The 2019 Nobel Prize in Literature has been announced along with the 2018 Prize. The Swedish Academy said, Austrian author Peter Handke has won the 2019 Prize while Polish writer Olga Tokarczuk has received the 2018 Prize.

Handke was honoured for an influential work that with linguistic ingenuity has explored the periphery and the specificity of human experience. His notable works include “Short Letter, Long Farewell” and “A Sorrow Beyond Dreams”.

Tokarczuk was awarded for a narrative imagination that with encyclopedic passion represents the crossing of boundaries as a form of life. Her first novel, “The Journey of the People of the Book,” was released in 1993.

She has also won the Booker International Prize for her 2007 novel “Flights”. Her 900-page “The Books of Jacob” was hailed as her magnum opus by the Swedish Academy. Tokarczuk becomes just the 15th woman to have won the prestigious distinction, out of 116 literature laureates honoured since 1901.

Tokarczuk and Handke each take home a cheque worth nine million kronor , or 912,000 US dollars.

The 2019 Nobel Prize in Literature was announced along with the 2018 Prize as the latter was delayed by a year following a scandal that included allegations of sexual misconduct.