1940
No award was given

1939
Frans Eemil Sillanpää - "for his deep understanding of his country's peasantry and the exquisite art with which he has portrayed their way of life and their relationship with Nature"
Works in Knight Library

1938
Pearl Buck - "for her rich and truly epic descriptions of peasant life in China and for her biographical masterpieces"
Works in Knight Library

1937
Roger Martin du Gard - "for the artistic power and truth with which he has depicted human conflict
as well as some fundamental aspects of contemporary life in his novel-cycle Les Thibault"
Works in Knight Library

1936
Eugene Gladstone O'Neill - "for the power, honesty and deep-felt emotions of his dramatic works, which embody an original concept of tragedy"
Works in Knight Library

1935
No award was given

1934
Luigi Pirandello - "for his bold and ingenious revival of dramatic and scenic art"
Works in Knight Library

1933
Ivan Alekseyevich Bunin - "for the strict artistry with which he has carried on the classical Russian traditions in prose writing"
Works in Knight Library

1932
John Galsworthy - "for his distinguished art of narration which takes its highest form in The Forsyte Saga"
Works in Knight Library

1931
Erik Axel Karlfeldt - "The poetry of Erik Axel Karlfeldt"
Works in Knight Library

1930
Sinclair Lewis - "for his vigorous and graphic art of description and his ability to create, with wit and humour, new types of characters"
Works in Knight Library

1929
Thomas Mann - "principally for his great novel, Buddenbrooks, which has won steadily increased recognition as one of the classic works of contemporary literature"
Works in Knight Library

1928
Sigrid Undset - "principially for her powerful descriptions of Northern life during the Middle Ages"
Works in Knight Library

1927
Henri Bergson - "in recognition of his rich and vitalizing ideas and the brillant skill with which they have been presented"
Works in Knight Library

1926
Grazia Deledda - "for her idealistically inspired writings which with plastic clarity picture the life on her native island and with depth and sympathy deal with human problems in general"
Works in Knight Library

1925
George Bernard Shaw - "for his work which is marked by both idealism and humanity, its stimulating satire often being infused with a singular poetic beauty"
Works in Knight Library

1924
Wladyslaw Stanislaw Reymont - "for his great national epic, The Peasants"
Works in Knight Library

1923
William Butler Yeats - "for his always inspired poetry, which in a highly artistic form gives expression to the spirit of a whole nation"
Works in Knight Library

1922
Jacinto Benavente - "for the happy manner in which he has continued the illustrious traditions of the Spanish drama"
Works in Knight Library

1921
Anatole France - "in recognition of his brilliant literary achievements, characterized as they are by a nobility of style, a profound human sympathy, grace, and a true Gallic temperament"
Works in Knight Library