The Laureates from 2009 – 1979:

         2009 – Herta Müller 1953- Germany

• 2008 – Jean-Marie Gustave Le Clézio 1940- France
• 2007 – Doris Lessing 1919- United Kingdom
• 2006 – Orhan Pamuk 1952- Turkey
• 2005 – Harold Pinter 1930-2008 United Kingdom
• 2004 – Elfriede Jelinek 1946- Austria
• 2003 – J. M. Coetzee 1940- South Africa
• 2002 – Imre Kertész 1929- Hungary
• 2001 – V. S. Naipaul 1932- United Kingdom
• 2000 – Gao Xingjian 1940- France
• 1999 – Günter Grass 1927- Germany
• 1998 – José Saramago 1922- Portugal
• 1997 – Dario Fo 1926- Italy
• 1996 – Wislawa Szymborska 1923- Poland
• 1995 – Seamus Heaney 1939- Ireland
• 1994 – Kenzaburo Oe 1935- Japan
• 1993 – Toni Morrison 1931- USA
• 1992 – Derek Walcott 1930- Saint Lucia
• 1991 – Nadine Gordimer 1923- South Africa
• 1990 – Octavio Paz 1914-1998 Mexico
•  
• 1989 – Camilo José Cela 1916-2002 Spain
• 1988 – Naguib Mahfouz 1911-2006 Egypt
• 1987 – Joseph Brodsky 1940-1996 USA
• 1986 – Wole Soyinka 1934- Nigeria
• 1985 – Claude Simon 1913-2005 France
• 1984 – Jaroslav Seifert 1901-1986 Czechoslovakia
• 1983 – William Golding 1911-1993 United Kingdom
• 1982 – Gabriel García Márquez 1928- Colombia
• 1981 – Elias Canetti 1905-1994 United Kingdom
• 1980 – Czeslaw Milosz 1911-2004 Poland and USA
• 1979 – Odysseus Elytis 1911-1996 Greece

 United Kingdom (4); France, USA (3); Germany, South Africa, Poland (2);

Turkey, Austria, Hungary, Portugal, Italy, Ireland Japan, Saint-Lucia, Mexico, Spain, Egypt, Nigeria, Czechoslovakia, Colombia, Greece (1)

Nineteen Laureates are still alive (at 13th November 2009)