Predicting the Nobel Prizes 2010

It is well into Nobel Week, with the Nobel Prizes in medicine and chemistry already having been announced. Today, the winner of the physics prize will be announced, and tomorrow and on Friday the non-scientific laureates will be declared. These two, the literature and peace categories, are what interest me the most. People are guessing who will win, and I'll join the game, even though there is a 99.9% of being wrong.

And my nominees for the Nobel Prize in Literature are:

1. Amos Oz - he's mentioned every year, and he is one of the most respected authors in the world. I read somewhere that all kinds of bookies have his chances listed as being very low this year, compared with very high chances in 2009. They say this might mean that information leaked that Oz wasn't even on the shortlist. I'm hoping that's wrong.

2. David Grossman - he's both a great author and a bereaved father through whom the Nobel Committee can send an anti-war message.

3. Margaret Atwood - novelist, poet and essayist all in one.

4. Etgar Keret - he's too young to win, but one can still hope that one of my favorite authors will win. Not this year, I guess, but in 2030 perhaps?

5. Art Spiegelman - will the Nobel Committee have the guts to award the prize to one of the first people to prove that comics are a respectable genre?

And my nominees for the Nobel Peace Prize are:

1. One or more of the Afghan women leading the fight for equal rights in the war-torn country.

2. Parents Circle - Bereaved Families - this year no Israeli or Palestinian leader deserves the prize, but maybe the Committee will award a grassroots effort by those hurt the most by the conflict.

3. Bill Clinton - Two US presidents year after year? Slim chance, but I'd like my favorite leader to win for his Clinton Global Initiative and other efforts.

4. The International Committee of the Red Cross - the Nobel Committee can always go with a safe choice and award the ICRC with a fourth Peace Prize, which it last won back in the Mad Men era, 1963.

5. Liu Xiaobo, a Chinese dissident - he seems like the top candidate on the lists of other bloggers and pundits, so I'll mention the possibility, too, just to be on the safe side.