Stockholm (AFP)
Medicine opens Monday an exceptional Nobel season, with two literature awards to turn the page of the scandal of sexual assault that has put the Swedish Academy in tatters, then the prestigious award for peace that his supporters would like to reward Greta Thunberg.
The medical award is announced Monday in Stockholm at 11:30 (09:30 GMT). Following Tuesday physics, chemistry Wednesday, literature Thursday before the economy Monday, October 14.
Meanwhile in Oslo, on the 11th, will be announced the name of the winner of the Nobel Peace Prize. Swedish activist Greta Thunberg, behind the "Fridays for Future" movement, is the bookies favorite.
In each specialty, speculation is going well but any prognosis is hazardous, if not impossible, because the nominative lists of candidates remain fifty years secret.
For peace, the Norwegian Nobel Committee, which awards the prize, has registered 301 applications this year.
Traditionally sensitive to the concerns of the public, the committee has been able to miss the phenomenon "Greta" and the enthusiasm it arouses among younger generations in its fight to warn world leaders on the climate emergency .
Experts, however, remain divided on the reality of the link between armed conflict and climate change.
The director of the Oslo Peace Research Institute (Prio), Henrik Urdal, considers it "extremely improbable" that the girl gets the prize, also underlining her young age. Greta Thunberg is 16 years old.
The youngest laureate, Malala Yousafzai, was awarded the Nobel Prize at the age of 17 in 2014.
Among the Nobel laureates are Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, a reconciliation worker with Eritrea, and NGOs such as Reporters Without Borders (RSF) and the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ).
- From arthritis to batteries -
For medicine, the Karolinska Institute received 633 nominations.
According to Swedish public radio SR, the award could reward the research of Lebanese-American Huda Zoghbi on mutations in the Mecp2 gene causing brain diseases, while the daily Dagens Nyheter (DN) is betting on immunologists Marc Feldmann (Australia) and Ravinder Maini (Great Britain) for their work on rheumatoid arthritis.
The name of the American Mary-Claire King, who discovered the BRCA1 gene, responsible for a hereditary form of breast cancer, is also mentioned.
Dagens Nyheter imagines a jury of physics acclaiming quantum mechanics with the American John Clauser, the French Alain Aspect and / or the Austrian Anton Zeilinger.
SR, on the Dutch Ronald Hanson for his research for quantum entanglement.
In chemistry, the American John Goodenough, inventor of lithium batteries, could become, at 97, the dean of the Nobel laureates.
But the prize could also go to two women, the French Emmanuelle Charpentier and the American Jennifer Doudna, who have developed a revolutionary tool for genome modification, the "CRISPR-Cas9".
Another researcher, the Chinese-born American Feng Zhang, claims the paternity of the discovery - which could also be rewarded in medicine.
- Redeem the coat of arms of the Nobel Prize for literature -
And literature in all this?
In 2018, the Swedish Academy, created on the model of the French Academy and upset by the exposure of its domestic turpitude after a scandal of sexual assault, had to postpone for a year the announcement of the Nobel - a first for 70 years - lack of quorum of academicians required.
This year, there are two medals, one for 2018, the other for 2019. But for Madelaine Levy, critic for the daily Svenska Dagbladet, the winners may not "accept the price" devalued in their eyes.
As every year since 1901, the list of potential winners is as long as uncertain, but academics should avoid disputed choices, to forget the past setbacks.
They could be crowned Polish Olga Tokarczuk, Kenyan Ngugi Wa Thiong'o, Albanian Ismaïl Kadaré, American Joyce Carol Oates and Japanese Haruki Murakami, according to critics polled by AFP.
The last born of the Nobel, the economy prize, created in 1968 to celebrate the 300th anniversary of the Bank of Sweden, will be awarded on October 14th.
Among the potential winners, Micael Dahlén, professor of economics interviewed by AFP, advances a trio of women: Anne Krueger from the US for her research on international trade, and Carmen Reinhart, who works on public debts and growth, as well as the French Esther Duflo, specialized in the economy of the development.
Accompanied by a medal bearing the image of Alfred Nobel, each prize is endowed with 9 million crowns (830,000 euros), which the candidates share if they are several.
© 2019 AFP