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2023 Nobel Prize announcements

Nobel Prize in Literature 1991

Six days – six prizes

Nadine Gordimer was a fearless anti-apartheid activist and writer who used her intense, human writing as a tool to help expose apartheid to the world.

Gordimer was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature 1991 with the motivation “who through her magnificent epic writing has – in the words of Alfred Nobel – been of very great benefit to humanity”.

On 5 October we will discover this year’s literature laureate.
See the full schedule here

Nadine Gordimer at Banquet D 0045_ 027

Nadine Gordimer and King Carl XVI Gustaf of Sweden at the Nobel Banquet in the Stockholm City Hall, Sweden, on 10 December 1991.

Photo from the Lars Åström archive

Literature prize Q&A

Behind the scenes of the Nobel Prize in Literature

Can anybody be nominated? What criteria do you use? We spoke to Ellen Mattson, who helps to decide the Nobel Prize in Literature, about how the prize process works.
Ellen Mattsson

Writer Ellen Mattson

Photographer: Rickard L Eriksson

Who wrote what?

Featured Nobel Prize laureates in literature

Nobel Prize in Literature 1970

Smuggled literature

Alexandr Solzhenitsyn’s Nobel Prize lecture, in which he first coined the term “Gulag Archipelago”, was smuggled out of the USSR on photographic film hidden in the back of a transistor radio. Read a firsthand account of this story from the cold war written by the courier himself. Solzhenitsyn didn’t arrive in Stockholm to receive the prize until four years later, after he had been expelled from the Soviet Union.
Transistor radio
Nobel Prize in Literature 2009

Writing against terror

Herta Müller was awarded for writing that address an individual’s vulnerability under oppression and persecution. Her works are rooted in her experiences as one of Romania’s German-speaking ethnic minorities. She describes life under Ceaușescu’s regime – how dictatorship breeds a fear and alienation that stays in an individual’s mind.
Herta Müller

© The Nobel Foundation. Photo: U. Montan

Nobel Prize in Literature 2021

The uniqueness of every fate

“To enter Gurnah’s writing is to absorb the great oral narrative tradition’s patterns and mythologies, conflated with the premise of the art of the novel: the uniqueness of every fate.” This is how Abdulrazak Gurnah’s literature was described during the 2021 Nobel Prize award ceremony. Get a taster of his writing here.
Abdulrazak Gurnah

Portrait of Abdulrazak Gurnah.

Photo: © Mark Pringle

Explore prizes and laureates

All Nobel Prizes and laureates

Between 1901 and 2022, the Nobel Prizes and the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel were awarded 615 times to 989 people and organisations. See the full list here.
Nobel Prize award ceremony 2022

Nobel Prize award ceremony 2022.

© Nobel Prize Outreach. Photo: Clément Morin

The Nobel Prize call

I think it's a shock

Surprised, overwhelmed, terrified, happy. How would you react if you suddenly heard that you had been awarded the Nobel Prize? Here, six laureates share their stories.

More about the ‘Nobel Prize call’

Nobel Prize Conversations

Behind the scenes

Each year in October, Adam Smith takes on the challenge of reaching the brand new Nobel Prize laureates for a telephone interview. In this new bonus episode of Nobel Prize Conversations, Adam takes us behind the scenes for even more of these calls and his favourite moments.
Illustration

The Nobel Prize

Questions and answers

Explore and learn

19 remarkable scientists and their stories

Explore a storytelling experience that celebrates and explores the contributions, careers and lives of 19 women who have been awarded Nobel Prizes for their scientific achievements.
Explore 'Women who changed science'

Watch the documentary series

Five documentaries inspired by the Nobel Peace Prize

A team of female Yazidi deminers in Iraq attempting to clear their land of mines left behind by ISIS. A team of scientists on an extraordinary mission in Mozambique to help better our understanding of climate change. A man building prosthetic legs to help victims of war walk again in South Sudan … All are inspired by Nobel Peace Prize laureates.
Into the fire - image

Nobel Prize nominations

Who selects the laureates?

In his last will and testament, Alfred Nobel specifically designated the institutions responsible for the prizes he wished to be established.

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News

Play a game!

Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 1930

The Blood Typing Game

How much do you know about blood types? Did you know that human blood groups were discovered by Nobel Prize laureate Karl Landsteiner in 1901?

Learn more about the way to find out about the human blood groups, blood typing and the importance of safe blood transfusions. See if you can save the lives of the patients in the game!
Blood typing game
Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 1904

Pavlov's Dog

Is it possible to train a dog to drool on command? Learn about conditioned reflexes in this interactive game!

With this animated game, teachers are able to illustrate classical conditioning in the classroom. The object of the game is to train Pavlov’s dog to respond to a signal that it will associate with being fed.

In 1904, Ivan Pavlov was awarded with Nobel Prize for his pioneering studies of how the digestive system works.
Pavlov's Dog Game

Peace Builders

Step into the shoes of a Nobel Peace Prize laureate and learn about the legacy of Alfred Nobel in this immersive learning experience from the Nobel Peace Center. All Minecraft players can now journey alongside Desmond Tutu, United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, Jody Williams and Carl von Ossietzky to bring their vision of a more democratic, peaceful world to life.
Minecraft peacebuilders

Alfred Nobel – Established the Nobel Prize

Alfred Nobel's last will

On 27 November 1895, Alfred Nobel signed his last will in Paris, France. The Swedish dynamite millionaire, who thought that his invention would end all wars, had now realised that it was a very deadly product. Wanting to make amends, he did what no man of such wealth had done before …

Alfred Nobel Will

The very first Nobel Prizes

On 10 December 1901 the first Nobel Prizes were awarded, in physics, chemistry, physiology or medicine, literature and peace. Read more about the first prizes.

The first Nobel Prize Award Ceremony was held in 1901 at the Royal Academy of Music, Stockholm.

What are you looking for? Search the website.

Nobel destinations

Stockholm, Sweden

Nobel Prize Museum

The Nobel Prize Museum in Stockholm, Sweden, illustrates a century of creativity, where visitors can follow the changes of the 20th century through the Nobel Prize and the Nobel Prize laureates.
The Nobel Prize: Ideas Changing the World (3)

The museum showcases the discoveries and creativity of the Nobel Prize laureates.

Photo: Åke Eson Lindman

Oslo, Norway

Nobel Peace Center

Located in the heart of Oslo, Norway, the Nobel Peace Center is a place where you can experience and learn about the various Nobel Peace Prize laureates.
NPC Nye Nobels Hage 10

The story of each peace laureate is told at the museum.

Photo: Johannes Granseth/Nobel Peace Center

In memoriam

Ferid Murad 1936‒2023

Ferid Murad passed away on 4 September 2023. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 1998 for discoveries concerning nitric oxide as a signalling molecule in the cardiovascular system. These discoveries opened new avenues for patient treatment and diagnoses of various diseases. 

Read Ferid Murad’s biography
Ferid Murad

Harald zur Hausen dies

Harald zur Hausen passed away on 28 May, age 87. In the 1970s, he went against current dogma and postulated that oncogenic human papilloma virus (HPV) caused cervical cancer. His work led to the development of a vaccine against the disease. In 2008, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.
Harald zur Hausen