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Scandal about the Swedish Academy: Why there is no Nobel Prize for Literature in 2018

2019-12-11T11:47:30.864Z


The Nobel Prize Week is traditionally devoted to literature on Thursdays. But no winner will be announced this year. Why? The chronology of a drama.



On the first or second Thursday in October, the world's most important literary prize is usually announced. But this year the gold decorated door of the Swedish Academy in Stockholm will not work, no Nobel Prize winner announced by the Permanent Secretary. There will be no Nobel Prize for Literature in 2018.

How did that happen? Here is the review:

On 21 November 2017 , the daily newspaper "Dagens Nyheter" got the ball rolling: 18 women in one article accused a man from the Swedish Academy of having sexually molested them. Soon leaked: The accused is Jean-Claude Arnault, the husband of academician Katarina Frostenson.

Arnault ran a cultural forum in Stockholm, which was co-financed by the Academy and in which there were also readings by Nobel Prize winners. Especially there should have taken place some of the attacks, but also in apartments, which were made available to him by the Academy. One of the witnesses told the newspaper how she was raped by the man in an apartment in Stockholm, another how he groped her during a celebratory banquet.

In December , the then Permanent Secretary of the Academy, Sara Danius, commissioned a law firm to investigate the allegations and their connection with the body founded in 1786. The investigation confirmed "unacceptable behavior in the form of unwanted intimacy". But that's not all: the couple is said to have sponsored themselves and blabbed the names of Nobel Prize winners. That may have been quite lucrative given the lively betting community.

First, the academy tried to mince the scandals. But in April 2018 , well-known members quit work. The jury chairman Sara Danius had to leave. Of the once "venerable 18" were suddenly only 9 members active - so few that the otherwise so restrained Swedish King Carl XVI. Gustaf expressed his "great concern" about the working capacity of the Academy. So few, too, that they alone could not appoint new members.

On 4 May then the bang: The Swedish Academy announced in 2018 no Nobel Prize for literature to be awarded. It is necessary to invest time "in order to restore the public's confidence in the Academy before the next winner can be announced," said Interim Chairman Anders Olsson.

According to reports, the jury had already presented a shortlist of five names within the academy. They have not become public until today. In the coming year, the award ceremony will be made up, so that would then be awarded two Nobel prizes.

Since then, the Swedish Academy has been languishing. You breech, getting under the word fight again and again under the belt. Nevertheless, at the end of August it seemed as if three passive members could return, making it possible to elect new members. But the three, Kjell Espmark, Peter Englund and Sara Danius, rowed back. "Perhaps - possibly" they could take part in more important votes, "nothing else," they said.

Jean-Claude Arnault, the trigger for the conflict, has to go to jail for rape on October 1 . A court in Stockholm sentenced the 72-year-old to two years in prison.

In the meantime, some Swedish cultural workers have joined together to form a "New Academy" that wants to award an alternative international literary prize. The winner will be announced on October 12th . On the shortlist stood next to the British fantasy author Neil Gaiman, the Canadian Kim Thuy and Maryse Condé from Guadeloupe initially Haruki Murakami.

But the 69-year-old Japanese man told the jury it was a great honor, but he wanted to concentrate on writing. He is no longer voting. Maybe, as speculated the scene, because he still just still chances for a real Nobel Prize calculates, which would be an alternative price rather in the way?

Source: spiegel

All life articles on 2019-12-11

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