You've probably heard of Maria Skodowska-Curie, the Polish Nobel Prize laureate in Physics and Chemistry, or Lech Wasa, the Nobel Peace Prize laureate. Did you know, though, that Poland has received multiple Nobel Prizes in Literature? Only this week, Olga Tokarczuk received the award; see if you can name all of Poland's laureates!

Henryk Sienkiewicz was the first Polish novelist to be awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature. In 1905, the Swedish Academy recognized Sienkiewicz for his "great achievements as an epic writer." He is still considered the most famous Polish historical novelist, with works such as "Quo Vadis," "Krzyacy" (The Knights of the Cross), "Trylogia" (The Trilogy), and "W pustyni I w puszczy" (In Desert and Wilderness) holding major places in the Polish literary canon.

Władysław Reymont is best known for his award-winning novel "Chopi" (The Peasants), a four-volume opus that depicts Polish village life in the early twentieth century. Each section of the chronicle corresponds to a different season of the year, highlighting the human relationship with nature as well as the rhythms of rural life. The story was nearly entirely written in a language that imitated numerous regional dialects often used in Polish villages at the time. Reymont was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1924.

Czesław Miłosz was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1980. According to the Swedish Academy, he was a writer who "spoke man's exposed state in a world of terrible conflicts with uncompromising clear-sightedness." Czesław Miłosz is best known for his poetry, which addressed a wide range of issues, from politics and history to ethics and faith. His most well-known works include “Traktat Poetycki,” a treatise on Polish literature and history from 1900 to 1949, and “Zniewolony Umysł,” a philosophical reflection on life under totalitarian control. Czesław Miłosz's writings have been translated into 44 languages, and the author himself has translated countless works of poetry into Polish.

Wisława Szymborska -  a well-known Polish poet, was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1996 "for poetry that, with sardonic clarity, permits the historical and biological framework to emerge in pieces of human existence." Szymborska, famed for her humility, subsequently humorously referred to that period in her life as "the Stockholm tragedy," which reportedly caused "too much bustle" around her. The author's funny, amusing, and seemingly simple poetry is purposely devoid of pomposity, although touching on a wide range of existential topics appropriately and seriously. The Three Oddest Words, Possibilities, Cat in an Empty Apartment, and Nothing Twice are among her most popular poems.

Olga Tokarczuk, the 2018 Nobel Prize recipient, was recognized for "a narrative imagination that with encyclopedic intensity shows the crossing of boundaries as a kind of life." Her most famous works, “Bieguni” (Flights), "Prawiek i inne czasy" (Primeval and Other Times), “Prowadź swój pług przez kości umarłych” (Drive Your Plough Over the Bones of the Dead) and “Księgi Jakubowe” (The Books of Jacob) , have all earned critical praise in Poland. Last year, Tokarczuk received the 2018 Man Booker International Prize for Flights and was named to the American National Book Award shortlist. Tokarczuk, according to the Swedish Academy, "Never consider reality to be stable or eternal. Her novels are built on a clash of cultural opposites: nature versus culture, rationality versus crazy, male versus feminine, home versus estrangement "..

Another well-known author, Isaac Bashevis Singer, is sometimes included in the Polish Nobel Prize laureates list. Singer, who was born in the Polish hamlet of Leoncin near Warsaw in 1902, was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1978 "for his ardent narrative art that, with roots in a Polish-Jewish cultural history, brings universal human conditions to life." Because of the rising anti-Semitism in Europe, the Jewish writer immigrated to the United States in 1935 and died in Florida in 1991. Singer's works were nearly entirely written in Yiddish.