<P> The 1997 prize went to Italian actor - playwright Dario Fo who was initially considered "rather lightweight" by some critics, as he was seen primarily as a performer and had previously been censured by the Roman Catholic Church . Salman Rushdie and Arthur Miller had been favored to receive the Prize, but a committee member was later quoted as saying that they would have been "too predictable, too popular ." </P> <P> The 1974 prize was denied to Graham Greene, Vladimir Nabokov, and Saul Bellow in favor of a joint award for Swedish authors Eyvind Johnson and Harry Martinson--both Nobel judges and unknown outside their home country . Bellow won in 1976; neither Greene nor Nabokov took home the prize . </P> <Dl> <Dt> 1970 </Dt> </Dl> <P> The 1970 prize was awarded to Soviet dissident Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, who did not attend the ceremony in Stockholm for fear that the Soviet Union would prevent his return . His works there were available only in samizdat - published, clandestine form . After the Swedish government refused to hold a public award ceremony and lecture at its Moscow embassy, Solzhenitsyn refused the award altogether, commenting that the conditions set by the Swedes (who preferred a private ceremony) were "an insult to the Nobel Prize itself ." Solzhenitsyn later accepted the award on 10 December 1974, after the Soviet Union banished him . Critics suggest that Solzhenitsyn was awarded the prize because of his political stance, not his writing . </P>

Who should have won the nobel peace prize