Nobel Week 2014

Traditionally, the Nobel Prizes are presented to the Laureates at ceremonies on December 10, the date that marks Alfred Nobel's death. We've all heard about him already, but who exactly was Alfred Nobel? Well, you can look for further bio and biblio here, but, in short, he was a Swedish-born inventor and international industrialist who stipulated in his will that his fortune was to be used for prizes in Physics, Chemistry, Psysiology or Medicine, Literature and Peace.

We've already congratulated Malala Yousafzai and Kailash Satyarthi on their shared Nobel Peace Prize in this blogpost last October; today, that the award ceremonies are taking place in Oslo and Stockholm, let's meet the laureate for 2014 Nobel Prize in Literature: Patrick Modiano, a French writer, hardly known outside France, though translated into English.

If you check http://www.nobelprize.org/ you'll find all you can possibly imagine about the founder, about these prestigious awards, laureates and ceremonies throughout time.

Your fantastic teacher of French, Anita Duarte, has again generously contributed to this blogpost. Please read further, but now in the literature laureate's mother tongue:

Finally, has any Portuguese ever been awarded a Nobel Prize? Yes? How many? Who? In what area(s)? 

I am Malala, a teen just like any of you

Source: www.hindustantimes.com 

Malala Yousafzai and Kailash Satyarthi have just been jointly awarded the prestigious 2014 Nobel Peace Prize. What is there in common between this Pakistani teen and the Indian Engineer? Well, both have been fighting for children's rights and education especially in less privileged areas of the planet; there are, however, differences in what concerns their origins and their age, and at just 17, Malala is the youngest-ever Nobel Peace Prize Laureate. Surprising? Not at all! In spite of her young age, Malala started blogging when she was just 11 years old and her views / blog entries crossed borders for defending the right to education among girls and that was exactly what led to an assassination attempt by the Taliban. Can you imagine yourself boarding a bus to go to school and being shot??? Have you ever thought, girls, what it would be like if you were banned from school???
Not even that stopped her though! After a miraculous story of survival and already in England, her activism reached a whole new level.
Writing, blogging, getting involved in society as a responsible and caring citizen is a way of leaving your mark, no matter how young / old you are and the proof is Malala - a young girl, by now a bit older than you, but who refused to be silenced and stood up for her and her peers' rights.
She will inspire you to make a difference in the world!
She will give you the strength to believe in the power of a young person's voice to inspire change!
If she can, so can you!!!

Having Malala's book cover as background, please listen to some of her inspiring quotes by this phenomenal class, 8.A, by placing the cursor on the pic and then clicking on the links. Some more bits and pieces on this extraordinary young woman are also provided. Thanks!