The Nobel Prizes are arguably the world’s most prestigious recognition anyone can receive for their work in the sciences, medicine, literature, or for world peace. For most winners, getting the call to tell them they won marks the high point of their lives. Note that I said most.
Not all are so joyful. Some just don’t seem that bothered. Others seem downright irritated.
In fact, one of this year’s winners of the Nobel Prize in Medicine, Fred Ramsdell, conveniently decided to go “off the grid” and spend his time “living his best life” somewhere in the mountains of Idaho—right in time for the prizes to be announced. (He eventually found out 12 hours after he won—and on hearing the news, his first reaction was to dismiss the idea outright. At least he didn’t feel actively enraged, unlike some other Nobel laureates…)
So, as we continue to learn about this year’s Nobel laureates, we’re looking back at some of the most unorthodox reactions from Nobel laureates, from the brutally indifferent to the surprisingly relatable.
1. Is this a scam?
Many a Nobel winner has assumed that a call from an unknown Swedish number is a phishing scam (honestly, who wouldn’t think this?). That’s what happened to Mary Brunkow, who shared the Nobel Prize in Medicine with Ramsdell. She thought that the Nobel call was “just spam of some sort, so I disabled the phone and went back to sleep,” she said in an interview with the Nobel Committee.
Brunkow is far from alone. Paul Romer, winner of the 2018 Nobel Prize in Economics “for integrating technological innovations into long-run macroeconomic analysis,” also let the Nobel call go to voicemail several times before thinking that maybe this persistent caller must be contacting him for something important.
Others were less easily persuaded. Abdulrazak Gurnah won the 2021 Nobel Prize in Literature “for his uncompromising and compassionate penetration of the effects of colonialism and the fate of the refugee in the gulf between cultures and continents,” but it took some convincing for Gurnah to believe it wasn’t a scam.
“I was making a cup of tea and I thought it was a scam call.” Novelist Abdulrazak Gurnah tells the BBC how he found out he was awarded the 2021 Nobel Prize for Literature. In his novels, @GurnahAuthor explores the themes of colonisation, migration and the immigrant experience. pic.twitter.com/4ZwWeFwXPk — BBC News Africa (@BBCAfrica) October 8, 2021
“This guy said, ‘Hello, you have won the Nobel Prize for Literature,’ and I said, ‘Come on, get out of here. Leave me alone,’” Gurnah told the BBC at the time. “He talked me out of that and gradually persuaded me.”
... continue reading