1994 Oe, Kenzaburo, Japan, novelist

1993 Morrison, Toni, USA, novelist, poet

1992 Walcott, Derek, St. Lucia, poet

1991 Gordimer, Nadine, South Africa, novelist

1990 Octavio Paz, Mexico, poet, essayist

1989 Cela, Camilo Jose, Spain, novelist

1988 Mahfouz, Naghib, Egypt, novelist

1987 Brodsky, Joseph, U.S. (born in USSR), poet

1986 Soyinka, Wole, Nigeria, novelist and playwright

1985 Simon, Claude, France

1984 Seifart, Jaroslav, Czechoslovakia, poet

1983 Golding, William, Great Britain, novelist
      _Lord of the Flies_,_The Spire_

1982 Garcia Marquez, Gabriel, Colombia, novelist
      _One Hundred Years of Solitude_, _Love in the Time of Cholera_

1981 Elias Canetti, Great Britain (born in Bulgaria), novelist 

1980 Milosz, Czeslaw, U. S. and Poland, poet

1979 Elytis, Odysseus, Greece, poet

1978 Singer, Isaac Bashevis, U. S. (born in Poland), novelist

1977 Aleixandre, Vicente, Spain, poet

1976 Bellow, Saul, U. S., novelist

1975 Montale, Eugenio, Italy

1974 Johnson, Eyvind and Martinson, Harry, Sweden

1973 White, Patrick, Australia, novelist

1972 Boll, Heinrich, Germany(DDR), novelist

1971 Neruda, Pablo, Chile, poet

1970 Solzhenitsyn, Aleksandr, USSR, novelist

1969 Beckett, Samuel, Ireland, playwright

1968 Kawabata, Yasunari, Japan

1967 Asturias, Miguel Angel, Guatemala, novelist

1966 Agnon, Shmuel Yosef, Israel

1965 Sholokhov, Mikhail, USSR

1964 Sartre, Jean-Paul, France (refused the prize)

1963 Seferis, Giorgos, Greece

1962 Steinbeck, John, U.S.

1961 Andric, Ivo, Yugoslavia

1960 Perse, Saint-John

1959 Quasimodo, Salvatore, Italy

1958 Pasternak, Boris, USSR

1957 Camus, Albert, France

1956 Ramon Jimenez, Juan, Spain

1955 Laxness, Halldor, Iceland

1954 Hemingway, Ernest, USA

1953 Churchill, Winston, Great Britain

1952 Mauriac, Francois, France