Companion of Literature

The title Companion of Literature^[1] is the highest award bestowed by the Royal Society of Literature. The title was inaugurated in 1961, and is held by up to twelve living writers at any one time.^[2]

Recipients

Those who have been awarded the honour are listed below, by the year in which it was granted; those still living are indicated in bold. In 2020, six authors were announced as recipients of the title "Companion of Literature", the first honorees since 2012.^[3]

1961

• Winston Churchill (30 November 1874 – 24 January 1965)
• E. M. Forster (1 January 1879 – 7 June 1970)
• John Masefield (1 June 1878 – 12 May 1967)
• W. Somerset Maugham (25 January 1874 – 16 December 1965)
• G. M. Trevelyan (16 February 1876 – 21 July 1962)

1962

• Edmund Blunden (1 November 1896 – 20 January 1974)
• Aldous Huxley (26 July 1894 – 22 November 1963)

1963

• Edith Sitwell (7 September 1887 – 9 December 1964)
• Evelyn Waugh (28 October 1903 – 10 April 1966)

1964

• Elizabeth Bowen (7 June 1899 – 22 February 1973)
• Cecil Day-Lewis (27 April 1904 – 22 May 1972)

1967

• Osbert Sitwell (6 December 1892 – 4 May 1969)

1968

• John Betjeman (28 August 1906 – 19 May 1984)
• Ivy Compton-Burnett (5 June 1884 – 27 August 1969)
• Compton Mackenzie (17 January 1883 – 30 November 1972)
• Rebecca West (21 December 1892 – 15 March 1983)

1972

• Lord David Cecil (9 April 1902 – 1 January 1986)
• Cyril Connolly (10 September 1903 – 26 November 1974)
• L. P. Hartley (30 December 1895 – 13 December 1972)
• Angus Wilson (11 August 1913 – 31 May 1991)

1974

• Ruth Pitter (7 November 1897 – 29 February 1992)
• Kenneth Clark (13 July 1903 – 21 May 1983)
• Arthur Koestler (5 September 1905 – 1 March 1983)

1978

• Philip Larkin (9 August 1922 – 2 December 1985)
• David Garnett (9 March 1892 – 17 February 1981)
• Stephen Spender (28 February 1909 – 16 July 1995)

1983

• Samuel Beckett (13 April 1906 – 22 December 1989)
• William Golding (19 September 1911 – 19 June 1993)
• Graham Greene (2 October 1904 – 3 April 1991)

1987

• Rosamund Lehmann (3 February 1901 – 12 March 1990)
• Iris Murdoch (15 July 1919 – 8 February 1999)
• V. S. Pritchett (16 December 1900 – 20 March 1997)
• Steven Runciman (7 July 1903 – 1 November 2000)

1991

• Anthony Burgess (25 February 1917 – 22 November 1993)
• Seamus Heaney (13 April 1939 – 30 August 2013)
• Patrick Leigh Fermor (11 February 1915 – 10 June 2011)
• Muriel Spark (1 February 1918 – 13 April 2006)

1994

• Sybille Bedford (16 March 1911 – 17 February 2006)
• V. S. Naipaul (17 August 1932 – 11 August 2018)
• William Trevor (24 May 1928 – 20 November 2016)

1998

• D. J. Enright (11 March 1920 – 31 December 2002)
• Harold Pinter (10 October 1930 – 24 December 2008)

2001

• Charles Causley (24 August 1917 – 4 November 2003)
• Doris Lessing (22 October 1919 – 17 November 2013)

2004

• Michael Holroyd (27 August 1935 – )
• Tom Stoppard (3 July 1937 – )

2007

• Michael Frayn (8 September 1933 – )
• Peter Porter (16 February 1929 – 23 April 2010)

2012

• Brian Friel (c. 9 January 1929 – 2 October 2015)
• Margaret Atwood (18 November 1939 – )
• Alice Munro (10 July 1931 – 13 May 2024)

2020

• Anita Desai (24 June 1937 – )
• Kazuo Ishiguro (8 November 1954 – )
• Hilary Mantel (6 July 1952 – 22 September 2022)
• Edna O’Brien (15 December 1930 – 27 July 2024)
• Philip Pullman (19 October 1946 – )
• Colin Thubron (14 June 1939 – )