Nobel Prize Winners from Africa

Mohamed Mustafa ElBaradei (Egypt)On October 7, 2005, ElBaradei and the IAEA were announced as joint recipients of the Nobel Peace Prize for their "efforts to prevent nuclear energy from being used for military purposes and to ensure that nuclear energy, for peaceful purposes, is used in the safest possible way." ElBaradei donated all of his winnings to building orphanages in Cairo. The IAEA's winnings are being spent to train scientists from developing countries to use nuclear techniques in combating cancer and malnutrition. ElBaradei is the fourth Egyptian to receive the Nobel Prize.

Wangari Maathai (Kenyan) is internationally recognized for her persistent struggle for democracy, human rights and environmental conservation. She and the Green Belt Movement have received numerous awards, most notably The 2004 Nobel Peace Prize. Others include The Sophie Prize (2004), The Petra Kelly Prize for Environment (2004), The Conservation Scientist Award (2004), J. Sterling Morton Award (2004), WANGO Environment Award (2003), Outstanding Vision and Commitment Award (2002), Excellence Award from the Kenyan Community Abroad (2001), Golden Ark Award (1994), Juliet Hollister Award (2001), Jane Adams Leadership Award (1993), Edinburgh Medal (1993), The Hunger Project's Africa Prize for Leadership (1991), Goldman Environmental Prize (1991), the Woman of the World (1989), Windstar Award for the Environment (1988), Better World Society Award (1986), Right Livelihood Award (1984) and the Woman of the Year Award (1983). Professor Maathai was also listed on UNEP's Global 500 Hall of Fame and named one of the 100 heroines of the world. In June 1997, Wangari was elected by Earth Times.

Kofi Atta Annan  is a Ghanaian diplomat who served as the seventh Secretary-General of the United Nations, from 1 January 1997 to 31 December 2006. Annan and the United Nations were the co-recipients of the 2001 Nobel Peace Prize for his founding of the Global AIDS and Health Fund to support developing countries in their struggle to care for their people.

Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela (South African)  is a South African politician who served as President of South Africa from 1994 to 1999, the first ever to be elected in a fully representative democratic election. Before being elected President. Mandela has received more than 250 awards over four decades. Mandela's leadership through the negotiations, as well as his relationship with President F. W. de Klerk, was recognised when they were jointly awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1993.

Ahmed Hassan Zewail (Egypt) is an Egyptian-American scientist who won the 1999 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his work on femtochemistry. He is the Linus Pauling Chair Professor Chemistry and Professor of Physics at the California Institute of Technology.

Frederik Willem de Klerk (South African) , often known as F. W. de Klerk, was the seventh and last State President of apartheid-era South Africa,  Nobel Peace Prize in 1993 along with Nelson Mandela for his role in the ending of apartheid.

Anwar El Sadat (Egypt) was the third President of Egypt, serving from 15 October 1970 until his assassination by fundamentalist army officers on 6 October 1981. In his eleven years as president he changed Egypt's direction, departing from some of the economic and political principles of Nasserism by re-instituting the multi-party system, and launching the Infitah economic policy. He was given a Nobel Peace Prize for embrassing peaceful negotiations with Israel, culminating in the Egypt–Israel Peace Treaty. This won him the Nobel Peace Prize.

Desmond Mpilo Tutu  (South African)  is a South African activist and retired Anglican bishop who rose to worldwide fame during the 1980s as an opponent of apartheid. He was the first black South African Archbishop of Cape Town, South Africa, and primate of the Church of the Province of Southern Africa (now the Anglican Church of Southern Africa). Tutu has been active in the defense of human rights and uses his high profile to campaign for the oppressed. He has campaigned to fight AIDS, tuberculosis, poverty, racism, sexism, homophobia, and transphobia. Tutu received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1984.

Albert John Lutuli (South African)  was a South African teacher and politician. Lutuli was elected president of the African National Congress (ANC), at the time an umbrella organisation that led opposition to the white minority government in South Africa. He was awarded the 1960 Nobel Peace Prize for his role in the non-violent struggle against apartheid. He was the first African, and the first person from outside Europe and the Americas, to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

Ahmed Hassan Zewail  is an Egyptian-American scientist who won the 1999 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his work on femtochemistry. He is the Linus Pauling Chair Professor Chemistry and Professor of Physics at the California Institute of Technology.

Akinwande Oluwole "Wole" Soyinka (Nigerian)is a Nigerian writer, notable especially as a playwright and poet; he was awarded the 1986 Nobel Prize in Literature, the first African in Africa and the diaspora to be so honoured. He was described as one "who in a wide cultural perspective and with poetic overtones fashions the drama of existence". His Nobel acceptance speech "This Past Must Address Its Present," was devoted to South African freedom-fighter Nelson Mandela. 

Naguib Mahfouz (Egypt) was an Egyptian writer who won the 1988 Nobel Prize for Literature. He is regarded as one of the first contemporary writers of Arabic literature, along with Tawfiq el-Hakim, to explore themes of existentialism. He published over 50 novels, over 350 short stories, dozens of movie scripts, and five plays over a 70-year career. Many of his works have been made into Egyptian and foreign films.

Nadine Gordimer (South African) is a South African writer, political activist and recipient of the 1991 Nobel Prize in Literature, when she was recognised as a woman "who through her magnificent epic writing has – in the words of Alfred Nobel – been of very great benefit to humanity

John Maxwell "J. M." Coetzee(South African) is a novelist, essayist, linguist, translator and recipient of the 2003 Nobel Prize in Literature. On 2 October 2003 it was announced that he was to receive the Nobel Prize in Literature, making him the fifth African writer to be so honoured, and the second South African after Nadine Gordimer.^] When awarding the prize, the Swedish Academy stated that Coetzee "in innumerable guises portrays the surprising involvement of the outsider

Claude Cohen-Tannoudji (Algeria) is of Algerian decent, a French physicist and Nobel Laureate. He shared the 1997 Nobel Prize in Physicswith Steven Chu and William Daniel Phillips for research in methods of laser cooling and trapping atoms. He is still an active researcher, working at the École Normale Supérieure in Paris.

Albert Camus is a also of Algerian was a French author, journalist, and philosopher. His views contributed to the rise of the philosophy known as absurdism. Camus was awarded the 1957 Nobel Prize for Literature "for his important literary production, which with clear-sighted earnestness illuminates the problems of the human conscience in our times" He was the second-youngest recipient of the Nobel Prize in Literature, after Rudyard Kipling, and the first African-born writer to receive the award.

Sydney Brenner (South African),  is a South African biologist and a 2002 Nobel prize in Physiology or Medicine laureate, shared with H. Robert Horvitz and John Sulston.  Brenner made significant contributions to work on the genetic code, and other areas of molecular biology.He established the roundworm Caenorhabditis elegans as a model organism for the investigation of developmental biology,and founded the Molecular Sciences Institute in Berkeley, California, U.S

Allan MacLeod Cormack (South African) was a South African-born American physicist who won the 1979 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (along with Godfrey Hounsfield) for his work on X-ray computed tomography (CT).

Max Theiler (South African) was a South African/American virologist. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1951 for developing a vaccine against yellow fever.