Read Around the World with Nobel Prize for Literature Laureates

Since President Barack Obama won the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize, Americans have become focused on the Nobel prizes. Here are lesson plans for reading 'around the world' with Nobel Prize for Literature Laureates. In middle school and especially in high school, use these lessons for world literature, history, world religions and world cultures classes.

I've made a list of some former winners of the Nobel Prize for Literature. I have included Nobel Prize winners from around the world of all cultures. I recommend that students be assigned to choose a Nobel Prize winning author and read one or more of her works. If each students selects a different author, you can theoretically read your way around the globe as a class. Keep a large wall map with small Sticky Note arrows to point out the different places that the various Nobel Prize authors were born, lived and worked. I've arranged these authors in order from the present back to the inception of the Nobel Prize in 1903. As far as possible, I've tried to list volumes or works of literature for which these authors are best known.

2006: Turkey - Orhan Pamuk; The Black Book

2004: Austria - Elfriede Jelnik; Lust

2001:Trinidad - Sir Vidiadhar Surajprasad Naipaul; A House for Mr. Biswas

2000: China - Gao Xingjian; Soul Mountain

1998:Portugal -Jose Saramago; Balthasar and Blimunda

1997: Italy - Dario Fo; The Pope and the Witch

1995: Ireland - Seamus Heaney; Bog Poems

1990:Mexico - Octavio Paz; The Other Mexico

1989: Spain - Camilo Jose Cela, The Family of Pascual Duarte

1988: Egypt - Naguib Maufauz; Sugar Street

1986: Nigeria - Wole Soyinka, The Lion and the Jewel

1984: Jaroslav Siefert - Czechoslavakia: A Wreath of Poems

1982:Colombia - Gabriel Garcia Marquez: Leaf Storm and Other Stories

1979:Greece - Odysseus Elytis; The Sovereign Sun: Selected Poems

1971:Chile - Pablo Neruda; Twenty Poems

1968: Japan - YasunarI Kawabata; House of the Sleeping Beauties and Other Stories

1967: Guatemala - Miguel Angel Asturias; The Bejewelled Boy

1965: USSR (Russia and now sovereign states) - Mikhail Sholokov; Tales from the Don

1961:Yugoslavia - Ivo Andric; The Woman from Sarajevo

1957: France - Albert Camus; The Stranger

1955: Iceland - Halldor Laxness; Salka Valka

1944:Denmark - Johannes Jensen; Myths

1939: Finland - Hans Emil Silanpaa; The Maid Silja

1951: Sweden - Par Fabian Lagerkvist ; The Dwarf

1913: India - Rabindranath Tagore; Red Oleanders

1911:Belgium - Maurice Maeterlinck; The Life of the Bee

Use these lessons in your world literature class.