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The 2014 winner of the Nobel Literature Prize is to be announced Thursday, the Swedish Academy said, completing the list of dates for the Nobel week announcements.
The academy's announcement Monday was made after other institutions that award Nobels for medicine, physics, chemistry, peace and economics had already confirmed their dates. Medicine opens the flurry of announcements Monday.
Unlike other prestigious literary awards, the academy does not publish a short list, making second-guessing a challenge.
What is known is that the academy this year has considered 210 proposals, of which 36 were first-time contenders, academy head Peter Englund said earlier this year.
Each Nobel Prize this year is worth 8 million kronor (1.1 million dollars).
Online betting sites have compiled lists with potential winners.
Familiar names garnering low odds this year include Syrian-born poet Adonis (Ali Ahmad Said Asbar), Japan's Haruki Murakami and Ngugi wa Thiong'o of Kenya.
Philip Roth garnered the lowest odds among US authors, according to the British gaming company Ladbrokes. The most recent winner from the United States was Toni Morrison in 1993.
Some literary experts declined outright to comment on who they believe could win, saying betting on the literature prize is not comparable with tipping the result of a football match.
Jens Liljestrand, deputy culture editor of the Stockholm daily Expressen, predicted author Svetlana Alexievich of Belarus would take the prize this year.
"I think they want to award the literary reportage," he said, adding that Alexievich has been mentioned in recent years. "It is a genre that has not been awarded previously."
Swedish publisher Svante Weyler also tipped Alexievich, repeating his prediction from last year. Alice Munro of Canada won in 2013.
