The 1942 Nobel Prize in Literature was not awarded due to the ongoing Second World War. 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.The Nobel Prize in Literature 1942 nobelprize.org This was the sixth occasion in Nobel history that the prize was not conferred.
Nominations Despite no author(s) being awarded since 1939 due to the ongoing Second World War, a number of 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 30 nominations for 16 writers.Nomination archive – 1942 nobelprize.org
Six of the nominees were newly nominated namely Nikolai Berdyaev, Sigfrid Siwertz, Teixeira de Pascoaes, Charles Langbridge Morgan, Enrique Larreta, Hans Carossa. The highest number of nominations was for the Danish author Johannes Vilhelm Jensen, who was awarded in 1944, with seven nomination. It was followed by Argentinian academic Enrique Larreta who received 5 nominations from literary academies and various universities. Two of the nominees were women namely the Chilean poet Gabriela Mistral (awarded in 1945) and Portuguese writer Maria Madalena de Martel Patrício.
The authors Yosano Akiko, Nini Roll Anker, Eleanor Stackhouse Atkinson, Franz Boas, Libero Bovio, Léon Daudet, Fabio Fiallo, Rachel Field, Sakutarō Hagiwara, Cosmo Hamilton, Miguel Hernández, Daniil Kharms, Olha Kobylianska, Oskar Kraus, Clementine Krämer, Yanka Kupala, Bronisław Malinowski, Lucy Maud Montgomery Robert Musil, Irène Némirovsky, Bruno Schulz, Edith Stein, Jakob van Hoddis, Carolyn Wells, Xiao Hong, and Stefan Zweig died in 1942 without having been nominated for the prize.
Official list of nominees and their nominators for the prize No. Nominee Country Genre(s) Nominator(s)1Nikolai Berdyaev (1874–1948)()philosophy, theologyAlf Nyman (1884–1968)2Edmund Blunden (1896–1974) poetry, essays, biographyHeinrich Wolfgang Donner (1904–1980)3Hans Carossa (1878–1956) poetry, autobiography, essaysAnders Österling (1884–1981)4António Correia de Oliveira (1878–1960) poetry5Maria Madalena de Martel Patrício (1884–1947) poetry, essaysAntónio Baião (1878–1961)6Teixeira de Pascoaes (1877–1952) poetryJoão António Mascarenhas Júdice (1898–1957)7Georges Duhamel (1884–1966) novel, short story, poetry, drama, literary criticismAnders Österling (1884–1981)8Johan Falkberget (1879–1967) novel, short story, essays9Hermann Hesse (1877–1962)novel, poetry, essays, short storySigfrid Siwertz (1882–1970)10Johan Huizinga (1872–1945) historyWillem van Eysinga (1878–1961)11Johannes Vilhelm Jensen (1873–1950) novel, short story, essays12Johannes Jørgensen (1866–1956) novel, poetry, biographyClaes Lindskog (1870–1954)13Enrique Larreta (1875–1961) history, essays, drama, novel14Gabriela Mistral (1889–1957) poetry15Charles Langbridge Morgan (1894–1958) drama, novel, essays, poetryAnders Österling (1884–1981)16Sigfrid Siwertz (1882–1970)novel, short story, drama, poetryCarl Olaf Bøggild-Andersen (1898–1967)
Prize decision In the Nobel committee's deliberations on the nominated candidates for the 1942 Nobel Prize in Literature, the candidacy of Chilean poet Gabriela Mistral won support from four of the five committee members and Danish author Johannes V. Jensen's candidacy was supported by a majority of three committee members, but no prize was awarded in 1942. Subsequently, Johannes V. Jensen was awarded the 1944 Nobel Prize in Literature and Gabriela Mistral awarded the 1945 Nobel Prize in Literature.
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