Elias Canetti was a German-language writer, known as a modernist novelist, playwright, memoirist, and nonfiction writer. The Nobel Prize in Literature 1981, announced October 15, 1981. Elias Canetti, “for writings marked by a broad outlook, a wealth of ideas and artistic power”. Elias Canetti: born 1905, Ruse, Bulgaria. Wiki link Data: the Nobel Foundation (CC0).