SOURCE: Feldman, Burton. “The Nobel Prize in Literature.” In The Nobel Prize: A History of Genius, Controversy, and Prestige, pp. 55-113. New York: Arcade Publishing, 2000.

In the following excerpt, Feldman presents a detailed overview of the winners, criteria, and limitations of the Nobel Prize in Literature.

For a portrait of what the Nobel Prize in Literature is not, one can't do better than Irving Wallace's novel The Prize. Published in 1962, it quickly became a best-seller and a hit movie, and no wonder, considering its sensational plot. The young, “lanky” author is dead drunk when he learns he has won the Nobel Prize. Embittered since his wife died, and a romantic rebel against social convention, he very reluctantly agrees to accept the award: he can use the money. But winning the Nobel Prize is the least of his triumphs in the book. In Stockholm he falls in love, plunges...