Tokarczuk wins 2018 Literature Nobel, Handke wins 2019 award

Nobel Prize in Literature for 2018 awarded to the Polish author Olga Tokarczuk. The Nobel Prize in Literature for 2019 awarded to the Austrian author Peter Handke.

Stockholm: The 2018 Nobel Prize in literature has been awarded to Polish author Olga Tokarczuk "for a narrative imagination that with encyclopedic passion represents the crossing of boundaries as a form of life," while the 2019 prize went to Austrian author Peter Handke.

Mats Malm, the Swedish Academy's permanent secretary said on Thursday that Handke was honoured "for an influential work that with linguistic ingenuity has explored the periphery and the specificity of human experience."

The shortlist was made of eight names of which two were picked for the 2018 and 2019 awards, said Anders Olsson, chair of the Nobel Committee of the Swedish Academy.

Tokarczuk received the delayed award after the event in 2018 was cancelled following sex abuse allegations.

Both laureates will receive a 9-million kronor (9,18,000 US dollars) cash award, a gold medal and a diploma at a ceremony in Stockholm on December 10.