The unofficial rule of awarding the Nobel Prize only to authors who have previously been nominated for it at least once is still referred to in the cultural pages as the "Lex ..."?

I assume you are referring to the Literature Prize, since you mentioned "authors,
although even recipients of the other prizes are normally being awarded on the basis of the significance of their published research.

In fact, several authors received the Nobel Prize in Literature in the first year they were nominated. They include Sinclair Lewis, Luigi Pirandello, Pearl Buck, and Wiliam Faulkner.

Sorry, but I know of no such "unofficial rule" applying to any of the prizes.

Hey pehinhota,

So this seems to be the "Buck Rule" named for Pearl S Buck who was awarded the Nobel in Literature, but was seen as a lightweight who just wrote popular fiction. The rule is totally unofficial, but basically says that the committee will only aware authors with proven gravitas and the best way to get that is that they are nominated more than once before receiving.

Not a lot on it on the net, to be fair, and I needed to translate a Wiki in German to get what I needed. Here is the relevant quote in English, and the site/cite below.

"In 1938, the American became Pearl S. Buck awarded the Literature Prize. This award was received with incomprehension at the time and is still often regarded as a wrong decision until the present, since Buck's works would have little literary value. From this criticism emerged the so-called "Lex Buck". It is the unwritten rule to award only authors who had been nominated at least once before."

https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nobelpreis_f%C3%BCr_Literatur

J