Each year, publishers and authors eagerly await the announcement of the Nobel Prize in Literature. A win obviously boosts circulation — but the effect is not always as spectacular as one might expect.
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Receiving the Nobel Prize in Literature obviously increases circulation figures: "There is no external force that affects an author and an author's books as strongly as the Nobel Prize. This is the most intense thing that can happen to an author," says Lucien Leitess, publishing director and head of programming at the Swiss publishing house Unionsverlag.
His company has four Nobel Prize winners in its roster, as well as Caribbean author Maryse Conde, born in 1937 in Guadeloupe, who won the so-called Alternative Nobel Prize in 2018.
Unionsverlag specializes in international literature and represents authors from all over the world, and the company has direct experience with what can happen to sales figures when an author receives the prestigious award.
The publisher mentions the case of Egyptian author Naguib Mahfouz, who was unexpectedly named the winner in 1988: "Nobody knew him, or even how to spell his name right. We had sold 300 copies in three years — and then 30,000 in three minutes."
Of course it's not only about the prize itself, but about how the author's work is received by readers. "The effect of the Nobel Prize is in a way, just a start. Whether it will be successful in the long haul depends on how much an author conquers the hearts of readers." Read more:Frankfurt Book Fair: Dreams, revolutions and a Nobel laureate
Handke's books in his long time publishing company SuhrkampImage: Getty Images/AFP/M. Tantussi
Critical media
Media coverage also plays a major role in the reception of the literary work, as the example of Chinese author Mo Yan. The decision to award him the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2012 was criticized by many observers, who felt that Mo Yan was not committed to freedom of expression in China strongly enough and that he seemed to avoid confronting the Chinese government. His involvement in a book commemorating an anti-democratic speech by Mao Zedong was also criticized. "We had several of his books in stock as paperbacks. But all in all, perhaps 80,000 books were sold," Leitess said. It is a relatively low figure for sales of a Nobel Prize winner's book.
Success with Handke and Tokarczuk
Suhrkamp is the publishing house that boasts the most Nobel Prize winners in Germany. It is currently having a moment in the sun. This year's Nobel Prize winner was Peter Handke, who is the 16th Nobel laureate represented by the publisher. In the seven weeks following the announcement of the Nobel Prize, Suhrkamp sold 150,000 copies of Handke's books, according to press spokesperson Tanja Postpischil.
With the Nobel Prize behind them, older titles by award-winners often sell well. Zurich-based publisher Kampa-Verlag is a case in point. It is the fifth publisher to print the books of Polish author Olga Tokarczuk. "It was always clear that she was a very important and great author, but she was also always difficult to sell in German-speaking countries," says publisher Daniel Kampa, who founded his publishing house in autumn 2018 and acquired the rights to Tokarczuk's previously published German works. Her 1,200-page opus magnum, The Books of Jacob, was published in German 10 days before she was awarded a Nobel Prize. Before the announcement, Kampa had sold about 1,200 copies. After that, the 3,000 copies of the available print run were sold out in no time.
German publishing house Kampa-Verlag lucked out when Polish author Olga Tokarczuk won the Nobel Prize: It had just begun to print her booksImage: Reuters/R. Orlowski
The extent to which the Nobel Prize has an impact on a publisher also depends on how well-known the winner is. In the past decade, Hanser-Verlag was able to celebrate the Nobel Prize for their client, Swedish poet Tomas Tranströmer (2011) — and three years later, a Nobel for Patrick Modiano. "Tranströmer was a big surprise," says Jasmin Aldinger, a spokesperson for the company. "But I don't think he sold an incredibly large number of books. There is always a difference between poets and novelists. And with Modiano, the Nobel Prize effect was limited because he wrote so much."
The Nobel Prize breakthrough
The last Nobel Prize winner at Fischer Verlag was Canadian author Alice Munro in 2013. Editorial director Hans Jürgen Balmes was able to observe the Nobel Prize effect clearly with her, as well as in 2003 with South African writer John Maxwell Coetzee. "It was really big with both, because we had the entire backlist in print," he said. "With Coetzee, we sold 300,000 books in the months following the announcement. With Alice Munro, it was perhaps a little more," he says.
The winner in 2013 was Alice Munro, and her win meant big sales for her publisher, Fischer Verlag.Image: Getty Images/AFP/D. Roland
Fischer had been prepared when Munro received the Nobel Prize. "We actually wanted to publish a new book by her the following spring," said Balmes. "But we had prepared everything so that if the miracle actually happened, we could already print it in December."
As the saying goes, all good things come to an end and often the Nobel Prize effect does not last long; it's not that everything a prize-winning author writes afterward will be a hit. "Munro's high has lasted two to three years. After that, the numbers returned to normal" says Balmes. "The sales numbers we reached with the new novel by Kenzaburo Oe, the 1993 Nobel Prize winner, are minimal — a fraction of what they used to be."
Nobel Literature Prize: The past 20 winners
Bob Dylan, Svetlana Alexievich, Annie Ernaux and now Han Kang. Here's a look back at the last 20 laureates of the prestigious literary award.
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2024: Han Kang
Han Kang is the first South Korean author to win the Nobel Prize in literature, recognizing "her intense poetic prose that confronts historical traumas and exposes the fragility of human life." Her publication debut came as a poet in 1993; the Man Booker International Prize for fiction, awarded to her in 2016 for her novel "The Vegetarian," marked her global breakthrough.
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2023: Jon Fosse
The Norwegian playwright has had 1,000 productions of his plays staged in more than 50 languages. He is also the author of novels, poetry and children's books. The Nobel Prize committee selected the writer "for his innovative plays and prose which give voice to the unsayable." He is shown here at the National Book Awards in 2022, where he was a nominee for "A New Name: Septology VI-VII."
The French author, born in 1940, is renowned for her autobiographical prose works that go "beyond fiction in the narrow sense," said the Swedish Academy. Among others, her 2001 book "Happening" deals with her illegal abortion from the 1960s. She was selected "for the courage and clinical acuity with which she uncovers the roots, estrangements and collective restraints of personal memory."
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2021: Abdulrazak Gurnah
Tanzanian novelist Abdulrazak Gurnah won the Nobel Prize in literature in 2021 "for his uncompromising and compassionate penetration of the effects of colonialism," said the Swedish Academy. "His novels recoil from stereotypical descriptions and open our gaze to a culturally diversified East Africa unfamiliar to many in other parts of the world."
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2020: Louise Glück
Crowned with the Nobel Prize in literature in 2020, the American poet and essayist had already won major awards in the US, including the Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award, as well as the National Humanities Medal, which was presented by Barack Obama in 2016. Her most notable works include the "The Triumph of Achilles" (1985) and "The Wild Iris" (1992).
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2019: Peter Handke
The Austrian author born in 1942 became famous with experimental plays such as "Offending the Audience" in 1966. He also co-wrote Wim Wenders films, including "Wings of Desire." The decision to award Handke the Nobel Prize was criticized since he is also known for his controversial positions on the Yugoslav wars. In 2014, he had also called the prize to be abolished, dubbing it a "circus."
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2018: Olga Tokarczuk
The Polish writer was actually awarded the 2018 Nobel Prize in 2019, since it had been postponed for a year following scandals affecting the Swedish Academy, the body that chooses the laureates for the award. A two-time winner of Poland's top literary prize, the Nike Award, Tokarczuk was also honored in 2010 with the Man Booker International Prize for her novel "Flights."
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2017: Kazuo Ishiguro
Japan-born British novelist, screenwriter and short story writer Kazuo Ishiguro won the 2017 award. His most renowned novel, "The Remains of the Day" (1989), was adapted into a movie starring Anthony Hopkins. His works deal with memory, time and self-delusion.
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2016: Bob Dylan
An atypical but world famous laureate: US songwriter Bob Dylan was awarded the Nobel Prize in literature in 2016. The Swedish Academy selected Dylan "for having created new poetic expressions within the great American song tradition."
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2015: Svetlana Alexievich
Calling her work "a monument to suffering and courage in our time," the Swedish Academy honored the Belarusian author and investigative journalist in 2015. Alexievich is best known for her emotive firsthand accounts of war and suffering, including "War's Unwomanly Face" (1985) and "Voices from Chernobyl" (2005).
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2014: Patrick Modiano
The French writer's stories describe a universe of haunted cities, absentee parents, criminality and lost youths. They are all set in Paris with the shadow of World War II looming heavily in the background. The Swedish Academy described the novelist, whose work has often focused on the Nazi occupation of France, as "a Marcel Proust of our time."
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2013: Alice Munro
Canadian writer Alice Munro is no stranger to accolades, having received the Man Booker International Prize and the Canadian Governor General Literary Award three times over. The Swedish Academy called her a "master of the contemporary short story."
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2012: Mo Yan
Guan Moye, better known under his pen name Mo Yan, was praised by the Swedish Academy as a writer "who with hallucinatory realism merges folk tales, history and the contemporary." The decision was criticized by Chinese dissidents like artist Ai Weiwei, who claimed Mo Yan was too close to the Chinese Communist Party and did not support fellow intellectuals who faced political repression
The academy chose Tomas Gosta Transtromer as the winner in 2011 "because, through his condensed, translucent images, he gives us fresh access to reality." In the 1960s, the Swedish poet worked as a psychologist at a center for juvenile offenders. His poetry has been translated into over 60 languages.
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2010: Mario Vargas Llosa
The Peruvian novelist received the Nobel Prize "for his cartography of structures of power and his trenchant images of the individual's resistance, revolt, and defeat." In Latin America, he is famous for uttering the phrase "Mexico is the perfect dictatorship" on TV in 1990 and for punching his once-friend and fellow Nobel laureate, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, in the face in 1976.
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2009: Herta Müller
The German-Romanian author was awarded the Nobel Prize as a writer "who, with the concentration of poetry and the frankness of prose, depicts the landscape of the dispossessed." She is noted for her work criticizing the repressive communist regime of Nicolae Ceausescu in Romania, which she experienced herself. Müller writes in German and moved to West Berlin in 1987.
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2008: Jean-Marie Gustave Le Clezio
The Swedish Academy called J.M.G. Le Clezio an "author of new departures, poetic adventure and sensual ecstasy, explorer of a humanity beyond and below the reigning civilization." Le Clezio was born in Nice, France, in 1940 to a French mother and a Mauritian father. He holds dual citizenship and calls Mauritius his "little fatherland."
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2007: Doris Lessing
The 11th woman to win the award since its creation in 1901, British author Doris May Lessing (1919-2013) wrote novels, plays and short stories. The Nobel Prize recognized her for being a writer "who with skepticism, fire and visionary power has subjected a divided civilization to scrutiny." She also campaigned against nuclear weapons and the Apartheid regime in South Africa.
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2006: Orhan Pamuk
Ferit Orhan Pamuk, "who in the quest for the melancholic soul of his native city has discovered new symbols for the clash and interlacing of cultures," was the first Turkish author to be awarded the Nobel Prize in literature. With more than 13 million books sold, he is Turkey's bestselling writer. Pamuk was born in Istanbul and currently teaches at Columbia University in New York City.
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2005: Harold Pinter
Harold Pinter, "who in his plays uncovers the precipice under everyday prattle and forces entry into oppression's closed rooms," was awarded the Nobel Prize three years before his death from liver cancer. He died on Christmas Eve in 2008. The British playwright directed and acted in many radio and film productions of his own work. In total, he received more than 50 awards.
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