STOCKHOLM – Next week’s Nobel Prize announcements will crown achievements that made the world a better place, a glimmer of optimism amid spiraling conflicts, famine, and climate catastrophe.
The prestigious awards, created by Swedish philanthropist Alfred Nobel in his 1895 will, will be unveiled between October 7-14. While the bleak state of global affairs has some questioning whether a Peace Prize is warranted this year, the Nobel committee remains confident worthy candidates will emerge.
“I’m confident there will be a worthy candidate for the Peace Prize this year as well,” said Olav Njolstad, the committee’s secretary.
With over 50 armed conflicts raging worldwide and violence on the rise, the Peace Prize may be the most challenging to predict. Dan Smith, head of the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, even suggested forgoing the award entirely as “an acknowledgement of failure.”
“We have now over 50 armed conflicts around the world. The lethality of those armed conflicts has increased dramatically in the past two decades,” Smith noted solemnly.
Yet the Nobel committee appears unwilling to take such a drastic step. Last year, Iranian activist Narges Mohammadi was awarded for her fight against the oppression of women, and this year’s 286 nominations include promising contenders like the UN agency for Palestinian refugees and human rights groups on both sides of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
The Literature Prize on October 10 also promises surprises, with avant-garde Chinese author Can Xue seen as a frontrunner by many pundits. “I think they’ve gone to great pains to find some writer that will catch the culture commentariat with their pants down,” said Bjorn Wiman, culture editor at Sweden’s Dagens Nyheter.
Other potential Literature laureates include Australian novelist Gerald Murnane, Britain’s Salman Rushdie, and Kenya’s Ngugi wa Thiong’o – a diverse field reflecting the Academy’s efforts to expand its horizons.
The sciences will kick off the Nobel season, with potential winners in medicine including researchers exploring lipid metabolism, the basal ganglia, and epigenetics. Last year’s mRNA vaccine pioneers Katalin Kariko and Drew Weissman raised the bar for what these prizes can recognize.
While the world grapples with seemingly intractable crises, the Nobel Prizes offer a chance to celebrate the innovators, advocates and artists who are making it a better place. Their honored achievements may provide a much-needed dose of hope and inspiration.