The French poet received the very first Nobel Prize. Something that caused the Swedish cultural elite of the time to rage when they believed that the Russian author Leo Tolstoy was more innovative and should have received the award.
August Strindberg called the prize winner "unworthy" and that Prudhomme "is hardly a poet, although he writes verse" in an article.
Pearl S Buck 1938She was the first American woman to receive the award and she received it for her trilogy about Chinese peasant life. That she received the prize has been criticized in retrospect and she has been called unworthy of the prize and her books have been described as "kiosk literature".
Aleksandr Solzjenitsyn 1970When the Russian writer was awarded the Nobel Prize, he did not dare to travel to Stockholm to receive the prize as he was afraid that he would not be able to return to the Soviet Union if he left the country. It all developed into a diplomatic scandal and the author Vilhelm Moberg called the then Prime Minister Olof Palme apostate and cowardly. See the debate between them in Open Archives.
The Swedish authors received the Nobel Prize, even though they were both in the Swedish Academy. This led to major protests and disputes.
Former Academy Member Lars Gyllensten writes in his memoirs that the criticism was the reason why Harry Martinson committed suicide in 1978.
When the Austrian playwright and writer was awarded the Nobel Prize in 2004, Knut Ahnlund left the Swedish Academy in protest. He said the award to her "has destroyed the value of the award for the foreseeable future". Jelinek was also critical that she got the prize, she thought Peter Handke had been a better choice.