Nobel Prizes to be announced one after another: Trump expects to win the Peace Prize?

In recent years, every time the Nobel Prize for Literature is awarded, "Haruki Murakami's runner-up" becomes a hot topic. In early 2006, Haruki Murakami won the "Franz Kafka" Prize, known as the "prelude to the Nobel Prize in Literature", for his novel Kafka on the Shore, and has been a runner-up for the Nobel Prize for 12 years. The 2019 Nobel Prizes will be announced starting tomorrow. This year is very exciting. Chinese writer Can Xue is on the list of hot literary prizes; Trump is eager to win the Peace Prize.

The annual Nobel Prize is here again.

October 7: Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine; October 8: Nobel Prize in Physics; October 9: Nobel Prize in Chemistry; October 10: Nobel Prize in Literature; October 11: Nobel Peace Prize; October 14: Nobel Prize in Economics.

The literature prize and the peace prize usually spark the most speculation and controversy, and this year is particularly eye-catching because the literature prize will award prizes from both last year and this year, while the peace prize will reveal whether Trump can get what he wants.

Regarding scientific awards, each year's winning results will stimulate people's interest and enthusiasm in science and drive investment in related fields.

Before the first Nobel Prize of the year is awarded, take a look at the prize highlights.

Screenshot of the Nobel Prize official website

Literature Award: "Chinese Kafka" on the hot list

This year, two winners of the Literature Prize will be announced unprecedentedly, because the 2018 Nobel Prize in Literature was suspended and the award ceremony was postponed to this year.

This special situation occurred because the Swedish Academy, which is responsible for selecting and awarding the literature prize, was involved in a sex scandal in 2017. In November 2017, 18 women came forward to testify that French photographer Arnault was suspected of sexual assault and sexual harassment between 1996 and 2017, and some of the incidents occurred at places belonging to the Swedish Academy. In addition, Arnault also leaked the name of the winner. Arnault's wife is Frostenson, a member of the Swedish Academy.

There were huge disagreements within the Swedish Academy on how to deal with the scandal involving Arnault, and many members resigned, leaving only 10 members able to perform their duties normally. Due to the scandal, the 2018 Nobel Prize in Literature was postponed to 2019, the first time the award has been suspended in 70 years.

On the predicted list of 2019 literary awards, Canadian poet Anne Carson, Japanese writer Haruki Murakami, Syrian poet Adonis, Kenyan writer Ngugi wa Tiango, Russian writer Lyudmila Ulitskaya and Chinese writer Can Xue are all popular candidates.

Haruki Murakami also wrote in his autobiographical work "My Occupation is a Novelist": "As for any award named after it, from the Oscars to the Nobel Prize in Literature, except for special awards where the evaluation criteria are limited to numerical values, there is no objective evidence of its value. If you want to nitpick, you can find as many flaws as you want; if you want to cherish it, you can treasure it as much as you want."

This may be Murakami's clear response to being a runner-up for the Nobel Prize.

On the winners prediction list of British bookmaker NicerOdds as of the 4th, Canadian poet Carson had odds of 1 to 5; Marie-Sally Conde, a female writer from the French territory of Guadeloupe, ranked second with odds of 1 to 6; followed by Haruki Murakami and Chinese writer Can Xue.

Anne Carson's writing involves poetry, prose, criticism, novels and other forms. She has published many works, including "The Bitter Sweetness of Desire", "Glass, Satire and God", "Red Autobiography: A Novel in Verse", "Night" and so on. Michael Ondaatje, the author of "The English Patient", praised her as "the most exciting poet in the English world today".

Can Xue, a Chinese female writer born in Hunan, is known as a representative of avant-garde literature. Her representative works include "The Little House on the Mountain", "Yellow Mud Street", "Old Floating Clouds", "Five Spice Street", etc. Can Xue is one of the Chinese female writers whose works have been translated and published the most abroad. She is also known as "China's Kafka".

According to Radio France Internationale, Anders Olsson, permanent secretary of the Swedish Academy, said that the emphasis this time was on the "coordination" of the two winners, such as "avoiding literature from the same field, or selecting one man and one woman, etc." The Nobel Prize in Literature is also believed to have a tendency to consider regional balance.

Peace Prize: Swedish environmentalist, Trump controversial

Eighty years ago, a Swedish parliament member nominated Adolf Hitler for the Nobel Peace Prize, a nomination that was later rescinded. American singer Michael Jackson was also nominated for the Peace Prize.

The Irish Times commented that the above nominations show that the Nobel Peace Prize has always been full of absurd and unfounded nominees. This may explain why Swedish environmental activist Greta Thunberg and US President Donald Trump appeared on the Peace Prize list this year.

According to Reuters, the 16-year-old Thunberg has millions of followers around the world for launching a global climate movement strike and for criticizing world leaders for their inaction on climate change at the United Nations General Assembly. Time magazine selected Thunberg as one of the 100 most influential people in 2019.

Some environmentalists see Thunberg as the most courageous fighter for climate change, while some right-wing critics accuse her of being a "hypocrite" and a "drama queen."

If Thunberg wins the prize, she will break the record of Malala Yousafzai, the 2014 winner of the Peace Prize, who was 19 years old at the time, and become the youngest winner in history. Asle Sveen, a historian specializing in the Nobel Prize, said that awarding the Peace Prize to young people would put a huge burden on them.

With Abe's help, Trump has become a hot candidate for this year's Nobel Peace Prize. According to CNN, Trump has repeatedly expressed "bitterness" about Obama's winning of the Nobel Peace Prize in 2009. Trump said: "They gave the award to Obama, and Obama didn't even know why he won the award."

In addition, Lee Hee-ho, the widow of former South Korean President Kim Dae-jung, once said that South Korean President Moon Jae-in performed outstandingly in the North Korea-ROK summit and hoped that he could win the Nobel Peace Prize. In response, Moon Jae-in said that if it is to bring peace to the Korean Peninsula, the award should be given to US President Trump.

With the dual "blessings" of the leaders of Japan and South Korea, Trump is very much looking forward to winning the award.

Science Awards: Gene Editing Technology is Promising

The first Nobel Prize awarded this year is the Prize in Physiology or Medicine. Last year, the prize was awarded to two scientists in the field of cancer immunotherapy. Which field is more likely to win this year?

David Pendlebury, chief analyst for the Thomson Reuters Citation Laureate Award, has successfully predicted several Nobel Prize winners since 2002. He mainly makes predictions by analyzing the citations of papers written by scientists.

Pendlebury told the American biomedical media STAT that Hans Clevers, a professor of molecular genetics at Utrecht University in the Netherlands, is likely to win the Prize in Physiology or Medicine in recognition of his research discoveries on the Wnt signaling pathway.

Jason Sheltzer, a professor at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (CSHL) in the United States, believes that this year it is time for gene editing technology to win an award, and the winners should include Jennifer A. Doudna, a professor of chemistry and molecular biology and cell biology at the University of California, Berkeley.

Doudna is one of the inventors of the new genome editing technology Crispr-Cas 9. As the corresponding author, she wrote an article calling for a worldwide ban on the use of this technology to give scientists, ethicists and the public time to fully understand the issues surrounding this scientific breakthrough.

Regarding the speculation about the physics prize, Inside Science, a website affiliated with the American Institute of Physics, reported that astrophysics has received more and more attention in recent years, and the discovery of "exoplanets" orbiting stars other than the sun has become a hot topic for the prize. Michel Major, an emeritus professor at the University of Geneva in Switzerland, and others first discovered an exoplanet in 1995, and planets of the same type have been discovered continuously since then, and human understanding of exoplanets has made progress.

How are the Nobel Prizes selected?

People have always been curious about the selection rules of the Nobel Prize. According to Nobel's will, during the entire selection process, the winners are not affected by any nationality, ethnicity, ideology or religion, and the only criterion for selection is the size of the achievement.

The Physics Prize and the Chemistry Prize are assessed by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, the Physiology or Medicine Prize is assessed by the Royal Swedish Karolinska Institute, the Literature Prize is assessed by the Swedish Academy of Letters, and the Peace Prize is selected by the Norwegian Parliament. The Economics Prize is assessed by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. Each awarding unit has a five-member Nobel Committee responsible for the selection work, which is held every three years.

The review and voting at each stage are conducted in secret. The Nobel Prize is generally only awarded to individuals, but the Peace Prize is an exception and can also be awarded to institutions. Candidates can only be nominated during their lifetime, but the official award can be awarded after their death.

In the history of the Nobel Prize, more white men have been selected, sparking controversy over bias in the selection process. According to Nature magazine, in response to the "imbalance" in the gender and racial ratio of the winners, Goran Hansson, secretary general of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences and a biomedical scientist, one of the Nobel Prize selectors, said that they have taken measures to improve the imbalance, and if this is not enough, the academy is prepared to make more efforts.