The question has consumed the country since Orhan Pamuk became the first Turk to win the Nobel prize for literature (or indeed any Nobel).
Last year, PJ Harvey became the first act to win the Mercury Prize twice, for her album Let England Shake, after previously winning in 2001.
The three laureates were the first women to win the prize since Wangari Maathai of Kenya, the 2004 Peace laureate, who died last September.
FORBES: Liberia's Johnson Sirleaf Co-Winner of 2011 Nobel Peace Prize
Zaha Hadid, the first woman to win the Pritzker Prize, has been called the Lady Gaga of architecture, a wild woman who makes wild things.
Thayil is the first Indian to win the prize, awarded annually to a work of fiction "inspired by the South Asian region, people, culture and diaspora".
They were the first women to win the prize since Wangari Maathai of Kenya, who died last month, was named as the laureate in 2004.
Sinclair Lewis, in 1930, became the first American novelist to win the Nobel Prize for Literature.
Abdus Salam, the first Muslim scientist to win the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1979, reflected upon this parting of ways.
The leader of this "Scotia Nostra" was Douglas Gordon - who was the first of them to win the Turner Prize, in 1996.
It was there, in 1975, that he became the first film critic to win the Pulitzer Prize for Criticism, an award given to newspaper writers.
Mantel's win also makes her the first person in Man Booker history to win the prize for a direct sequel.
BBC: Man Booker Prize won by Hilary Mantel's Bring up the Bodies
The spot was was the first car ad to ever win the top prize, the Grand Prix, at Cannes.
By June, Philips Lighting North America will debut its L Prize Bulb, an LED bulb that was the first to win the Department of Energy's "L Prize, " an award for energy efficiency.
WSJ: The Digital Solution: The Brightest, Most Efficient Bulbs
Author Tan Twan Eng has become the first Malaysian author to win the Man Asian Literary Prize.
Now that this task has been accomplished and he has all but won his seventh league title in nine full seasons, he's 90 minutes away from the Champions League final, where he can become the first manager ever to win the game's biggest prize with three different clubs.
Mantel is the first woman and the first living British author to win the prestigious literary prize twice.
BBC: Man Booker Prize won by Hilary Mantel's Bring up the Bodies
Mantel, whose novel is part of a trilogy about Henry VIII's adviser Thomas Cromwell, already holds the record for being the first woman and the first living British author to win the Man Booker Prize twice.
Singer-songwriter Tom Odell has become the first male artist to win the Brit Awards' critics' choice prize.
He was a lecturer at the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine when he became the first Briton to win a Nobel Prize.
China celebrated another achievement last week, as Mo Yan became the first Chinese citizen to win a Nobel Prize for literature.
If Dr Lipton is correct, the race has now begun to see whether the first artificial scientist to win a Nobel prize is based on silicon or biological material.
ECONOMIST: Computing and biology: Arresting developments | The
British author Hilary Mantel could be the first person to win all three UK major book prizes after being nominated for the Woman's Prize For Fiction.
Red Road, the first feature from Britain's Andrea Arnold, will show at the festival following its Jury Prize win at Cannes.
BBC: NEWS | Entertainment | Loach winner among Toronto films
American Idol sets off with its contestants on a Quest to survive elimination and win first the Golden Ticket to Hollywood and then, of course, the top prize, becoming the Idol.
FORBES: What's Wrong With 'American Idol' Is What's Right with 'The Hunger Games'
应用推荐