Q 01/05

In which month does the Swedish Academy normally announce the literature laureate?

A) October

B) December

C) May

D) February

Answer · why

A) October

Literature is traditionally the last of the prizes presented at the December ceremony.

Q 02/05

Alfred Nobel's will says the literature prize should reward outstanding work in what kind of direction?

A) Truthful

B) Idealistic

C) Humane

D) Beautiful

Answer · why

B) Idealistic

Idealistic: the early Academy read it as a call for lofty, conservative idealism, one reason towering names such as Henrik Ibsen never won.

Q 03/05

Nobel's will funded the prizes with a fortune made largely from which invention?

A) TNT

B) Machine gun

C) Dynamite

D) Hand grenade

Answer · why

C) Dynamite

Dynamite: in a famous but unverified story, an 1888 French paper confused him with his late brother and printed a scathing obituary, spurring him to l...

Q 04/05

Which French poet won the first Nobel Prize in Literature, in 1901?

A) Paul Verlaine

B) Frédéric Mistral

C) Stéphane Mallarmé

D) Sully Prudhomme

Answer · why

D) Sully Prudhomme

Sully Prudhomme: he spent most of the prize money founding a poetry prize awarded by the Société des gens de lettres.

Q 05/05

Who became the youngest literature laureate on winning the Nobel Prize in 1907, aged 41?

A) Rudyard Kipling

B) Joseph Brodsky

C) Sigrid Undset

D) Seamus Heaney

Answer · why

A) Rudyard Kipling

Rudyard Kipling: he accepted the Nobel, yet he repeatedly turned down a knighthood and declined to become Britain's Poet Laureate.