The Swedish Academy on Thursday, 8 October, announced 77-year-old American poet and essayist Louise Glück as the 2020 Nobel Prize in Literature winner. She beat the other 31 authors to the award including celebrated Rwandan novelist Scholastique Mukasonga. The announcement of the laureate for the prestigious prize was made by Swedish Academy Permanent Secretary, Mats Malm. Malm said the Prize was awarded to Louise Glück for her unmistakable poetic voice that with austere beauty makes individual existence universal” The award last year was won by Austrian novelist Peter Handke, and becomes the sixteenth woman to win the prize since its inception in 1895. Louise Glück made her debut in 1968 with Firstborn, and was soon acclaimed as one of the most prominent poets in American contemporary literature. She has previously won many major literary awards in the United States, including the ‘National Humanities Medal’, ‘Pulitzer Prize’, ‘National Book Award’, ‘National Book Critics Circle Award’, and ‘Bollingen Prize’, among others. From 2003 to 2004, she was Poet Laureate of the United States. Glück is often described as an autobiographical poet; her work is known for its emotional intensity and for frequently drawing on myth, history, or nature to meditate on personal experiences and modern life. The Nobel Prize in Literature Award, which is considered the world’s pre-eminent literary award, is bestowed annually to well-deserving authors that have produced the best work in the field of literature from a different region of the world. There are five Nobel Prizes that are established by the will of Alfred Nobel in 1895. They include the Nobel Prize in literature, Nobel Prize in physics, Nobel Prize in Chemistry, Nobel Prize in Medicine or Psychology and finally, the Nobel Peace Prize.
