She was a pioneer in the early field of radiology and a two-time Nobel laureate. She moved to Paris and studied chemistry and physics at the Sorbonne, where she became the first woman to teach. At the Sorbonne she met and married another instructor, Pierre Curie. Together they studied radioactive materials, particularly the uranium ore pitchblende.  Together with Pierre Curie and Henri Becquerel, she was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics, 1903. Eight years later, she received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry, 1911. She was the first woman to be awarded a Nobel Prize and the first person to win or share two Nobel Prizes. She is one of only two people who has been awarded a Nobel Prize in two different fields, the other was Linus Pauling.

He was a Polish novelist, one of the outstanding writers of the second half of the 19th century. Serializing his novels in newspapers, he became immensely popular and beloved in his time and, over a century later, is still highly valued by readers of prose. In Poland he is best known for his colourful historical novels depicting the derring-do of Polish heroes; abroad - for his novel, Quo Vadis, set in the reign of the Roman emperor Nero.

In November 1924 he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature. His rivals were T. Mann, M. Gorki and T. Hardy. In Chlopi, an unquestionable masterpiece, Reymont created a more complete and suggestive picture of country life than any other Polish writer. The novel impresses the reader with its authenticity of the material reality, customs, behaviour and spiritual culture of the people. It is even more authentic in that it is written in the local dialect. Not only did Reymont use dialect in dialogues but also in narration, creating a kind of a universal language of Polish peasants. Thanks to this, he presents the colourful reality of the "spoken" culture of the people better than any other author.

Czeslaw Milosz was a Polish poet and essayist. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1980, when he lived in America. He spent the last days of his life in Cracow in Poland. He was born in Szetejnie, Lithuania and always underlined his connection to Grand Duchy of Lithuania. Milosz studied law at the University in Vilnius. His childhood was spent partly in Russia around the time of Revolution. In addition to his poetry, his book The Captive Mind is considered one of the finest studies of the condition of intellectuals under repressive regimes.