Famous Writers Who Have Won Both Nobel and Pulitzer Prizes
For a writer, few awards are as prestigious as the Nobel Prize in Literature and the Pulitzer Prize. And if you win both? Well, that’s a rare one for the history books. Only a select number of writers have earned both. And some, like Sinclair Lewis, have even rejected such honors. (More on that surprising tidbit later.)
A little about the awards: The Nobel Prize in Literature honors an author’s body of work, while a Pulitzer Prize recognizes specific books, plays, poems and, in a musician’s case, a special citation. Think of the Nobel Prize in Literature like a lifetime achievement award, celebrating the author’s entire portfolio. Both the Nobel and Pulitzer prizes began around the same time period, with the former starting in 1901 and the latter in 1917. While the Pulitzer is worth about $15,000 in most categories, including fiction, the Nobel Prize is about $1.2 million today.
Here, we look at the writers who have won both awards, appearing on the official records of each institution:
📚Did You Know?📚
Writer nominations, as well as evaluations from the Nobel Committee in Literature members, are kept a secret for 50 years.
Eugene O’Neill
O’Neill won four Pulitzer Prizes for Drama for his plays Beyond the Horizon in 1920, Anna Christie in 1922, Strange Interlude in 1928, and Long Day’s Journey into Night in 1957. The 1936 Nobel Prize in Literature honored the power, honesty, and emotional force of his drama, which addresses topics like alcoholism, addiction, illness, poverty, suicide, and family estrangement.
Sinclair Lewis
Lewis won the 1926 Pulitzer Prize in Novel (category renamed “Fiction” in 1947) for Arrowsmith. The book documents the life of an ambitious young physician from the Midwest who’s determined to make his mark in the medical research field. It’s often regarded as one of the first “science” novels. But, plot twist: Lewis actually declined the prize. In his refusal letter, he said he believed the award historically favored conventional portrayals of American life. The Pulitzer, however, still lists Arrowsmith as the official winner that year. Eventually, Lewis went on to win the 1930 Nobel Prize in Literature (which he did accept) for his vivid descriptions and creation of character types through wit and humor.
📚Did You Know?📚
Lewis isn’t the only author in history to refuse well-known literary awards. In 1964, Jean-Paul Sartre declined the Nobel Prize in Literature on principle, believing that authors should remain independent and not be defined by honors. And Russian author Boris Pasternak initially accepted the 1958 Nobel Prize in Literature for his body of work but later declined it because of government pressure over his novel Doctor Zhivago, which was banned in the Soviet Union.
Pearl S. Buck
Buck’s The Good Earth, which was awarded the 1932 Pulitzer Prize in Novel, follows Wang Lung, a poor farmer in rural China, and his wife O-lan as drought, famine, and economic precarity shape their family’s life. As Wang Lung acquires land and wealth, the novel also confronts class divisions and gender disparities. The 1938 Nobel Prize in Literature recognized Buck’s depictions of peasant life in China and her biographical work.
John Steinbeck
Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath follows the Joad family after economic collapse and eviction force them from Oklahoma toward California during the Great Depression. They join other migrants seeking agricultural work and encounter hunger, low wages, hostile policing, and exploitation by growers. For this classic work, Steinbeck was awarded the 1940 Pulitzer Prize in Novel. Then in 1962, he received the Nobel Prize in Literature for his realistic and imaginative writing, humor, and social perception.
Ernest Hemingway
Hemingway won the 1953 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction for The Old Man and the Sea, about Santiago, an aging Cuban fisherman who hooks a giant marlin far from shore and struggles to bring it home. The 1954 Nobel Prize in Literature recognized his command of narrative and his influence on literary style. His novels, stories, and reporting depict war, injury, grief, gender, violence, and disillusionment.
📚Did You Know?📚
Despite the commercial success of For Whom the Bell Tolls, Hemingway did not win the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction for this book in 1941. Although the jury recommended his novel, the Pulitzer Board withheld the award amid controversy over the book’s content. (That’s right! The Fiction category has gone without a winner several times.)
William Faulkner
Faulkner stands alone as the only author to win the Nobel Prize before later earning a Pulitzer — and in his case, two of them. The 1949 Nobel Prize in Literature recognized his powerful and artistically distinctive novels, which examined white supremacy, slavery’s legacy, segregation, racial violence, family power, and the social order of the U.S. South. He went on to earn his two Pulitzer Prizes in Fiction for A Fable in 1955 and The Reivers in 1963.
Saul Bellow
The year 1976 was an eventful one for Bellow. He was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction for Humboldt’s Gift, a novel about the friendship and rivalry between poet Von Humboldt Fleisher and writer Charlie Citrine. That same year, he received the Nobel Prize in Literature for his work’s potent combination of intellectual argument, comedy, and insightful portraits of urban American life.
Toni Morrison
Morrison won the 1988 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction for Beloved, a novel that focuses on Sethe, a formerly enslaved woman grappling with the trauma of slavery and the memory of a daughter she killed to save her from slavery’s cruelties. The 1993 Nobel Prize in Literature recognized her novels’ visionary force and the poetic language she used to explore Black family life, slavery and its legacy, racism, gender, memory, and American history.
Louise Glück
The poems in Glück’s The Wild Iris unfold in a garden, using flowers, a gardener, and a godlike voice to explore suffering, mortality, renewal, and spiritual inquiry. For this work, Glück earned the 1993 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry. In 2020, the Nobel Prize in Literature recognized her unmistakable poetic voice and its austere beauty.
Bob Dylan
Famed musician Bob Dylan was awarded a 2008 Pulitzer Prize Special Citation for his impact on popular music and American culture through poetic lyrics. He won the 2016 Nobel Prize in Literature — not without controversy — for what the organization described as creating new poetic expressions “within the great American song tradition.” Across songs such as “Blowin’ in the Wind,” “A Hard Rain’s a-Gonna Fall,” “Like a Rolling Stone,” and “Tangled Up in Blue,” Dylan has worked in folk, rock, blues, country, and other musical forms.
Winning both a Pulitzer and a Nobel is a rare accomplishment for a writer. For those who achieve it, the distinction reflects a body of literary work that leaves a lasting impression.
