1973 Nobel Prize in Literature

The 1973 Nobel Prize in Literature was awarded to the Australian writer Patrick White (1912–1990) "for an epic and psychological narrative art which has introduced a new continent into literature." He is the first and the only Australian recipient of the prize.

Laureate
The historical themes of Patrick White's novels and plays focus on his own Australia and its people. During his lifetime, he enjoyed greater acclaim abroad than he did at home, where his critical gaze was occasionally misunderstood. In 1939, he released Happy Valley, his debut novel. The Tree of Man (1955), a book about a farmer and his wife struggling to build a future in rural Australia, was his major literary success. Modern humanity's sense of loneliness and emptiness is a recurrent topic in his literary works. His other well-known works include The Vivisector (1970) and The Eye of the Storm (1973).

Nominations
In 1973, the Nobel Committee collected 101 writers for their deliberations – the second highest number of nominations revealed so far after 1969. White was first introduced for nomination in 1968 by Muriel Clara Bradbook, professor of English at Cambridge University. Henceforth, he became an annual nominee until he was subsequently awarded with the prize. In 1973, he was endorsed by academics and professors from Australia, New Zealand and Finland.

Eighteen authors were first-time nominees such as Vicente Aleixandre (awarded in 1977), Conrad Aiken, Miodrag Bulatović, Chiang Yee, Albert Cohen, Adolfo Costa du Rels, Eugen Jebeleanu, Yaşar Kemal, Zenta Mauriņa, Henry Miller, John Crowe Ransom, Isaac Bashevis Singer (awarded in 1978), Martin Wickramasinghe and Xu Xu. The highest number of nominations was for Jewish author Elie Wiesel (awarded the 1988 Nobel Peace Prize). The oldest nominee was Estonian poet Marie Under (aged 90) and the youngest was Finnish writer Hannu Salama (aged 37). Six of the nominees were women namely Simone de Beauvoir, Indira Devi Dhanrajgir, Nadine Gordimer (awarded in 1991), Doris Lessing (awarded in 2007), Zenta Mauriņa and Marie Under. The Indian novelist Tarasankar Bandyopadhyay, who died in 1971, was included posthumously by the Nobel Committee.

The authors Samuel Nathaniel Behrman, Arna Bontemps, Faruk Nafiz Çamlıbel, Noël Coward, John Creasey, Roland Dorgelès, Neil Miller Gunn, Egon Hostovský, Benn Levy, Warren Lewis, Lucy Beatrice Malleson (known as Anthony Gilbert), Nancy Mitford, Elma Napier, Robert C. O'Brien, Jirō Osaragi, Vera Panova, William Plomer, Brigitte Reimann, Sergio Tofano, Margaret Wilson and Nobuko Yoshiya died in 1973 without having been nominated for the prize while the American author Conrad Aiken died before the only chance to be awarded.

Prize Decision
Nobel Committee chair, Karl Ragnar Gierow, expressed that setting the shortlist "the committee agreed on Patrick White, Saul Bellow also had five votes, Yiannis Ritsos got four, Anthony Burgess, William Golding and Eugenio Montale each got three."