The 2018 Nobel Prize in Literature has been awarded to Polish author Olga Tokarczuk 'for a narrative imagination that with encyclopedic passion represents the crossing of boundaries as a form of life,' while the 2019 prize went to Austrian author Peter Handke.

Mats Malm, the Swedish Academy's permanent secretary, said Handke was honoured 'for an influential work that with linguistic ingenuity has explored the periphery and the specificity of human experience.'

The 2018 Nobel Prize in Literature was suspended after a scandal rocked the Swedish Academy. The body had planned to award it this year, along with announcing the 2019 laureate.

The shortlist for the prize was made of eight names of which two were picked for the 2018 and 2019 awards, said Anders Olsson, chair of the Nobel Committee of the Swedish Academy.

With the glory comes a 9-million kronor ($918,000) cash award to be shared with a gold medal and a diploma. The laureates receive them at an elegant ceremony in Stockholm on December 10 – the anniversary of Nobel's death in 1896 – together with five other Nobel winners.

The sixth one, the peace prize, is handed out in Oslo, Norway on the same day.

Earlier, the Chemistry prize went on Wednesday to three scientists for their work leading to the development of lithium-ion batteries. That was a day after the Physics award was given to a Canadian-American and two Swiss, and on Monday the Physiology or Medicine award went to two Americans and one British scientist.

The coveted Nobel Peace Prize will be announced on Friday and the Economics award on Monday.