A NOBEL PRIZE-WINNER

Dominion, Volume 22, Issue 79, 27 December 1928, Page 8

A NOBEL PRIZE-WINNER

HENRI BERGSON Dominion Special Service. London, November 15. The Swedish Academy has awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature for the year 1927 to Henri Bergson, member of the French Academy. The Nobel Prize for Literature for 1928 has been awarded to Sigrid Undset, the Norwegian woman writer. Henri Bergson, who was born in 1859, is one of the most famous of modern philosophers. He had been recommended by the Institute of France for the Nobel Prize this year. He has achieved fame as a lecturer and philosopher rather than as a literary man, although for'many years he was a Professor of the'History of Literature in Paris. He is of Irish extraction, but early in life became a naturalised Frenchman, and his lectures were at one time all the rage in London, Paris, and the principal American cities. He was Gifford lecturer in the University of Edinburgh in 1912. It was in 1907 that Bergson published his great work “Creative Revolution.” He (lid not seek to deny evolution. but pleaded for the reintroduction of mystery into the philosophy of life. In London, society flocked to hear him expound his romantic philosophy, which did not exclude individual immortality. Among other notable works of his are "Laughter,” “Matter and Memory,” and "Data of Consciousness. For some years past he has been in delicate health, and in 1925 he was obliged to resign his presidency of the Commission of Intellectual Co-operation of the League of Nations. Sigrid Undset was born in 1882 of a Danish mother and a Norwegian father. Her father was an archaeologist, and she spent many hours of her childhood and youth in his library absorbing the old sages and other romantic literature. The Nobel Prize is of the value of about £6500.