Winners of the Nobel Prize for Literature Who Have Studied Law

March 6, 2007 by Michael Law
Filed under: Lawyers

1901 Sully Prudhomme. Took up law “without much conviction” and worked in a solicitor’s office.

1902 Theodor Mommsen. Was a law professor at the University of Leipzig.

1904 Frédéric Mistral. Obtained a law degree but didn’t practice.

1911 Maurice Maeterlinck. Worked as a lawyer while “demonstrating brilliantly his ineptitude for the legal career, having the happy defects that render a man absolutely unfit for the pettifogging quarrels and public counsel’s speeches in the law court.”

1919 Carl Spitteler. Studied law at his father’s request at the University of Zürich.

1922 Jacinto Benavente. Studied law until his father’s death left him with a sizable inheritance.

1932 John Galsworthy. Studied law at New College, Oxford.

1960 Saint-John Perse. Studied law at Bordeaux and became a diplomat.

1963 Giorgos Seferis. Studied law at the University of Paris.

1967 Miguel Angel Asturias. Obtained law degree from the University of San Carlos in Guatemala.

1977 Vicente Aleixandre. Studied law at the University of Madrid.

1979 Odysseus Elytis. Attended law school at the University of Athens.

1982 Gabriel García Márquez. Studied law until beginning a career as a journalist.

1989 Camilo José Cela. Studied law in Madrid.