People Who Refused a Nobel Prize
A small number of people have turned down a Nobel Prize, either voluntarily or under outside pressure. Here's the full list of notable cases.
Jean-Paul Sartre (Literature, 1964)
The French philosopher and writer declined the prize on his own initiative.
His reasoning: he believed a writer should not let himself be turned into an institution, and he didn't want to be "transformed" by an official honor.
He had a long-standing policy of declining all official awards, including earlier ones from the French government.
He accepted no money and gave no formal reason beyond his stated principle, though he did write a public explanation.
Le Duc Tho (Peace, 1973)
Awarded jointly with US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger for negotiating the Paris Peace Accords to end the Vietnam War.
Le Duc Tho, the Vietnamese negotiator, refused it.
His stated reason: peace had not actually been established in Vietnam at the time, so the award was premature. Fighting continued after the accords.
This is the only case of someone refusing a Peace Prize.
Boris Pasternak (Literature, 1958)
Awarded for his novel Doctor Zhivago.
He initially accepted, then was forced to decline after intense pressure from the Soviet government.
The Soviet authorities viewed the novel as anti-Soviet and threatened him with expulsion from the country if he traveled to accept it.
This was not a voluntary refusal — it was coerced. His son later accepted the prize on his behalf in 1989, after Pasternak's death and after the political situation had changed.
German scientists under Hitler's orders (1930s)
Three German laureates were forced to decline their prizes by the Nazi government:
Richard Kuhn (Chemistry, 1938)
Adolf Butenandt (Chemistry, 1939)
Gerhard Domagk (Physiology or Medicine, 1939)
The reason traces back to 1936, when the Peace Prize was given to Carl von Ossietzky, a German pacifist and vocal critic of the Nazi regime who was imprisoned in a concentration camp at the time.
Hitler was furious about this and issued a decree banning Germans from accepting any Nobel Prize going forward.
All three scientists were later able to receive their diplomas and medals (though not the prize money, which reverts to the foundation after a set time) once the war ended.
A few clarifications worth noting
Refusing is different from being unable to accept. Some laureates have been prevented from receiving the prize due to imprisonment, house arrest, or government travel bans (for example, Liu Xiaobo and Aung San Suu Kyi in more recent history), but this is not the same as a refusal — they wanted the prize but couldn't collect it.
Money vs. the prize itself is a separate issue. Some laureates have refused the prize money for personal or political reasons while keeping the honor, which is a different category from full refusal.
Total count: Only two people have refused the prize entirely of their own free will — Sartre and Le Duc Tho. Pasternak's and the German scientists' refusals were coerced by state pressure, not personal choice.