The 2007 Nobel Prize in Literature was awarded to the British novelist Doris Lessing (1919–2013) as "that epicist of the female experience, who with scepticism, fire and visionary power has subjected a divided civilisation to scrutiny." Lessing was the oldest person ever, at age 88, to receive the Nobel Prize in Literature followed by the German historian Theodor Mommsen, who received the prize at age 85. She is also the third-oldest Nobel laureate in any category. She became the 11th woman to be awarded the prize.

The 2008 Nobel Prize in Literature was awarded to the French novelist Jean-Marie Gustave Le Clézio, better known with his pen name J. M. G. Le Clézio, as an "author of new departures, poetic adventure and sensual ecstasy, explorer of a humanity beyond and below the reigning civilization." He became the 14th French-language author to receive the Nobel Prize for Literature after Claude Simon in 1985 and was followed later by Patrick Modiano in 2014.