2017 Nobels to turn page on Dylan, anti-nuke buzz for peace prize

Stockholm : The 2017 Nobel season opens next week with all eyes on the two most anticipated prizes: literature, after last year's shock award to Bob Dylan, and peace, as tensions rise over nuclear concerns in North Korea and Iran.

Down the years, from Rudyard Kipling to Dylan, from the founder of the Red Cross to Barack Obama and Albert Einstein, a total of 911 men, women and organisations have won a Nobel Prize.

The awards were created by the inventor of dynamite, Alfred Nobel, in his 1895 will and handed out for the first time in 1901.

They were to honour "those who, during the preceding year, shall have conferred the greatest benefit on mankind" in the fields of literature, peace, medicine, physics and chemistry.

The economics prize, the only award not included in Nobel's will, is funded by the Swedish central bank, which created the prize at its 300-year anniversary in 1968. It was first awarded in 1969.

The 2017 season opens on Monday with the announcement of the medicine prize, followed by the physics award on Tuesday and the chemistry prize on Wednesday.

The peace prize will be announced on October 6. The date for the literature prize is revealed only a few days in advance but traditionally falls on a Thursday, so October 5 and 12 are seen as possible dates.