Nobel laureate in literature Olga Tokarczuk, Peter Handke 2019 in Stockholm
Photo: Henrik MONTGOMERY / TT NEWS AGENCY / AFP
It is uncertain who will be proclaimed the winner of this year's Nobel Prize for Literature by Mats Malm, Permanent Secretary of the Swedish Academy, in Stockholm on Thursday afternoon.
For the time being, only one thing is certain: The traditional, magnificent award ceremony in December is canceled this year.
A discretion that some will find excessive, but others may also welcome.
Because the Swedish Academy, which awards the award, has had scandalous years behind it, in which it was all about the members and their environment as well as the choice of the winners.
A look back: The crisis began with a scandal about the now resigned academician Katarina Frostenson and her husband Jean-Claude Arnault.
In the course of the #MeToo debate, 18 women had publicly made allegations of sexual harassment and assault against Arnault.
In late 2018, he was sentenced to two and a half years in prison for rape.
In addition, the Academy accused Frostenson of having betrayed the winners in advance and thus violated their duty of confidentiality.
Because some academy members gave up their work due to the scandal, the award was canceled in 2018.
In 2019, the way out of the crisis should begin with the award of two Nobel Prizes and a reformed selection process.
Five external reviewers from literature and literary criticism joined the Academy's five-member selection committee.
At the end of the year, however, two reviewers immediately left the committee: The award for the Polish author Olga Tokarczuk, who is only the 15th woman to receive the award, was received positively.
However, it was overshadowed by the Nobel Prize for the controversial Austrian writer Peter Handke, which caused a sensation worldwide.
Handke showed solidarity with Serbia during the Yugoslav wars and in 2006 gave a speech at the funeral of the former Serbian dictator Slobodan Milošević, who had been ousted six years earlier.
The author Saša Stanišić, who had to flee from Bosnia to Germany in 1992, criticized Handke's pro-Serbian attitude in his acceptance speech for the German Book Prize.
more on the subject
Nobel Prize celebrations: Inside splendor and honor - outside cold and angerBy Volker Weidermann
Icon: Spiegel Plus, Saša Stanišić versus Peter Handke: A novel that is created live
"Internationally, it was at least a medium-sized crisis," says the head of culture at the Swedish daily "Dagens Nyheter", Björn Wiman, about Handke's award.
This is why many observers now assume that the election will be different this year: less politically charged, less European, less male.
"I believe that you will make a safe choice," said Wiman of the German press agency.
Murakami or Atwood?
The Canadian poet Anne Carson is the favorite at the Ladbrokes betting shop in London, followed by the Russian Lyudmila Ulitskaja, the Canadian Margaret Atwood and Maryse Condé from Guadeloupe, who received the alternative Nobel Prize for Literature in 2018.
The long-term candidates Haruki Murakami from Japan and Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o from Kenya are, as is so often the case with bookmakers, in the race for the prize, which is endowed with ten million crowns (around 950,000 euros).
Of course, the race is still completely open.
After all, one thing is already certain: the location of the award ceremony.
The certificate and medal will be presented to the winner in their home countries - at a Swedish embassy or at their respective university.
Icon: The mirror
lag / dpa