain
2000  Gao Xingjian - China

1999  Günter Grass - Germany
1998  José Saramago - Portugal
1997  Dario Fo - Italy
1996  Wislawa Szymborska - Poland
1995  Seamus Heaney - Ireland
1994  Kenzaburo Oe - Japan
1993  Toni Morrison - U.S.
1992  Derek Walcott - St. Lucia
1991  Nadine Gordimer - South Africa
1990  Octavio Paz - Mexico

1989  Dr. Camilo José Cela - Spain
1988  Naguib Mahfouz - Egypt
1987  Joseph Brodsky - U.S.
1986  Wole Soyinka - Nigeria
1985  Claude Simon - France
1984  Jaroslav Seifert - Czechoslovakia
1983  William Golding - United Kingdom
1982   Gabriel García Márquez - Colombia
1981 Elias Canetti - United Kingdom
1980 Czeslaw Milosz - Poland/U.S.

1979  Odysseus Elytis - Greece
1978  Isaac Bashevis Singer - U.S..
1977  Vincente Aleixandre - Spain
1976  Saul Bellow - U.S.
1975  Eugenio Montale - Italy
1974  Eyvind Johnson & Harry Martinson - Sweden
1973  Patrick White - Australia
1972  Heinrich Böll - Germany
1971  Pablo Neruda - Chile
1970  Aleksandr I. Solzhenitsyn - U.S.S.R.

1969  Samuel Beckett - Ireland
1968  Yasunari Kawabata - Japan
1967  Miguel A. Asturias - Guatemala
1966  Schmel Y. Agnon (Israel) & Nelly Sachs (Germany)
1965  Michail Sholokhov -U.S.S.R.
1964  Jean-Paul Sartre - France (declined)
1963  Giorgos Seferis -Greece
1962  John Steinbeck - U.S.
1961  Ivo Andric - Yugoslavia
1960  Saint-John Perse - France

1959  Salvatore Quasimodo - Italy
1958  Boris Pasternak - U.S.S.R.
1957  Albert Camus - France
1956  J.R. Jiménez  - Spain
1955  Halldór Kiljan Laxness - Iceland
1954  Ernest Hemingway - U.S.
1953  Winston Churchill - United Kingdom
1952  François Mauriac - France
1951   Pär Lagerkvist - Sweden
1950 Bertrand Russell - United Kingdom

1949  William Faulkner - U.S.
1948  T.S. Eliot - United Kingdom
1947  André Gide - France
1946  Hermann Hesse - Switzerland
1945  Gabriela Mistral - Chile
1944  Johannes V. Jensen - Denmark
1943    no award
1942    no award
1941    no award
1940    no award

1939  F.E. Sillanpää - Finland
1938  Pearl S. Buck - U.S.
1937  Roger Martin du Gard - France
1936  Eugene O'Neill - U.S.
1935    no award
1934  Luigi Pirandello - Italy
1933  Ivan Bunin - U.S.S.R
1932  John Galsworthy - United Kingdom
1931  Erik Axel Karlfeldt - Italy
1930  Sinclair Lewis - U.S.

1929  Thomas Mann - Germany
1928  Singrid Undset - Norway
1927  Henri Bergson - France
1926  Grazia Deledda - Italy
1925  George Bernard Shaw - United Kingdom
1924  Wladyslaw Reymont - Poland
1923  William Butler Yeats - Ireland
1922  Jacinto Benavente - Spain
1921  Anatole France - France
1920  Knut Hamsun - Norway

1919  Carl Spitteler - Switzerland
1918    no award
1917  Karl Gjellerup (Italy) & Henrik Pontoppidan (Denmark)
1916  Verner von Heidenstam - Sweden
1915  Romain Rolland - France
1914    no award
1913  Rabindranath Tagore - India
1912  Gerhart Hauptmann - Germany
1911   Maurice Maeterlinck - Belgium
1910 Paul von Heyse - Germany

1909  Selma Lagerlöf - Sweden
1908  Rudolf Eucken - Germany
1907  Rudyard Kipling - United Kingdom
1906  Giosue Carducci - Italy
1905  Henryk Sienkiewicz - Poland
1904  José Echegaray (Spain) & Frédéric Mistral (France)
1903  Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson - Norway
1902  Theodor Mommsen - Germany
1901  Sully Prudhomme - France