Only two people have voluntarily refused a Nobel Prize. Jean-Paul Sartre, who declined all official awards, did not accept the 1964 literature prize. In 1974 he was joined by Le Duc Tho, who, with Henry Kissinger, shared the peace prize for their work to end the Vietnam War. Tho, however, refused to accept it, saying that “peace has not yet been established.”
Several other winners have involuntarily declined the award. After Adolf Hitler barred all Germans from accepting a Nobel Prize, Richard Kuhn (1938, chemistry), Adolf Butenandt (1939, chemistry), and Gerhard Domagk (1939, physiology or medicine) were forced to refuse their Nobel awards. However, the men later received their diplomas and medals. In 1958 Boris Pasternak was awarded the literature prize. While he initially accepted the honor, Soviet authorities later made him decline it. Pasternak had largely won because of Doctor Zhivago, which was banned in the Soviet Union. It was not published there until 1987.
In addition, in 2026 María Corina Machado, a Venezuelan politician and pro-democracy activist, presented her Nobel Peace Prize medal to U.S. Pres. Donald Trump “as a recognition for his unique commitment to our [Venezuelan] freedom.” However, while a Nobel Prize winner may physically give away the medal itself, the honor and title of Nobel Prize laureate are nontransferable.