As of January 2022, who has been the only science fiction author to win the Nobel literature prize?

The only science fiction author to win the Nobel prize in literature has been Swedish Harry Martinson (1904-1978). His magnum opus is "Aniara", an epic space poem consisting of 103 cantos (separate poems).

Martinson was born in south-eastern Sweden. At a young age he lost both his parents whereafter he was placed as a foster child. At the age of sixteen Martinson ran away and signed onto a steamship to spend the next years sailing around the world.

A few years later lung problems due to inhaled coal dust forced him to set ashore in Sweden. He spent all his spare time in libraries and he was an avid reader and self-learner.

In 1929, he debuted as a poet. His popular success as a novelist came with the semi-autobiographical "Flowering Nettle" in 1935, about hardships encountered by a young boy in the countryside. It has since been translated into more than thirty languages. He befriended several scientists, including Niels Bohr. In 1949 Martinson became elected as a member of the Swedish Academy.

His most noted work is the poetic cycle "Aniara", which is a story of the spacecraft Aniara that during a journey through space loses its course and subsequently disappears in the interstellar space. The book was published in 1956 and became an opera in 1959 composed by Karl-Birger Blomdahl. The cycle has been described as "an epic story of man's fragility and folly".

Martinson won the Nobel Literature Prize 1974. He died four years later.