Nobel Prizes awarded in pandemic-curtailed local ceremonies

Winners of the 2021 Nobel Prizes will start receiving their awards on Monday in scaled-down local ceremonies adapted for pandemic times.

For a second year, the coronavirus has scuttled the traditional formal banquet in Stockholm attended by winners of the prizes in chemistry, physics, medicine, literature and economics. The Nobel Peace Prize is awarded separately in Oslo, Norway.

Literature laureate Abdulrazak Gurnah will be the first to get his prize in a lunchtime ceremony Monday at the Swedish ambassador’s residence in London. The U.K.-based Tanzanian author was awarded the Nobel Prize in October for novels that explore the impact of migration on individuals and societies.

Gurnah, who grew up on the island of Zanzibar and arrived in England as an 18-year-old refugee in the 1960s, has drawn on his experiences for 10 novels, including “Memory of Departure,” “Pilgrims Way,” “Afterlives” and “Paradise.” He has said migration is “not just my story—it’s a phenomenon of our times.”

Later Monday, Italian physics laureate Giorgio Parisi is due to receive his prize at a ceremony in Rome. U.S.-based physics laureate Syukuro Manabe, chemistry laureate David W.C. MacMillan and economic sciences laureate Joshua D. Angrist will be given their medals and diplomas in Washington.

More ceremonies will be held throughout the week in Germany and the United States. On Friday—the anniversary of the death of prize founder Albert Nobel—there will be a celebratory ceremony at Stockholm City Hall for a local audience, including King Carl XVI Gustav and senior Swedish royals.

A Nobel Prize comes with a diploma, a gold medal and a 10-milion krona ($1.15 million) cash award, which is shared if there are multiple winners.

The Nobel Peace Prize is awarded in Oslo because Nobel wanted it that way, for reasons he kept to himself. A ceremony is due to be held there on Friday for the winners, journalists Maria Ressa of the Philippines and Dmitry Muratov of Russia.

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