This year's Nobel Prize laureates have gathered in Stockholm to reap the rewards of their often lifelong work and research.

The laureates, facing a week full of festivities, lectures and media presentations, have made, as Alfred Nobel declared more than 100 years ago, some of the greatest discoveries and contributions to help mankind.

The annual Nobel week, which began on Monday, will culminate on Friday when the laureates in medicine, chemistry, physics and economics receive their prizes from King Carl XVI Gustaf in Stockholm's concert hall.

The ceremony is followed by the Nobel banquet in City Hall, one of the most famous dinners in the world, where the laureates will dine, dance and mingle with royalty, Cabinet ministers, ambassadors and other dignitaries and guests.

This year's literature winner, the controversial Austrian author and playwright Elfriede Jelinek, will not attend any of the events, citing her poor health and social phobia.

However, Jelinek will give the traditional Nobel lecture in literature via videotape. Jelinek recorded her lecture last month, and it will be presented to a live audience on Tuesday.

But that's not stopping the other winners, all of whom will give lectures on their fields to a gathering of students, Nobel officials and journalists.

Jelinek will become the first literature laureate since British-born Australian Patrick White in 1973 to be absent from the prize ceremony and the banquet.

This year's Nobel Prize announcements began on October 4, with the Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine going to Americans Richard Axel and Linda B. Buck for their work on the sense of smell.

Americans David J. Gross, H. David Politzer and Frank Wilczek won the physics prize for their explanation of the force that binds particles inside the atomic nucleus.

The chemistry prize was awarded to Israelis Aaron Ciechanover and Avram Hershko and American Irwin Rose for their work in discovering a process that lets cells destroy unwanted proteins.

Norwegian Finn E. Kydland and American Edward C. Prescott received the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences for shedding light on how government policies and actions affect economies worldwide.

The peace prize was given to Wangari Maathai, an environmental activist who is also Kenya's deputy environmental minister, for her work in sustaining and preserving the environment, along with improving human rights and democracy.

The prizes include a cash award of 10 million Swedish kronor (US$1.3 million), a gold medal and a diploma.

The 2004 Nobel Prize laureates will receive their prizes on December 10, the anniversary of Nobel's death in 1896, in ceremonies in the Swedish capital, except for the peace prize winner, who always receives it in Oslo, Norway.

(Xinhua News Agency December 8, 2004)