The Buzz | Tokarczuk is first woman to be honored this year

Polish novelist Olga Tokarczuk is the first woman this year to be awarded a Nobel Prize — although strictly speaking her prize is for 2018. The nine winners of this year’s science prizes were all men.
Tokarczuk is only the 15th woman to win the Nobel literature prize in more than a century and the first since Belarusian journalist Svetlana Alexievich in 2015.
Last year, three women received prizes — Donna Strickland in physics; Frances H. Arnold in chemistry; and Nadia Muras won the Nobel Peace Prize. With Tokarczuk, that number has been raised to four for 2018.
53 women have been honored in all categories since 1901. The first woman to get the literature prize was Swedish author Selma Lagerlof in 1909.