Nobel? No Thanks: People Who Rejected the Prize
Since 1901, many hundreds of Nobel Prizes have been awarded for achievements in chemistry, physics, medicine, literature, economics and peace.
For many, a Nobel is extremely prestigious — there's a gold medal and a large amount of prize money, too. But among the more than 950 individual winners, a few have refused their award.
It was in 1964 that French writer and philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre turned down his prize for literature.
Sartre said he felt he had to refuse the award, because a writer must "refuse to let himself be transformed into an institution."
However, he admitted that he felt conflicted, as the prize money could have been given to charity.
Nine years later, the Nobel Peace Prize — often both the most prestigious and most controversial of the awards — was shared by US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger and Le Duc Tho, a diplomat from North Vietnam.
The award was given for their roles in talks to end violence in Vietnam. Tho did not accept his prize, saying the US — on Kissinger's orders — had continued to attack even after they had agreed to a truce.
Kissinger later tried to return his award, but the Nobel committee refused to take it back.
Some other Nobel laureates were unable to accept their prizes for different reasons.
In 1935, when a journalist critical of Adolf Hitler was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, the Nazi leader banned Germans from accepting Nobel Prizes.
This meant chemistry winners Richard Kuhn and Adolf Butenandt, and medicine laureate Gerhard Domagk, had to turn down their awards in the late 1930s — although they were able to receive them later.
Russian writer Boris Pasternak never got his award. He was at first happy to receive a literature award in 1958, but quickly changed his mind under pressure from the Soviet Union.
His novel Doctor Zhivago made him unpopular in the USSR, where the book was seen as anti-Soviet because of the way it described life under Communism.
Pasternak died in 1960. His son finally collected his prize in 1989.
