The 1961 Nobel Prize in Literature was awarded to the Yugoslav writer Ivo Andrià(1892âÂÂ1975) "for the epic force with which he has traced themes and depicted human destinies drawn from the history of his country." He is the first and only Serbian recipient of the literature prize.
Ivo AndriÃÂ began by writing poetry, and philosophers like Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Kafka and Goethe had an impact on his philosophical views. But his preferred literary form would be the historical epic. The fates of people are illuminated against a historical, cultural, and religious backdrop in AndriÃÂ's writings, such as his monumental novel Na Drini ÃÂuprija ("The Bridge on the Drina", 1945). His stories show both immense love for individuals and brutality and violence. His writing is clear and full of information, and his stories are filled with insightful psychological observations. His other well-known literary oeuvres include TravniÃÂka hronika ("Travnika Chronicle", 1945) and Prokleta avlija ("The Damned Yard", 1954).
AndriÃÂ earned ten nominations on four occasions. He was first nominated in 1958 by The Yugoslavian Author's Society. On 1961, he was recommended by four nominators from Elizabeth Hill, Lennart Breitholtz, Johannes Edfelt and the aforementioned society which led to his awarding.
In total, the Swedish Academy's Nobel Committee received 93 nominations for 56 authors such as Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan, John Steinbeck (awarded in 1962), André Malraux, Graham Greene, Georges Simenon, Ramón Menéndez Pidal, Robert Frost and Rómulo Gallegos. Fifteen of the nominees were nominated for the first time, among them Yasunari Kawabata (awarded in 1968), Gaston Bachelard, Cora Sandel, Jean Anouilh, Simone de Beauvoir, J. R. R. Tolkien, Lawrence Durrell, W. H. Auden and Friedrich Dürrenmatt. There were five female nominees namely Giulia Scappino Murena, Gertrud von le Fort, Karen Blixen, Cora Sandel and Simone de Beauvoir.
The authors Jacques Stephen Alexis, Lucian Blaga, Joanna Cannan, Louis-Ferdinand Céline, Mazo de la Roche, Louis de Wohl, Hilda Doolittle, Frantz Fanon, Olga Forsh, Leonhard Frank, Simon Gantillon, Dashiell Hammett, ÃÂmile Henriot, George S. Kaufman, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Oliver Onions, Jessie Redmon Fauset, Mihail Sadoveanu, Peyami Safa, Frédéric-Louis Sauser (known as Blaise Cendrars), Clark Ashton Smith, Antanas à  kÃÂma, Dorothy Thompson and Maria Valtorta died in 1961 without having been nominated for the prize.
For the 1961 Nobel Prize in Literature, the Nobel committee of the Swedish Academy proposed Ivo AndriÃÂ, Graham Greene and the Danish author Karen Blixen, with Andriàreceiving the majority of the votes. Committee chairman Anders ÃÂsterling had the previous year pushed for a prize to AndriÃÂ, noting the Yugoslav author's "mastered style" that would open "a previously unknown page in the world chronicle and appeals to us from the depths of the tormented national soul", adding that a prize to Andriàwould also have the advantage of correcting "the justified criticism of the geographical distribution of the Nobel Prize in Literature.â ÃÂsterling stated in the protocol that Graham Greene "appears as a fully worthy candidate", but neither Greene nor Blixen, who was also an annual contender at the time, was awarded the prize.
Other contenders for the 1961 prize included the American poet Robert Frost and novelist E. M. Forster, who were both passed over by the Nobel committee because of their advanced age. Anders ÃÂsterling said that Frost's age, 86, was "a fundamental obstacle, which the committee regretfully found it necessary to state". Other contenders such as Lawrence Durrell and the Italian novelist Alberto Moravia were ruled out for literary reasons, as were J.R.R. Tolkien whose prose ÃÂsterling found "has not in any way measured up to storytelling of the highest quality".
At the award ceremony in Stockholm on 10 December 1961, Anders ÃÂsterling, permanent secretary of the Swedish Academy, said:
Andric donated the entire amount of the prize money, 250 232 Swedish crowns, to a fund for building a library in Bosnia-Herzegovina.