1924 Nobel Prize in Literature

The 1924 Nobel Prize in Literature was awarded to the Polish author Wladyslaw Reymont "for his great national epic, The Peasants".

Laureate
Wladyslaw Stanislaw Reymont (1867-1925) wrote novels and short stories that was strongly influenced by naturalism. He is best known for Chłopi (1904-1909, The Peasants), a novel in four volumes that chronicles peasant life in Poland during the four seasons of the year, for which he specifically was awarded the Nobel prize. An earlier success was the novel Ziemia obiecana (The Promised Land, 1899).

Nominations
Wladislaw Reymont was first nominated in 1919 by the Polish Academy of Arts and Sciences. It was followed in 1920, 1922 and 1924 wherein he was recommended by Nobel Committee members. In total, the Committee received 22 nominations for 18 authors which included Hugo von Hofmannsthal, Guglielmo Ferrero (who earned the three nominations - the highest), Thomas Hardy, Paul Ernst, Stefan Żeromski, Roberto Bracco, Paul Sabatier, George Bernard Shaw (awarded in 1925),. Three of the nominees were newly nominated: Thomas Mann (awarded in 1929), Max Neuburger and Olav Duun. There were two female nominees namely the Italian novelists Grazia Deledda (awarded in 1926) and Matilde Serao.

The authors Marie-Louise-Félicité Angers (known as Laure Conan), Valery Bryusov, Frances Hodgson Burnett, Joseph Conrad, Jacob Israël de Haan, Herman Heijermans, Franz Kafka, Arnold H. S. Landor, Laura Jean Libbey, Lin Shu, Mary Mackay (known as Marie Corelli), Paul Milliet, Edith Nesbit and Gene Stratton-Porter died in 1924 without having been nominated.

Presentation
As no official award ceremony took place, Per Hallström, chairman of the Nobel committee of the Swedish Academy, wrote a critical essay on Reymont in lieu of a presentation speech. In it he concluded: "To sum up, this epic novel is characterized by an art so grand, so sure, so powerful, that we may predict a lasting value and rank for it, not only within Polish literature but also within the whole of that branch of imaginative writing which has here been given a distinctive and monumental shape."