British novelist Kazuo Ishiguro wins Nobel Literature Prize

Kazuo Ishiguro, the Japanese-born British novelist who in “The Remains of the Day,” ″Never Let Me Go” and other novels captured memory’s lasting pain and dangerous illusions in precise and elegant prose, won the Nobel Literature Prize.

The selection of the 62-year-old Ishiguro marked a return to citing fiction writers following two years of unconventional choices by the Swedish Academy for the 9-million-kronor ($1.1 million) prize. Friday’s selection also continues a recent trend of recognizing British authors born elsewhere — V.S. Naipaul, the 2001 winner, is from Trinidad and Tobago; the 2007 honoree, Doris Lessing, was a native of Iran who grew up in Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe).

Political prisoner, Nobel laureate Liu Xiaobo dies at age 61

Imprisoned for all the seven years since he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, Liu Xiaobo never renounced the pursuit of human rights in China, insisting on living a life of “honesty, responsibility and dignity.” China’s most prominent political prisoner died Thursday of liver cancer at 61.

His death — at a hospital in the country’s northeast, where he’d been transferred after being diagnosed — triggered an outpouring of dismay among his friends and supporters, who lauded his courage and determination.

Weird science: 3 win Nobel for unusual states of matter

How is a doughnut like a coffee cup? The answer helped three British-born scientists win the Nobel prize in physics Tuesday.

Their work could help lead to more powerful computers and improved materials for electronics.

David Thouless, Duncan Haldane and Michael Kosterlitz, who are now affiliated with universities in the United States, were honored for work in the 1970s and '80s that shed light on strange states of matter.

Princeton economist wins Nobel for work on poverty

Angus Deaton has dug into obscure data to explore a range of problems: The scope of poverty in India. How poor countries treat young girls. The link between income inequality and economic growth.

The Princeton University economist's research has raised doubts about sweeping solutions to poverty and about the effectiveness of aid programs. And on Monday, it earned him the Nobel prize in economics.

New Nobel literature prize winner transcends easy categories

With a reporter's eye and an artist's heart, Svetlana Alexievich writes of the catastrophes, upheaval and personal woes that have afflicted the Soviet Union and the troubled countries that succeeded it. Her writings, characterized by plain language and detail so visceral it's sometimes painful to read, won her this year's Nobel literature prize.

She is an unusual choice. The Swedish Academy, which picks the prestigious literature laureates, has only twice before bestowed the award on non-fiction — to Winston Churchill and Bertrand Russell — and had never honored journalistic work with a Nobel.

Trio wins Nobel Prize for mapping how cells fix DNA damage

Tomas Lindahl was eating his breakfast in England on Wednesday when the call came — ostensibly, from the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. It occurred to him that this might be a hoax, but then the caller started speaking Swedish.

It was no joke: Lindahl and two others had won the Nobel Prize in chemistry for pioneering studies into the way our bodies repair damage to DNA.

Nobel Prize for missing piece in neutrino mass puzzle

Takaaki Kajita of Japan and Arthur McDonald of Canada won the Nobel Prize in physics on Tuesday for discovering that tiny particles called neutrinos change identities as they whiz through the universe, proving that they have mass.

By uncovering the "chameleon-like" nature of neutrinos, the laureates had solved a long-standing puzzle in particle physics that could alter our grasp of the cosmos, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences said.

3 share Nobel medicine prize for new tools to kill parasites

Three scientists from the U.S., Japan and China won the Nobel Prize in medicine on Monday for discovering drugs to fight malaria and other tropical diseases that affect hundreds of millions of people every year.

The Nobel judges in Stockholm awarded the prestigious prize to William Campbell, who was born in Ireland and became a U.S. citizen in 1962, Satoshi Omura of Japan and Tu Youyou — the first-ever Chinese medicine laureate.

5 things to know about the Nobel Prizes

The beginning of October means Nobel Prize time, when committees in Stockholm and Oslo announce the winners of what many consider the most prestigious awards in the world.

This year's Nobel season kicks off Monday with the medicine award being announced for the 106th time.

Daily announcements will follow during the week with physics Tuesday, chemistry Wednesday and probably, though the date has not been confirmed, literature on Thursday. The 2015 Nobel Peace Prize will be announced on Friday and, finally, the economics award on Oct. 12.

German Nobel laureate Guenter Grass dies at age 87

Guenter Grass, the Nobel-winning German writer who gave voice to the generation that came of age during the horrors of the Nazi era but later ran into controversy over his own World War II past and stance toward Israel, has died. He was 87.

Matthias Wegner, spokesman for the Steidl publishing house, confirmed that Grass died Monday morning in a Luebeck hospital.

Nadine Gordimer, Nobel laureate, activist, dies

Nadine Gordimer was first a writer of fiction and a defender of creativity and expression. But as a white South African who hated apartheid's dehumanization of blacks, she was also a determined political activist in the struggle to end white minority rule in her country.