STOCKHOLM: The 2012 Nobel Literature Prize will be announced at 11 a.m. GMT Thursday, organizers said, with Japanese novelist Haruki Murakami the bookmakers’ favorite to win the 8 million crown ($1.2 million) award.

Other hotly tipped names include Bob Dylan, writer Mo Yan and reclusive U.S. novelist Thomas Pynchon.

Swedish poet Tomas Transtromer won last year, pleasing many in the prize’s homeland which had not celebrated a winner since Eyvind Johnson and Harry Martinson took home the prize in 1974.

Past winners have included U.S. writer William Faulkner, France’s Albert Camus and Colombia’s Gabriel Garcia Marquez. The last Japanese writer to win the prize was Kenzaburo Oe in 1984.

The award-giving body The Swedish Academy, which announced the date of the literature prize Monday, is due to announce the winners of its coveted science prizes this week.