The Nobel Prizes are inspired by the Princess of Asturias Awards

The good Asturian tact was an early riser: the Peruvian writer Mario Vargas Llosa he won –together with the philologist Rafael Lapesa– in the Literature category in 1986, four years before receiving the Nobel Prize. The extraordinary gifts of literary fabulation, the richness and variety of his work, animated by a spirit of creative freedom, and his mastery of the language were highlighted.

The following year, a new literary “advancement”: 1987 brought the writer Camilo José Cela to be exalted at the Campoamor theater two years before in Stockholm. Reasons: “For being the most outstanding figure of literary renewal in Spain, and for her rich and intense prose, which with restrained passion configures a provocative vision of the helplessness of human beings.”

The recently deceased Mikhail Gorbachev ended the 1980s receiving recognition in Oviedo for his decisive role in the fall of the USSR. He shared with the former president of the European Commission Jacques Delors the Prince of Asturias for International Cooperation in 1989. The following year, the Nobel Prize did the same in the category of Peace. The reasons of the jury in Asturias? “For his efforts, over the past few years, to promote international cooperation and eliminate the barriers that hinder understanding between nations.”

Doctors Without Borders and Medicus Mundi won the Concord prize in 1991, being the first organization recognized by the Nobel Peace Prize in 1999. The jury highlighted “the effective contribution of both organizations to alleviate the situations of illness in the countries most affected by injustice, misery or catastrophes”.

Nelson Mandela and Frederick W. de Klerk they were chosen in International Cooperation in 1992. The Nobel Peace Prize winner hurried up and did the same in 1993. “The action of both represents an eminent contribution to the peace and development of Southern Africa and to the understanding and cooperation between races and cultures of the international community”, explained the jury.

Same play the following year, this time together: Isaac Rabin and Yasser Arafat, Concordia in Asturias, Peace in Oslo.

Concordia 1998: to the promoter of microcredits against poverty, muhammad yunus –with Nicolás Castellanos, Vicente Ferrer, Joaquín Sanz Gadea–. Yunus won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2006. “Taking into account his selfless and tenacious work and his exemplary contribution in geographical areas and in different activities, to the progress and improvement of the living conditions of the peoples, thus helping the better understanding between men,” said the jury report.

The similarities in the letters return in 1999: the German writer Gunter Grass in the two winners. In Asturias, “his writing of him, of great aesthetic quality, was taken into account, constituting a passionate service to the values ​​of freedom, defense of the weak and determined support for the elements that underpin modern democratic systems.”

Luc Montagnier and Robert Gallo were awarded in 2000 in Scientific and Technical Research “for the originality, quality, and extension of their scientific work, as well as the practical significance for the diagnosis, prevention, and treatment of Human Immunodeficiency Virus infection and AIDS”. In 2008, Montagnier was awarded the Nobel Prize for Medicine, together with Françoise Barré-Sinoussi, for the discovery of the human immunodeficiency virus.

Scientific and Technical Research for John Sulston together with Francis Collins, Hamilton Smith and Jean Weissenbach. We are in 2001. The following year, Sulston won the Nobel Prize in Physiology and Medicine. “The discovery of the human genome sequence constitutes a scientific event of transcendental relevance for Humanity, the result of the efforts of a large number of scientists”, it was highlighted.

The writer Doris Lessing he triumphed in letters in 2001 and in 2007 he won the Nobel Prize for Literature. A “creator of an imaginative everyday world, her characters, children of contemporary society, offer a faithful moral reflection of the twentieth century.”

Former US Vice President Al Gore had a busy schedule in 2007 with both awards. International Cooperation in Asturias, of Peace in Oslo. “A public figure who, with his leadership, has contributed to raising awareness in societies and governments around the world in defense of this noble and transcendental cause.”

Paul Krugman: Social Sciences in 2004 and Nobel Prize for Economics in 2008. Despite his youth, the jury pointed out, he is “one of the leading economists both for his significant contributions to economic knowledge in the field of international trade and for his ability to make his economic theories accessible to a wide audience, combining the rigor of his approaches with brilliant exposition and dissemination”.

Singer-songwriter Bob Dylan won in 2007 the Prince of Arts. In 2016 he repeated the move and elusive posture with the Nobel Prize for Literature. Poetic act: “Dylan combines song and poetry in a work that creates a school and determines the sentimental education of many millions of people. For this reason, it is a faithful reflection of the spirit of an age that seeks answers in the wind for the wishes that They live in the hearts of human beings.

In 2008, Scientific and Technical Research for Shuji Nakamura, Sumio Iijima, Robert Langer, George M. Whitesides, and Tobin Marks for discovering “carbon nanotubes, light-emitting diodes, biomaterials that enable intelligent drug delivery, production of tissues and organs for transplantation. Nakamura won the Nobel Prize for Physics in 2014.

Year 2010, Scientific and Technical Research: David Julius, Baruch Minke and Linda Watkins for having discovered, “from complementary approaches, the causes and mechanisms by which pain is produced and perceived, as well as other sensations such as cold, heat or taste. In 2021, Julius and Ardem Patapoutian get the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.”

Gregory Winter and Richard Lerner “are at the forefront of research on the immune system. Advances in the use of antibodies as therapeutic tools have provided new methods to prevent and treat immune disorders, degenerative diseases and different types of tumors.” Awarded in 2012 in the category of Scientific and Technical Research, Winter was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 2018, alongside Frances Arnold and George P. Smith.

Scientific and Technical Research 2013: Peter Higgs and François Englert plus the Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) were awarded for “the Higgs boson discovery“, an emblematic example “of how Europe has led a collective effort to solve one of the deepest enigmas of Physics.” Higgs and Englert took the Nobel Prize in Physics that same year.

Social Sciences with a double in 2015, already as Princess of Asturias: Esther Duflo, specialized in development economics with “more than a decade leading from MIT a new way of studying the causes of poverty and proposing solutions for its eradication from the of microeconomics”.

That same year, Scientific and Technical Research went to Emmanuelle Charpentier and Jennifer Doudna, “a biotechnological revolution, having developed a genome editing technology that allows rewriting the genome and correcting defective genes with an unprecedented level of precision and very cheaply”. In 2020, both won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry.

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