To win a prize for something you have written is indeed a proud honour for any author, but the Nobel Prize for Literature is surely in a different league.
The Nobel Prize for Literature has been around since 1901, and is awarded each year to somebody who has created ‘outstanding work’. This award is one of the five Nobel Prizes which are awarded each year for different achievements in different fields.
It’s also a popular betting event offered by most online bookmakers in the UK.
Who Has Previously Won The Award?
The first person to win the Nobel Prize for Literature was Rene F. A. Sully Prudhomme, followed the year after by Theodore Mommsen from Germany.
Famous Irish poet, Seamus Heaney, whose poems are studied on the National Curriculum, took away the prize in 1995, while Patrick Modiano, a French novelist is the most recent winner of the award.
Svetlana Alexievich is Paddy Power’s favourite for this year
Who Are the Potential Nobel Literature Prize Winners for 2015?
Svetlana Alexievich was nominated last year for the Nobel Literature Prize, but missed out on the award. As a journalist and prose writer from Belarus, the 66-year old has taken part in interviews and narratives from the witnesses of historic events such as World War Two and the Chernobyl disaster.
With odds of 5/1, she is Paddy Power’s favourite to scoop the prize this year.
Japanese writer Haruki Murakami is the second favourite to win the Nobel Literature Prize in 2015. The contemporary writer has seen his works being translated into more than 50 languages across the world, and millions of copies have sold internationally.
Paddy Power has placed this author in close second place, with odds of 6/1.
Glamour model Katie Price from the UK has somehow made it onto Paddy Power’s list, albeit in last place with odds of 100/1. Although Katie Price has managed to get several books published and into the literature world, they are mainly ghost-written by another writer.
How Is the Nobel Prize Winner Chosen?
The Swedish Academy requests nominations for the award each year, and samples of each nominee’s work are scrutinised by experts.
All nominations must be received by February, and over the next few months, candidates are shortlisted. By May, there are just five people who have made it onto the shortlist. Between May and October, the panel of judges review the work of the nominees on the shortlist and members of the Swedish Academy then vote in October.
The nominee who succeeds in getting more than half of the votes from the Academy members is named the winner of the Nobel Literature Prize.
When Does the Ceremony Take Place?
The annual Prize Ceremony Award for all of the Nobel Prizes (except the Peace Prize) sees the winner of the Nobel Literature Prize receive the award.
The ceremony normally takes place on December 10th every year in Stockholm, Sweden.
The King of Sweden gives out the award to the winner of the prize in person.
Betting on the Winner of the 2015 Nobel Literature Prize
You can bet on the winner of the 2015 Nobel Prize in Literature on Paddy Power’s website up until October 1st at 10pm.
There are twenty authors who have been chosen as Paddy Power’s top favourites, so if you want to try your luck at winning some cash, you can do so at any time until the start of October.