(London) The 2021 Nobel Laureates began receiving their awards on Monday at local small-scale ceremonies tailored to the pandemic.
For a second year, COVID-19 scuttled the traditional formal banquet in Stockholm attended by winners of the chemistry, physics, medicine, literature and economics awards, which were announced in October. The Nobel Peace Prize is awarded separately in Oslo, Norway.
Nobel laureate in literature Abdulrazak Gurnah was the first to receive his award at a dinner-time ceremony on Monday at the Swedish Ambassador’s grand Georgian residence in central London.
Ambassador Mikaela Kumlin Granit said the UK-based Tanzanian author was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature for her “uncompromising and compassionate look at the effects of colonialism and the plight of refugees in the chasm between cultures and the continents “.
“Normally you would have received the award from the hands of His Majesty the King of Sweden,” she told Mr. Gurnah at the ceremony attended by friends, family and colleagues. “However, this year you will be celebrated with a distance imposed on us because of the pandemic. ”
Mr. Gurnah, who grew up on the island of Zanzibar and arrived in England as an 18-year-old refugee in the 1960s, drew on his experiences for 10 novels, including “Memory of Departure”, “Pilgrims Way ”,“ Afterlives ”and“ Paradise ”. He said migration is “not just my story – it’s a phenomenon of our time”.
Later Monday, Italian physics laureate Giorgio Parisi is due to receive his award at a ceremony in Rome. US-based physics laureate Syukuro Manabe, chemistry laureate David WC MacMillan and economics laureate Joshua D. Angrist will receive their medal and diploma in Washington.
Other ceremonies will take place throughout the week in Germany and the United States. Friday – the anniversary of the death of the founder of the Albert Nobel Prize winner – a celebratory ceremony will take place at Stockholm City Hall for a local audience, including King Carl XVI Gustav and members of the Swedish royal family .
A Nobel Prize comes with a diploma, a gold medal, and a cash award of 10 million crowns ($ 1.4 million CAD), which is shared if there are multiple winners.
The Nobel Peace Prize is awarded in Oslo because Mr. Nobel wanted it so, for reasons he kept to himself. A ceremony is due to take place there on Friday for the winners, journalists Maria Ressa from the Philippines and Dmitry Muratov from Russia.
Norwegian news agency NTB said the Peace Prize festivities would be reduced, with fewer guests, who will have to wear masks. Norway has seen a slight increase in cases of the new variant Omicron, and a spokesperson for the Norwegian Nobel Committee told NTB he was “in constant contact with the health authorities in Oslo”.