- 2004 — Elfriede Jelinek
- 2003 — John Maxwell Coetzee
- 2002 — Imre Kertész
- 2001 — Vidiadhar Surajprasad Naipaul
- 2000 — Gao Xingjian
- 1999 — Günter Grass
- 1998 — José Saramago
- 1997 — Dario Fo
- 1996 — Wisława Szymborska
- 1995 — Seamus Heaney
- 1994 — Kenzaburo Oe
- 1993 — Toni Morrison
- 1992 — Derek Walcott
- 1991 — Nadine Gordimer
- 1990 — Octavio Paz
- 1989 — Camilo José Cela
- 1988 — Nadżib Mahfuz
- 1987 — Josif Brodski
- 1986 — Wole Soyinka
- 1985 — Claude Simon
- 1984 — Jaroslav Seifert
- 1983 — William Golding
- 1982 — Gabriel García Márquez
- 1981 — Elias Canetti
- 1980 — Czesław Miłosz
- 1979 — Odyseas Elitis
- 1978 — Isaac Bashevis Singer
- 1977 — Vicente Aleixandre
- 1976 — Saul Bellow
- 1975 — Eugenio Montale
- 1974 — Eyvind Johnson, Harry Martinson
- 1973 — Patrick White
- 1972 — Heinrich Böll
- 1971 — Pablo Neruda
- 1970 — Aleksander Sołżenicyn
- 1969 — Samuel Beckett
- 1968 — Yasunari Kawabata
- 1967 — Miguel Angel Asturias
- 1966 — Shmuel Yosef Agnon, Nelly Sachs
- 1965 — Michaił Szołochow
- 1964 — Jean-Paul Sartre
- 1963 — Giorgos Seferis
- 1962 — John Steinbeck
- 1961 — Ivo Andrić
- 1960 — Saint-John Perse
- 1959 — Salvatore Quasimodo
- 1958 — Borys Pasternak
- 1957 — Albert Camus
- 1956 — Juan Ramón Jiménez
- 1955 — Halldór Kiljan Laxness
- 1954 — Ernest Miller Hemingway
- 1953 — Sir Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill
- 1952 — François Mauriac
- 1951 — Pär Fabian Lagerkvist
- 1950 — Earl Russell
- 1949 — William Faulkner
- 1948 — Thomas Stearns Eliot
- 1947 — André Paul Guillaume Gide
- 1946 — Hermann Hesse
- 1945 — Gabriela Mistral
- 1944 — Johannes Vilhelm Jensen
- 1939 — Frans Sillanpää
- 1938 — Pearl Buck
- 1937 — Roger Martin du Gard
- 1936 — Eugene Gladstone O'Neill
- 1934 — Luigi Pirandello
- 1933 — Iwan Bunin
- 1932 — John Galsworthy
- 1931 — Erik Axel Karlfeldt
- 1930 — Sinclair Lewis
- 1929 — Tomasz Mann
- 1928 — Sigrid Undset
- 1927 — Henri Bergson
- 1926 — Grazia Deledda
- 1925 — George Bernard Shaw
- 1924 — Władysław Stanisław Reymont
- 1923 — William Butler Yeats
- 1922 — Jacinto Benavente
- 1921 — Anatole France
- 1920 — Knut Pedersen Hamsun
- 1919 — Carl Friedrich Georg Spitteler
- 1917 — Karl Adolph Gjellerup, Henrik Pontoppidan
- 1916 — Carl Gustaf Verner von Heidenstam
- 1915 — Romain Rolland
- 1913 — Rabindranath Tagore
- 1912 — Gerhart Johann Robert Hauptmann
- 1911 — Count Maurice Polidore Marie Bernhard Maeterlinck
- 1910 — Paul Johann Ludwig Heyse
- 1909 — Selma Ottilia Lovisa Lagerlöf
- 1908 — Rudolf Christoph Eucken
- 1907 — Rudyard Kipling
- 1906 — Giosuč Carducci
- 1905 — Henryk Sienkiewicz
- 1904 — Frédéric Mistral, José Echegaray Y Eizaguirre
- 1903 — Bjørnstjerne Martinus Bjørnson
- 1902 — Christian Matthias Theodor Mommsen
- 1901 — Sully Prudhomme