Great Stories by Nobel Prize Winners

by Leo Hamalian (Editor), Edmond L. Volpe (Editor)

A Nobel Prize for Literature is the most coveted of literary distinctions. The prize has been given for over 90 years & its recipients are among the most outstanding writers of our time. An anthology of stories selected from the finest work of such writers is inevitably of high caliber. In an introduction the editors give a history of the prize & preface each selection with a biographical sketch. A truly international collection, the book reflects the shifts in literary style &, in many instances, makes available stories no longer easily accessible.
Preface --
Father / Bjornsterne Bjornsen --
Man who was / Rudyard Kipling --
Outlaws / Selma Lagerlof --
Massacre of the innocents / Maurice Maeterlinck --
Flagman Thiel / Gerhart Hauptmann --
Saved / Sir Rabindranath Tagore --
Fisher nest / Henrik Pontoppidan --
Call of life / Knut Hamsun --
Procurator of Judea / Anatole France --
Crucifixion of the outcast / William Butler Yeats --
Death / Wladyslaw Reymont --
Miraculous revenge / George Bernard Shaw --
Sardinian fox / Grazia Deledda --
Little Lizzy / Thomas Mann --
What that kind of mush gets you / Sinclair Lewis --
Sunstroke / Ivan Bunin --
War / Luigi Pirandello --
Operation / Roger Martin Du Gard --
Lost forests / Johannes V. Jensen --
Within and without / Herman Hesse --
That evening sun / William Faulkner --
Lift that went down into Hell / Par Lagerkvist --
Man of letters / Francois Mauriac --
Lily / Haldor Laxness --
Guest / Albert Camus --
Tratto de Apelle / Boris Pasternak

Genres: Short Stories, Fiction, Classics, Anthologies

386 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1959

Reviews

[Mark · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fantastic stories by some old favorites and new! However this printing is flawed and some of the pages were out of order near the end!!

[Richa Bhattarai · Rating 3 out of 5]

I’m sure these are nice stories, and I was looking forward to acquaint myself with many Nobel laureates but it was just too tedious and long-winded for me, and some stories were quite unrewarding to say the least. I understand this is due to the age and style, but nothing stood out for me. Would not revisit.

[Jyoti Arora · Rating 3 out of 5]

Every story in the book bears the mark of a genius. But all stories are a bit too erudite. The language is easy enough to understand. It's the stories themselves that are complex and have baffling ending. They challenge the brain, but fail to touch the heart.

[Stacey · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have been slowly working my through these Nobel Prize Winners shorts for 4 months, almost to the day. There were a few stories I didn't care for, but I have found that to be true in most books of shorts. First of all, I was reading a ratty vintage edition that I am deeply in love with (exactly like the image shown here) I don't even remember where I found it, actually I think it found me, but from the ugly cover image, to the cover that fell off while I was reading it, did nothing but make it more endearing. Anyway, I was excited to be introduced to some of the earliest NPW's, including the first woman winner of letters. I bought her winning novel, Gosta Berling and read it while I was still reading these shorts. I've also gotten Thomas Mann's winning novel too, and I expect it won't stop there. I highly recommend this to anyone who loves classics!

[Gopal · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a marvellous collection of stories. All of them are read-worthy because of either how tenderly they have captured the human character, or how intelligently ridiculed it. The stories span across countries, cultures, time-periods even. Not a single story is dull. Some are like parables, some like legends. The more recent ones are like contemporary fiction. But it is their distance from the recent literature that makes them enticing, fresh and lovely. You get to know a newer class of people, characters, and a lot of inteospective writing. My particular favorites - G B Shaw's The Miraclulous Revenge, Wladyslaw Reymont's Death, Francois Mauriac's A Man Of Letters, Lagerkvist's The Lift that Went to Hell, Camus' The Guest, Martin Du Gard's The Operation, and Grazia Deledda's The Sardinian Fox. I loved these for their wit, their superhuman insight into the ailment of being human. It's a book worth keeping for a lifetime. Wish there are more collections like this!

[George Gonzaga Deoso · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very nice anthology spoiled by the inclusion of Pasternak's "Il Tratto de Apelle," which is the most unrewarding and difficult short story I've ever read.

[Tanuj Girdhar · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's a mix of all sorts of short stories, some I liked and some I didn't. Would have liked better if there was a bit of synopsis too

[gg · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.7

[Parikhit · Rating 5 out of 5]

A collection of short stories by the winners of the prestigious Nobel Prize for Literature, this book will definitely be one of my best buys so far. At the end of most of the stories the same thoughts surfaced in my mind - ‘no wonder this author won the Nobel Prize’. From William Faulkner, W. B. Yeats, G. B. Shaw, known to one and all, to Bjornsterne Bjornsen, Maurice Maeterlinck this collection has stories penned by the greatest authors of all times and has opened a new dimension to my reading list.

Each of the stories reflects poignancy and a depth; with some being a moving tale of passionate love, some are subtle humour, some cold revenge while some resonate ethereal thoughts. “The Father” by Bjornsterne Bjornse in a few beautiful pages summarizes the endless love and affection of a father towards his son. Selma Lagerlof paints a grim story of two outlaws united by a dark past in the story “The Outlaws”. From crime to resurrection, friendship to enmity, religion to occult the description is both haunting and mesmerizing. Rudyard Kipling’s “The Man Who Was” left me smirking away all the way and earned me glances everywhere. The closure to this funny piece was spellbinding.
So was another amusing story “The Miraculous Revenge” by George Bernard Shaw.

Hermen Hesse’s “Within And Without” is a philosophical tale with splendid descriptions. To quote a line from this story, “Summon up the past, summon up the future: both are in you! Until today you have been the slave of the within. Learn to be its master. That is magic.” Transecendental. There is a story “The Massacre Of The Innocents” by Maurice Maeterlinck which left me desolate. It is a melancholic and brutal description of the ruthless killing of children ordered by King Herod during the birth of Christ. I had no hint of this until the end.

The collection is flawless. Highly recommended!

[Vinoth · Rating 4 out of 5]

An Anthology of Short stories.the only criterion is that the author should be a Nobel Prize winner. the Editor(s) had chosen some and left out some(prize winners).The collection as a whole did work on me.but some individual stories did not. Because this book has some different stories from different period and the significance of some stories are lost on me and it was a bit disappointing to not know what is transpiring even though i did read between the lines and made up the empty spots.
Depending on the period and the author the Writing style varies.Some solely focus on the descriptive writing without worrying about the plot.Some have focused on the emotional and psychological behaving of the Peasants.Some stories bring in the Significance of a action(recent past) into play. though it may have been a awesome read 100 years back , it failed to impress me. so did a few other stories , the significance of which i am still unaware of..

Some of my favorites were The Father , Death , Sunstroke ,The Massacre Of The Innocents and The Miraculous Revenge.

This book Gets a 4 Star only because of the stories i liked.they were thought provoking and some were unbelievable(with a bit of sadness.mostly the peasant ones . especially the 'Death'. )

[Farhan Khalid · Rating 4 out of 5]

ایشیا مغرب کے طور طریقوں کے تحت تہذیب یافتہ نہیں ہوگا 

ایشیا بہت بڑا ہے اور بہت قدیم ہے 

جیسے آپ کبھی بھی کسی ایسی عورت کی اصلاح نہیں کر سکتے جس کے بہت سے چاہنے والے ہوں 

--

کوئی بھی چیز کسی کے باہر نہیں، کوئی بھی چیز کسی کے اندر نہیں، کیوں کہ جو کچھ بھی کسی کے باہر ہے وہی اس کے اندر ہے 

اسے ایسا محسوس ہوا جیسے وہ برف اور آگ سے بھر چکا ہے 

سیاروں نے احمقانہ انداز سے اس کی طرف دیکھا 

وہ چھوٹا سا بت اب میرے اندر ہے اور اب میں اسے مزید برداشت نہیں کر سکتا 

--

اس ماحول میں گرمیوں کی رات کے گزرنے کی خوشبو محسوس کی جا سکتی تھی 

--

آدمی:

تم جو رنگ بھی پہنو وہ تمہارا جزو بن جاتا ہے 

یہ لفٹ کے ساتھ کیا مسلہ ہو گیا ہے، یہ رک کیوں نہیں رہی؟

یہ دوزخ میں جا رہی ہے 

دوزخ میں...

بد روح:

کیا آپ ہی وہ دونوں ہیں جو ایک دوسرے سے محبت کرتے ہیں 

عورت:

ذرا سوچیں! یھاں ہم دونوں اس رومانوی ماحول میں بیٹھے محظوظ ہو رہے ہیں 

یہ سماں کتنا شاعرانہ ہے 

میں اسے کبھی فراموش نہیں کر سکوں گی

آدمی: 

میرے خیال میں یہ پہلے سے ذرا مختلف اور بہتر ہے 

بد روح:

ہم نے ہر چیز کو جدید تر بنا دیا ہے 

آدمی: 

جی ہاں! آپ لوگوں کو بھی زمانے کے ساتھ چلنا چاہئے 

[Nageen · Rating 3 out of 5]

Literary Merit: 3.75 stars

How the art of story telling has evolved over the years! To find that out, one must carefully read this book and compare it to other story telling giants like Lydia Davis, Neil Gaiman, Oscar Wilde, Scott Fitzgerald, Aldous Huxley and so.

This book has some of the biggest literary giants all compacted in one volume. Mostly the authors belong to the early and mid 1950s so you wont locate the recent Nobel winners. The stories are actually narrative by definition, unlike how current stories go where there is just a scene or merely a paragraph based on the fancy whims of the author. A few of them will make you uncomfortable but moved by the compelling skill of writing which will evoke feelings especially " The Outlaws" by Selma Lagerlof, "The Father" by Bjornsterne Bjornsen and "The Massacre of the Innocents" by Maurice Maeterlinck, while a few others are quite dull, extremely uncomfortable to read and a tad bit pointless.

All in all, for story lovers, this is a good compendium to read at any time of the day.

[Jeff Hobbs]

Read so far:

The father / Björnsterne Björnsen --2
The man who was / Rudyard Kipling --2
The outlaws / Selma Lagerlof --2
The massacre of the innocents / Maurice Maeterlinck --
Flagman Thiel / Gerhart Hauptmann --3
*Saved / Rabindranath Tagore --
A fisher nest / Henrik Pontoppidan --
*The call of life / Knut Hamsun --
The procurator of Judea / Anatole France --3
The crucifixion of the outcast / William Butler Yeats --2
Death / Wladyslaw Reymont --
The miraculous revenge / George Bernard Shaw --3
The Sardinian fox / Grazia Deledda --
Little Lizzy / Thomas Mann --
What that kind of mush gets you / Sinclair Lewis --3
Sunstroke / Ivan Bunin --2
*War / Luigi Pirandello --
The operation / Roger Martin Du Gard --
Lost forests / Johannes V. Jensen --
Within and without / Herman Hesse --2
That evening sun / William Faulkner --2
The lift that went down into hell / Par Lagerkvist --
A man of letters / Francois Mauriac --
*Lily / Haldor Laxness --
The guest / Albert Camus --3
It tratto de apelle / Boris Pasternak--

[Carrie Mullins · Rating 4 out of 5]

Found this book used and had to buy it because the opening essay is Rudyard Kipling searching for and finding Mark Twain at his brother in law's house and talking to him about all kinds of things (copyright, Tom Sawyer, autobiography, interruptions). Kipling says: "Blessed is the man who finds no dissolution when he is brought face to face with a revered writer." And he was blessed.
This book also has the very brief address William Faulkner gave when he won the Nobel, called "Man Will Prevail," which I am going to copy and tack above my desk. I can't just put a sentence or two of it here, because it should be read in whole.
If I was smarter, I would get even more out of this book, which also collects essays from historians, philosophers and scientists who have won the Nobel. Just don't ask me about any of those, but I did read Thomas Hunt Morgan's essay because he was a biologist from Lexington.

[Shriya · Rating 4 out of 5]

An excellent anthology of writings by Nobel laureates. My favourite stories were by Anatole France and Bjornsterne Bjornsen. I found Hauptmann's story hauntingly gruesome and I pitied the weakness of character of the people portrayed by him. Luigi Pirandello's story captured the effort to escape the crippling sadness that is unique to the personal loss of a loved one.

There does appear to be a preference for realism in this collection. Nonetheless, to be able to read stories by such diverse authorship, was a pleasure. The changing themes and styles, perfect in structure, tickled the literary crevices of my brain. Due to the variation in style and form I seldom, actually never, succumbed to cognitive boredom.

[Erik Graff · Rating 5 out of 5]

After a long run of science fiction novels to celebrate what I thought was the completion of graduate school, I got temporarily sick of the genre and began to read serious material again beginning with this collection of stories by winners of the Nobel Prize in Literature.

I believe this volume was left behind, along with other books, when Janny Willis departed from New York. She had long been an exemplar of a well-read person, so getting through her old books was an intended project. What could be a better antidote to my ignorance of world literature than to read a sampling of Nobel Prize winners?

[Alok · Rating 4 out of 5]

The stories are written by the most engrossing intellectual minds of the world which is immensely difficult to comprehend if one dable through it rather than deeply unravel it with a literary sense and mood. This is a book for people with literature profession and poets of the highest standard. All the stories are written on late nineteen and early Twentieth century much before the. information age. Precisely for the same reason, the description and situation are depicted in extreme details and imaginative depth. Interaction between the entities both living and other objects including nature is .magnetic and pure. This is a book for supremely imaginative and literary mind.

[Tej Kumar Nepal · Rating 3 out of 5]

Featuring 26 stories by writers who won the Nobel prize, this book is an anthology of quality literature. From India's very own Tagore to Russia's Pasternak, the stories represent each writer's individual style and intellectual involvements. Ranging from breakthrough novelists to pioneering dramatists to acclaimed poets, the pieces also reflect several literally movements - covering existentialism to impressionism - in writing. With a short introduction to each author, the book makes available - in one volume - great stories that are no longer easily accessible, and is truly international collection.

[Assu Ananda · Rating 5 out of 5]

Words fail me as I ponder upon the difficulty of constructing a sentence (!) to describe how I felt after assiduously reading every single one of the literary masters' tales in this magnificent book.

I had a long journey through the pages, reading stories (in no particular sequence) penned by individuals separated by time and space, yet the underlying emotions and visuals stimulated by each author's genius evoked the very same throb of humanity that is stirred by exposure to profound, beautiful and immortal art.

[Indira · Rating 5 out of 5]

It is a wonderful opportunity to get to know such renowned authors and to get to read their wonderful works! It is a literary journey. To understand the various times, style, authors - it is such a pleasure. I must warn you - most of the stories have a dagger up their sleeves..that can stab you!

[Tats · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good selection of very diverse stories. Discovered a liking for some of the authors - and not! for others. So purpose fulfilled.

[Shashank · Rating 4 out of 5]

Contains some of the best stories I ever read, specially of that of Herman Hesse and Albert Camus. Kudos to this book.

[Ivy Samuel · Rating 5 out of 5]

Absolutely unquestionably mind-blowing talent. Every line of every story is perfect.

[Vaishali · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very good book with interesting stories which I think I cannot find in any other book.

[Anant · Rating 3 out of 5]

Read

[Deepti · Rating 5 out of 5]

A mix of fascinating writing and some pretty mediocre and annoying stuff - guess, because the winners are all from 1930s to 1940s, a heavy leaning to poverty and the rustic life.

[Sashankh Kale · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting collection!