The Nobel Prize hasn't been a prize for work done in the previous year in a long time. This originates in the science prizes because some prizes were given to

The Nobel Prize hasn't been a prize for work done in the previous year in a long time. This originates in the science prizes because some prizes were given to discoveries that were later discredited. But even the literature prize is generally given in honor of a body of work. And if you look at the list on Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Nobel_laureates_in_Literature https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Nobel_laureates_in_Lit...), even those who are cited for a particular work (which was mostly in the first half of the 20th century) didn't get the prize for some time after that work. I suspect there was the same idea that the work needed to be one recognized to have lasting literary value.