It was the most spectacular echo of the last Nobel Prize awarding: In January, Nobel Peace Prize winner María Corina Machado symbolically gave her prize medal to Donald Trump. A natural step for the US President: he thought he deserved it anyway. The jury saw it differently and honored the Venezuelan opposition leader in 2025.
Given this outcome, many are not sure whether that was the right decision. Shortly before this year's Nobel Prizes are awarded on October 5th, the question is: What did the jury learn from it - and will that influence their decision this time?
Trump didn't get the Nobel Prize - but he did get the stage
“In any case, I believe that the committee will pay attention to what unfavorable impact the prize could have,” says the head of the Oslo peace research institute Prio, Haakon Gjerløw. The Norwegian Nobel Institute made it clear that a laureate cannot pass on the award. The US President will have to wait for his own Nobel Prize. But the gesture has a bizarre aftertaste: the price of fighting for democracy in Venezuela suddenly becomes a stage for Trump.
This year, Gjerløw is convinced that the committee will choose a less controversial winner. “That could speak for someone who works in the humanitarian sector.” An organization? Even before the 2025 award, the Emergency Response Rooms in Sudan had attracted attention - local networks that have been organizing humanitarian aid in the form of food, medical care and emergency accommodation since the beginning of the war.
At the same time, the decisions of the Nobel juries are difficult to predict every time. This applies not only to the Peace category, but especially to the Nobel Prize in Literature. “It's just reading coffee grounds, you have to admit that with a few hundred writers who come into consideration,” says literary critic Denis Scheck.
The Swedish Academy, keeper of the Nobel secret in this category, does not allow itself to be seen in the cards - and does not want to be guided by proportional thinking. Nevertheless, recently a man and a woman have been awarded alternately - last year the Hungarian László Krasznahorkai.
“Pure reading of coffee grounds”: Who will receive the Nobel Prize in Literature?
Canadian Margaret Atwood, American Siri Hustvedt and Chinese Can Xue deserve the prize this time, says Scheck: “All three have impressive work.” Can Xue was already considered the favorite in 2025. “She writes amazing stories and novels in which animals play a major role,” says the literary critic. If the prize goes to a man, Scheck advocates “finally honoring Salman Rushdie.” We live in an age of political and religious totalitarianism, he says - and resistance to both is written into Rushdie's work.
Some might think that the Nobel Prize winner would be wished for by a woman: because men massively dominate Nobel history. Only 67 women received one of the coveted prizes - out of almost 1,000 winners. Changing this quickly is not easy when there are only a few award winners each year.
The Nobel institutions are aware of the problem. But the gap is closing only slowly, especially in the natural sciences. In the physics and chemistry categories, there have been fewer than ten female laureates since the Nobel Prizes were first awarded 125 years ago. Only three women received the economics award. The Medicine Prize, the announcement of which opens the Nobel Prize series (October 5th), at least on the 14th.
The Nobel Prize - a male domain
The former Permanent Secretary of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, Göran K. Hansson, explained why in an interview in 2017: It is not just the historical underrepresentation of women in scientific careers that is crucial - the prizes are often awarded for discoveries and inventions that date back many decades. For a long time, the nominators were also predominantly male.
At least in one respect the Nobel Prize is definitely becoming more female: the Belgian-born Ellen Moons has been at the helm of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, which announces the prizes for physics (October 6th), chemistry (October 7th) and economics (October 12th), since January. This is historic because she is the first woman to hold this position since the Academy was founded in 1739. For the first time ever, the Nobel Prize winners in the three categories will be announced by a woman.
She describes it on Swedish radio as a “natural development” that not only the prizes but also the Nobel institutions are becoming more female. She is looking forward to her new job: “It will be exciting.” Not just for Moons: At the beginning of October, the world public will once again be looking excitedly at Stockholm and Oslo.
