"We've really won the Nobel". Olga Tokarczuk spoke at Nobel Banquet in Stockholm

Your Royal Highnesses, Your Excellencies, my fellow Laureates, Ladies and Gentlemen.

Allow me to offer my most heartfelt thanks to the Swedish Academy and the Nobel Foundation for this incredible honor.

Before making the trip to Stockholm, I did my best to find out what this special week and the Nobel prize ceremony would be like. And I came upon the movie, The Wife. My favorite scene in the movie is when the writer and his wife have just received the call from the Nobel Academy, and they jump up and down on their bed like children, shouting: “We’ve won the Nobel!” But further down the line, the mood of the story grows darker, as it gradually transpires that the secret behind the writer’s success is his wife-and that she is the real author of his novel.

No, no, please don’t worry – I can solemnly declare that I wrote all my own books myself.

But the movie demonstrates a particular phenomenon, which is that prizes treat their laureates as individuals, by ascribing one-hundred-percent of the merit to them. When in fact there are always lots of other people behind their success – those who support, help and inspire.

So my thanks go to all those who have taken care of me while I was writing, who have done the research, edited the texts, and who supported me when the going got tough. The people who had different opinions from mine, and never hesitated to say so. And to those who rubbed soothing ointment into the back of my stiff neck.

I also owe a great deal to my translators. They will continue to be the most attentive readers of everything I write, they’ll catch every little inconsistency, and they’ll kick up a fuss about every mistake I make.

I am also honored to be receiving this award alongside the world’s most outstanding representatives of science. We think there’s a vast, gaping hole separating scientists and artists, but it’s simply not true. I find exploring disciplines other than my own to be an extremely inspiring source of the best ideas.

And finally:

Today it is exactly one hundred-ten years since the first woman won the Nobel Prize in Literature – Selma Lagerlöf. I bow low to her across time, and to all the other women, all the female creators who boldly exceeded the limiting roles society imposed on them, and had the courage to tell their story to the world loud and clear. I can feel them standing behind me.

We really have won the Nobel!

As tradition mandates, the winners in literature, medicine, chemistry, physics and economic sciences were led into the Blue Room by members of the Swedish royal family, preceded by three students.

The banquet is the highlight of the social calendar and sees royals, scientists and the Swedish political and business elite meet and mingle with diplomats and political leaders from around the globe.

There was some late rearranging of the table placings as Ulla Lofven, wife of Swedish prime minister Stefan, fell ill with a cold and could not attend.

Details of the menu, based on top-quality ingredients and Swedish flavours, are only revealed minutes before the food is served, but guests at the event - touted as one of the world's biggest set dinners - will eat from some 7,000 pieces of porcelain using 10,000 items of silverware and drink from 5,400 glasses.

The theme of this year's floral decorations was "the interaction between humans and nature, the natural cycle and our seasons" and featured dream catchers and around 25,000 stems, flowers and pieces of foliage.

The dinner is followed by a dance in the Golden Hall.

While the Nobel Peace Prize is awarded in Oslo, the other Nobel prizes are handed out in Stockholm on the same day - December 10, the date Alfred Nobel died.

Autor: gf / Źródło: TVN24 News in English, Nobelprize.org