| Year | Laureates |
| 1960 | Saint-John Perse |
| 1959 | Salvatore Quasimodo |
| 1958 | Boris Leonidovich Pasternak |
| 1957 | Albert Camus |
| 1956 | Juan Ramón Jiménez |
| 1955 | Halldór Kiljan Laxness |
| 1954 | Ernest Miller Hemingway |
| 1953 | Sir Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill |
| 1952 | François Mauriac |
| 1951 | Pär Fabian Lagerkvist |
| 1950 | Earl (Bertrand Arthur William) Russell |
| 1949 | William Faulkner |
| 1948 | Thomas Stearns Eliot |
| 1947 | André Paul Guillaume Gide |
| 1946 | Hermann Hesse |
| 1945 | Gabriela Mistral |
| 1944 | Johannes Vilhelm Jensen |
| 1943 | The prize money was with 1/3 allocated to the Main Fund and with 2/3 to the Special Fund of this prize section |
| 1942 | The prize money was with 1/3 allocated to the Main Fund and with 2/3 to the Special Fund of this prize section |
| 1941 | The prize money was with 1/3 allocated to the Main Fund and with 2/3 to the Special Fund of this prize section |
