LITERARY AWARDS

The Nobel Prize

It is a Swedish literature prize.
It is one of the five Nobel Prizes established by the will of Alfred Nobel in 1895.
It has become the world’s most prestigious literature prize.
Alfred Nobel in his last will stated that his money be used to create a series of prizes for those who confer the “greatest benefit on mankind” in physics, chemistry, peace, physiology or medicine, and literature.
According to Nobel’s will, the Royal Swedish Academy was to award the Prize in Literature.
The award is usually announced in October.
A Literature Nobel Prize laureate earns a gold medal, a diploma bearing a citation, and a sum of money.
The amount of money awarded depends on the income of the Nobel Foundation that year.
If a prize is awarded jointly to two or more laureates, the money is split among them.
The laureate is also invited to give a lecture during “Nobel Week” in Stockholm’
The Nobel Prize medals, minted by Myntverket in Sweden.
Since 2012 the Nobel medals has been manufactured by Mint of Norway.
The first literature prize was awarded to French poet and essayist Sully Prudhomme in 1901.
In 1909, Selma Legerlof became the first woman to win the Nobel Prize in Literature.
The youngest winner to date is Mumbai-born British author Rudyard Kipling.
Rabindranath Tagore was the first non-European or non-white recipient of the Nobel Prize.
Doris Lessing is the oldest winner.
The Nobel Medal for Literature was designed by Swedish sculptor and engraver Erik Lindberg and represents a young man sitting under a laurel tree.
It will not be awarded in 2018, but two names will be awarded in 2019.

Booker Prize

Booker Prize is a literary prize awarded each year for the best original novel written in the English language and published in the UK.
The prize was originally known as the Booker–McConnell Prize.
Only novels written by Commonwealth, Irish, and South African and later Zimbabwean citizens were eligible to receive this prize.
In 2014, the eligibility was widened to any English-language novel. This change became controversial.
When Booker, McConnell Ltd began sponsoring the event in 1969;[5] it became known as the Booker Prize.
PH Newby is the first winner of the prize.
From 2002 the prize became the Man Booker Prize as the Man Group came as sponsor.
Yann Martel is the first winner of the Man Booker Prize.
Since 1969, 31 men and 16 women have won the prize.
The longest winning novel in the prize’s history was The Luminaries by Eleanor Catton, in 2013, with 832 pages.
Eleanor Catton became the youngest winner in 2013, aged just 28.