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    The Nomination That Gave Churchill the Nobel Prize

    Nov 22, 2017 4 minutes
    By Svante Janson

    One of the most impressive objects on display at Chartwell is Winston Churchill’s 1953 Nobel Prize for Literature and the accompanying certificate. I have in my home in Sweden a typewritten copy of the letter nominating him for the prize that year. This letter is signed Birger Nerman, and my copy has a handwritten dedication to Gerda Serrander, my great-grandmother. It appears likely that, as nowadays, those making nominations were asked to keep their nominations secret, but that after the prize had been awarded, Nerman could not resist giving copies of his successful nominating letter to some of his close friends. We know, moreover, that Nerman also sent a copy to Churchill.

    I spent the autumn of 2016 as a visiting Fellow at Churchill College in Cambridge,

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