Jerusalem Prize
Jerusalem Mayor Teddy Kollek (r) handing French author André Schwarz-Bart the 1967 Jerusalem Prize for Literature
Awarded for	writers whose works have dealt with themes of human freedom in society
Location	Israel
Presented by	Organisers of the Jerusalem International Book Forum
First awarded	1963; 61 years ago (1963)

The Jerusalem Prize for the Freedom of the Individual in Society is a biennial literary award given to writers whose works have dealt with themes of human freedom in society.^[1]

It is awarded at the Jerusalem International Book Forum (previously known as the Jerusalem International Book Fair), and the recipient usually delivers an address when accepting the award. The award is valued at $10,000.

The prize's inaugural year was 1963, awarded to Bertrand Russell who had won the Nobel Prize in 1950. Octavio Paz, V. S. Naipaul, J. M. Coetzee, and Mario Vargas Llosa all won the Jerusalem Prize prior to winning the Nobel Prize in Literature.

In the intervening even-numbered years there is also a National Jerusalem Prize to promote local Israeli authors. For example, in 1994 the Jerusalem Prize was won by Naomi Gal.

List of laureates

Year	Picture	Name	Nationality	Language(s)	Genre(s)	Refs
1963		Bertrand Russell (1872—1970)	United Kingdom	English	philosophy, essay
1965		Max Frisch (1911—1991)	Switzerland	German	drama, novel, philosophy
1967		André Schwarz-Bart (1928—2006)	France	French	novel
1969		Ignazio Silone (1900—1978)	Italy	Italian	novel, short story, essay
1971		Jorge Luis Borges (1899—1986)	Argentina	Spanish	short story, poetry, essay, philosophy, literary criticism, translation
1973		Eugène Ionesco (1909—1994)	Romania / France	French	drama, novel
1975		Simone de Beauvoir (1908—1986)	France	French	philosophy, novel, drama
1977		Octavio Paz (1914—1998)	Mexico	Spanish	poetry, essay
1979		Isaiah Berlin (1909—1997)	Russia / United Kingdom	English	philosophy, essay
1981		Graham Greene (1904—1991)	United Kingdom	English	novel, short story, autobiography, drama, essay, screenplay
1983		Vidiadhar Surajprasad Naipaul (1932—2018)	Trinidad and Tobago / United Kingdom	English	novel, short story, essay
1985		Milan Kundera (1929–2023)	Czechoslovakia / France	Czech / French	novel, short story, poetry, essay, drama
1987		John Maxwell Coetzee (b. 1940)	South Africa / Australia	English	novel, essay, translation
1989		Ernesto Sabato (1911—2011)	Argentina	Spanish	novel, essay
1991		Zbigniew Herbert (1924—1998)	Poland	Polish	poetry, essay, drama
1993		Stefan Heym (1913—2001)	Germany	German / English	novel, short story, autobiography, essay
1995		Mario Vargas Llosa (b. 1936)	Peru / Spain	Spanish	novel, short story, essay, drama, memoirs
1997		Jorge Semprún (1923—2011)	Spain	French / Spanish	novel, essay
1999		Don DeLillo (b. 1936)	United States	English	novel, short story, drama, screenplay, essay
2001		Susan Sontag (1933—2004)	United States	English	short story, novel, drama, essay
2003		Arthur Miller (1915—2005)	United States	English	drama, screenplay, essay
2005		António Lobo Antunes (b. 1942)	Portugal	Portuguese	novel
2007		Leszek Kołakowski (1927—2009)	Poland	Polish	philosophy, history
2009		Haruki Murakami (b. 1949)	Japan	Japanese	novel, short story
2011		Ian McEwan (b. 1948)	United Kingdom	English	novel, short story, drama, screenplay	[2]
2013		Antonio Muñoz Molina (b. 1956)	Spain	Spanish	novel	[3]
2015		Ismail Kadare (b. 1936)	Albania	Albanian	novel, short story, poetry, essay, drama, screenplay	[4]
2017		Karl Ove Knausgaard (b. 1968)	Norway	Norwegian	novel, autobiography	[5]
2019		Joyce Carol Oates (b. 1938)	United States	English	novel, short story, drama, essay, memoirs, poetry
2021		Julian Barnes (b. 1946)	United Kingdom	English	novel, essay, memoirs, short story	[6]