The 1944 Nobel Prize in Literature was awarded to the Danish author Johannes V. Jensen "for the rare strength and fertility of his poetic imagination with which is combined an intellectual curiosity of wide scope and a bold, freshly creative style." He is the fourth Danish recipient of the literary prize.
Jensens early works was in the fin-de-siècle pessimism style. He found his own voice as a writer with Himmerlandshistorier ("Himmerland Stories", 1898âÂÂ1910), comprising a series of tales set in the part of Denmark where he was born. This was followed by the acclaimed historical novel The Fall of the King (1900-1901) centred on the Danish 16th century King Christian II. The novel series Den lange rejse ("The Long Journey", 1908âÂÂ22), spanning the early history of humanity in six volumes with a focus on evolutionary theory, is regarded as Jensens greatest achievement. In addition to these books, Jensen wrote numerous prose works and essays and was also a prominent poet. His Digte ("Poems", 1906) is regarded as the start of modernist poetry in Denmark.
Jensen had been nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature on 53 occasions since 1925. He was nominated every year between 1931 and 1944. In 1942 the Nobel committee received seven nominations for Jensen, followed by two nominations in 1943 and two nominations in 1944.
In total, the Nobel committee received 24 nominations for 21 writers including Gabriela Mistral (awarded in 1945), Hermann Hesse (awarded in 1946), Enrique Larreta, Johan Huizinga, Georges Duhamel, John Steinbeck (awarded in 1962) and Paul Valéry. Four were newly nominated namely Abol-Gassem EâÂÂtessam Zadeh, Luis Nueda y Santiago, Charles Ferdinand Ramuz and Arnulf ÃÂverland. Maria Madalena de Martel PatrÃÂcio, Henriette Charasson, Elisaveta Bagryana and Gabriela Mistral were the only women nominated.
The authors George Ade, JoaquÃÂn ÃÂlvarez Quintero, Marc Bloch, Max Brand, ÃÂdouard Bourdet, Joseph Campbell, Jean Cavaillès, Irvin S. Cobb, Olive Custance, Eugénio de Castro, Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, Enrique DÃÂez Canedo, Agnes Mary Frances Duclaux, Edith Durham, Benjamin Fondane, Giovanni Gentile, Henri Ghéon, Jean Giraudoux, Philippe Henriot, Max Jacob, Napoleon Lapathiotis, Stephen Leacock, Elsa Lindberg-Dovlette, Filippo Tommaso Marinetti, Kaj Munk, Robert Nichols, Augusta Peaux, Karel PoláÃÂek, Armand Praviel, Arthur Quiller-Couch, Miklós Radnóti, Jacques Roumain, Israel Joshua Singer, Ida Tarbell, Florence Trail, Hüseyin Rahmi Gürpñnar, Margery Williams, and Harold Bell Wright died in 1944 without having been nominated for the prize.
Johannes V. Jensen had been nominated for the prize numerous times since 1925 and was considered by the Nobel committee as a strong contender since 1940. Committee chair Per Hallström opposed a prize to Jensen for his modernist tendencies that Hallström found "repulsive" and "brutal". Committee members Anders ÃÂsterling and Sigfrid Siwertz advocated a prize to Jensen and eventually won support within the Swedish Academy to award him the 1944 Nobel Prize in Literature. The New York Times reported that Anders ÃÂsterling days before the announcement had revealed that Ernest Hemingway, Willa Cather, John Steinbeck and Gabriela Mistral were among the contenders for the 1944 prize.
On 10 December 1944 a luncheon was held at the Waldorf-Astoria in New York in place of the customary ceremony in Stockholm. Per Hallström, chairman of the Nobel committee of the Swedish Academy, delivered a lecture on the Nobel Prize laureate in literature that was broadcast the same day. Unable to attend the 1944 award ceremony, Johannes V. Jensen received his prize at Stockholm on 10 December 1945.
At the award ceremony in Stockholm on 10 December 1945 Anders ÃÂsterling, permanent secretary of the Swedish Academy said: