* 2006 - Orhan Pamuk
* 2005 - Harold Pinter
* 2004 - Elfriede Jelinek
* 2003 - J.M. Coetzee
* 2002 - Imre Kertész
* 2001 - V.S. Naipaul
* 2000 - Gao Xingjian
* 1999 - Günter Grass
* 1998 - José Saramago
* 1997 - Dario Fo
* 1996 - Wislawa Szymborska
* 1995 - Seamus Heaney
* 1994 - Kenzaburo Oe
* 1993 - Toni Morrison
* 1992 - Derek Walcott
* 1991 - Nadine Gordimer
* 1990 - Octavio Paz
* 1989 - Camilo José Cela
* 1988 - Naguib Mahfouz
* 1987 - Joseph Brodsky
* 1986 - Wole Soyinka
* 1985 - Claude Simon
* 1984 - Jaroslav Seifert
* 1983 - William Golding
* 1982 - Gabriel García Márquez
* 1981 - Elias Canetti
* 1980 - Czeslaw Milosz
* 1979 - Odysseus Elytis
* 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 - Alexandr Solzhenitsyn
* 1969 - Samuel Beckett
* 1968 - Yasunari Kawabata
* 1967 - Miguel Angel Asturias
* 1966 - Samuel Agnon, Nelly Sachs
* 1965 - Mikhail Sholokhov
* 1964 - Jean-Paul Sartre
* 1963 - Giorgos Seferis
* 1962 - John Steinbeck
* 1961 - Ivo Andric
* 1960 - Saint-John Perse
* 1959 - Salvatore Quasimodo
* 1958 - Boris Pasternak
* 1957 - Albert Camus
* 1956 - Juan Ramón Jiménez
* 1955 - Halldór Laxness
* 1954 - Ernest Hemingway
* 1953 - Winston Churchill
* 1952 - François Mauriac
* 1951 - Pär Lagerkvist
* 1950 - Bertrand Russell
* 1949 - William Faulkner
* 1948 - T.S. Eliot
* 1947 - André Gide
* 1946 - Hermann Hesse
* 1945 - Gabriela Mistral
* 1944 - Johannes V. Jensen
* 1943 - The prize money was with 1/3 allocated to the Main Fund and with 2/3 to the Special Fund of this prize section
* 1942 - The prize money was with 1/3 allocated to the Main Fund and with 2/3 to the Special Fund of this prize section
* 1941 - The prize money was with 1/3 allocated to the Main Fund and with 2/3 to the Special Fund of this prize section
* 1940 - The prize money was with 1/3 allocated to the Main Fund and with 2/3 to the Special Fund of this prize section
* 1939 - Frans Eemil Sillanpää
* 1938 - Pearl Buck
* 1937 - Roger Martin du Gard
* 1936 - Eugene O'Neill
* 1935 - The prize money was with 1/3 allocated to the Main Fund and with 2/3 to the Special Fund of this prize section
* 1934 - Luigi Pirandello
* 1933 - Ivan Bunin
* 1932 - John Galsworthy
* 1931 - Erik Axel Karlfeldt
* 1930 - Sinclair Lewis
* 1929 - Thomas Mann
* 1928 - Sigrid Undset
* 1927 - Henri Bergson
* 1926 - Grazia Deledda
* 1925 - George Bernard Shaw
* 1924 - Wladyslaw Reymont
* 1923 - William Butler Yeats
* 1922 - Jacinto Benavente
* 1921 - Anatole France
* 1920 - Knut Hamsun
* 1919 - Carl Spitteler
* 1918 - The prize money was allocated to the Special Fund of this prize section
* 1917 - Karl Gjellerup, Henrik Pontoppidan
* 1916 - Verner von Heidenstam
* 1915 - Romain Rolland
* 1914 - The prize money was allocated to the Special Fund of this prize section
* 1913 - Rabindranath Tagore
* 1912 - Gerhart Hauptmann
* 1911 - Maurice Maeterlinck
* 1910 - Paul Heyse
* 1909 - Selma Lagerlöf
* 1908 - Rudolf Eucken
* 1907 - Rudyard Kipling
* 1906 - Giosuè Carducci
* 1905 - Henryk Sienkiewicz
* 1904 - Frédéric Mistral, José Echegaray
* 1903 - Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson
* 1902 - Theodor Mommsen
* 1901 - Sully Prudhomme
