The Nobel Prize 2015 in Literature went to 67-year-old Belarusian author Svetlana Alexievich.
The Nobel was awarded “for her polyphonic writings, a monument to suffering and courage in our time”.
Ms. Alexievich is the 14th women Literature Laureate.
Ms. Alexievich used the skills of a journalist to create literature chronicling the great tragedies of the Soviet Union and its collapse- World War II, the Soviet war in Afghanistan, the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear disaster and the suicides that ensued from the death of Communism.
The academy’s permanent secretary, Sara Danius, told that Swedish broadcaster SVT that she reached the writer just before the announcement.
“She said one word- ‘Fantastic!’” Danius said.
She praised Alexievich as a great and innovative writer.
“She transcends the format of journalism and has developed a new literary genre that bears her trademark,” Danius said.
The daughter of two village schoolteachers, Alexievich studied journalism in Belarus, which at the time was part of the Soviet Union. She now lives in Minsk, the capital of Belarus, and like many intellectuals supports the political opponents of authoritarian President Alexander Lukashenko, who is up for re—election on Sunday.
Last year’s literature award went to French writer Patrick Modiano.
This year’s medicine prize went to scientists from Japan, the U.S. and China who discovered drugs to fight malaria and other tropical diseases. Japanese and Canadian scientists won the physics prize for discovering that tiny particles called neutrinos have mass.
The Nobel announcements continue with the Nobel Peace Prize on Friday and the economics award on Monday.
(With inputs from agencies)
Nobel Prize winners, 2015
Svetlana Alexievich Literature
The 67-year-old Belarusian author was awarded the Nobel "for her polyphonic writings, a monument to suffering and courage in our time".
| Physiology or Medicine | ||
|---|---|---|
| William C. Campbell | William C. Campbell and Satoshi Ōmura won it for their discoveries concerning a novel therapy against infections caused by roundworm parasites.Their new drug, Avermectin and its derivatives have lowered the incidence of River Blindness and Lymphatic Filariasis |
| Satoshi Ōmura | William C. Campbell and Satoshi Ōmura won it for their discoveries concerning a novel therapy against infections caused by roundworm parasites.Their new drug, Avermectin and its derivatives have lowered the incidence of River Blindness and Lymphatic Filariasis. |
| Youyou Tu | Youyou Tu won it for her discoveries concerning a novel therapy for malaria. Youyou Tu discovered Artemisinin, a drug that has significantly reduced the mortality rates for patients suffering from Malaria. |
| Physics | ||
| Arthur McDonald | Mr. McDonald is a professor emeritus at Queen’s University in Kingston, Canada. The research group Mr. McDonald demonstrated that the neutrinos from the Sun were not disappearing on their way to Earth. Instead they were captured with a different identity when arriving to the Sudbury Neutrino Observatory. |
| Takaaki Kajita | Takaaki Kajita is from the University of Tokyo. Mr. Kajita discovered that neutrinos from the atmosphere switch between two identities when coming to Japan's Super-Kamiokande neutrino detector. |
| Chemistry | ||
| Tomas Lindahl | Mr. Lindahl is from the Francis Crick Institute. He demonstrated that DNA decays at a rate that ought to have made the development of life on Earth impossible. |
| Aziz Sancar | Mr. Sancar is from the University of North Carolina. He has mapped nucleotide excision repair, the mechanism that cells use to repair UV damage to DNA. |
| Paul Modrich | Mr. Modrich is from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and Duke University School of Medicine. "He demonstrated how the cell corrects errors that occur when DNA is replicated during cell division. |
