List of Famous people who died at 91

Benjamin Libet was a pioneering scientist in the field of human consciousness. Libet was a researcher in the physiology department of the University of California, San Francisco. In 2003, he was the first recipient of the Virtual Nobel Prize in Psychology from the University of Klagenfurt, "for his pioneering achievements in the experimental investigation of consciousness, initiation of action, and free will".

Yuri Ivanovich Drozdov was a high level Soviet and Russian security official. He was a recipient of the Order of Lenin (1981). He oversaw the KGB's Illegals Program from 1979 to 1991. Drozdov led Special Operation Storm-333, which started the Soviet–Afghan War.

Harry Gustaf Nikolai Gädda, known professionally as Nicolai Gedda, was a Swedish operatic tenor. Debuting in 1951, Gedda had a long and successful career in opera until the age of 77 in June 2003, when he made his final operatic recording. Skilled at languages, he performed operas in French, Russian, German, Italian, English, Czech and Swedish, as well as one in Latin. In January 1958, he created the part of Anatol in the world premiere of the American opera Vanessa at the Metropolitan Opera. Having made some two hundred recordings, Gedda is one of the most widely recorded opera singers in history. His singing is best known for its beauty of tone, vocal control, and musical perception.

Oliver Smithies was a British-American geneticist and physical biochemist. He is known for introducing starch as a medium for gel electrophoresis in 1955, and for the discovery, simultaneously with Mario Capecchi and Martin Evans, of the technique of homologous recombination of transgenic DNA with genomic DNA, a much more reliable method of altering animal genomes than previously used, and the technique behind gene targeting and knockout mice. He received the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 2007 for his genetics work.

Xia Peisu or Pei-su Hsia was a Chinese computer scientist and educator known for her pioneering research in computer science and technology. The leading developer of Model 107, China's first indigenously designed general-purpose electronic computer, she has been called the "Mother of Computer Science in China". She and her husband Yang Liming were both elected academicians of the Chinese Academy of Sciences in 1991. In 2010, she was honoured with the inaugural Lifetime Achievement Award from the China Computer Federation.

Marcel Azzola was a French accordionist.

Shirley Ann Grau was an American writer. She was born in New Orleans, and her work is set primarily in the Deep South and explores issues of race and gender.

Tankred Dorst was a German playwright and storyteller.

Yang Rudai was a politician of the People's Republic of China (PRC). He served as the Communist Party Chief of Sichuan, then China's most populous province, and was the first native Sichuanese to become the top leader of the province since the founding of the PRC. He was a member of the 13th Politburo of the Communist Party of China, the top governing body of China. Yang was considered a protégé of the purged reformist leader Zhao Ziyang.

Hadassa Ben-Itto was an Israeli author and jurist. She was best known for her bestselling book The Lie That Wouldn't Die: The Protocols of the Elders of Zion.