# Who are the best writers who became politicians?

> History has seen novelists, poets, and playwrights trade their pens for power — some changing nations as dramatically as they changed literature. Where do you stand?

*By YPB Team · Published April 10, 2026 · https://youpick.best/ranking/who-are-the-best-writers-who-became-politicians*

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## Current results (no votes yet)

1. **Václav Havel**
   Czech playwright and dissident who became the first President of the Czech Republic after leading the Velvet Revolution.
2. **Winston Churchill**
   British Prime Minister who was also a prolific historian and author, winning the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1953.
3. **Thomas Jefferson**
   Principal author of the Declaration of Independence who became the third President of the United States.
4. **Mario Vargas Llosa**
   Peruvian Nobel Prize-winning novelist who ran for president of Peru in 1990 and later served in the Spanish Senate.
5. **Wole Soyinka**
   Nigerian Nobel Prize-winning playwright and poet who has been a prominent political voice and activist in Nigeria.
6. **Victor Hugo**
   French poet and novelist who served as a senator and was exiled for his political opposition to Napoleon III.
7. **Benjamin Disraeli**
   Victorian novelist who became one of the most influential British Prime Ministers of the 19th century.
8. **Barack Obama**
   Author of Dreams from My Father who became the 44th President of the United States.
9. **Léopold Sédar Senghor**
   Senegalese poet and co-founder of the Négritude movement who became the first President of Senegal.
10. **Pablo Neruda**
   Chilean Nobel Prize-winning poet who served as a senator and was appointed ambassador to France by Salvador Allende.
11. **Gabriele D'Annunzio**
   Italian poet and playwright who became a nationalist political leader and briefly seized the city of Fiume after WWI.
12. **Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn**
   Russian Nobel Prize-winning author of The Gulag Archipelago whose writings helped expose and undermine the Soviet system.
13. **Al Gore**
   Author of Earth in the Balance and An Inconvenient Truth who served as 45th U.S. Vice President and won the Nobel Peace Prize.
14. **Theodore Roosevelt**
   Prolific author of over 35 books on history and nature who became the 26th President of the United States.

Tags: historical-figures, books, celebrities, politics