The Nobel Prizes for 2011 will open on Monday with the announcement in Stockholm of the Medicine Prize, to be followed over the course of a week by the awards for Physics, Chemistry, Literature, Economics and Peace.

The Medicine Prize is scheduled to be announced at 0930 GMT at the earliest.

The science awards often bring sudden fame to scientists who have worked hard for decades with little recognition outside their field of research.

Perhaps the most prestigious award, the Nobel Peace Prize, will be revealed Friday in Oslo. Last year the prize went to jailed Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo, which enraged Beijing. Speculation about this year’s peace prize is revolving around the Arab revolutions, as the Peace Prize jury has been making more topical choices, honoring works in progress, in recent years.

The economics prize is strictly speaking not a Nobel Prize, because it was not mentioned in the 1895 will of award creator Alfred Nobel, a wealthy Swedish industrialist who invented dyna­mite. The economics prize was created in 1968 by Sweden’s central bank in Nobel’s memory.

For the literature award, among writers considered to be in contention are the Canadian Margaret Atwood, the American Philip Roth and the Indian-born Salman Rushdie.

Nobel laureates receive 10 million Swedish kronor ($1.48 million,1.08 million euros) which can be split between up to three winners per prize.

The prizes will be handed out at formal ceremonies in Oslo and Stockholm on Dec. 10, the anniversary of prize founder Nobel's death in 1896.

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