2018 Nobel Prize in Literature

The 2018 Nobel Prize in Literature has been awarded to Olga Tokarczuk, a year late. The Swedish Academy postponed the 2018 prize after a crisis within the academy, and announced it together with the 2019 prize. The prize was announced by the Swedish Academy in Stockholm on 10 October 2019.

The citation

The citation reads: "for a narrative imagination that with encyclopedic passion represents the crossing of boundaries as a form of life".

The laureate

Olga Tokarczuk was born in 1962 in Sulechów, Poland.

Why it matters

The Polish writer is known for novels including Flights, which won the International Booker Prize in 2018, and her historical epic The Books of Jacob.

The prize

The prize is worth 9 million Swedish kronor. It will be presented at a ceremony in Stockholm on 10 December, the anniversary of the death of Alfred Nobel, the Swedish inventor of dynamite whose will founded the prizes in 1895.