The 2021 Nobel Prize for literature is being announced Thursday by the Nobel panel. The Swedish Academy will announce the recipient in Stockholm at about 1 PM (1100 GMT (16:30 IST).

For this year, winners are hard to predict. This year’s favourites, according to British bookmakers, include Kenya’s Ngugi wa Thiong’o, French writer Annie Ernaux, Japanese author Haruki Murakami, Canada’s Margaret Atwood, and Antiguan-American writer Jamaica Kincaid.

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The prestigious award comes with a gold medal and 10 million Swedish kronor (over USD 1.14 million). The prize money comes from a bequest left by the prize’s creator, Swedish inventor Alfred Nobel, who died in 1895.

On Monday, the Nobel Committee awarded the prize in physiology or medicine to Americans David Julius and Ardem Patapoutian for their discoveries into how the human body perceives temperature and touch.

The Nobel Prize in physics was awarded Tuesday to three scientists whose work found order in seeming disorder, helping to explain and predict complex forces of nature, including expanding our understanding of climate change.

Benjamin List and David W.C. MacMillan were named as laureates of the Nobel Prize for chemistry Wednesday for finding an easier and environmentally cleaner way to build molecules that can be used to make compounds, including medicines and pesticides.

Still to come are prizes will also be awarded for outstanding work in the fields of peace and economics.

(With PTI inputs)