Nobel Prize for Literature: why will two prizes be awarded this year?

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(CNN Spanish) - This Thursday, the Swedish Academy will announce not one, but two winners of the Nobel Prize for Literature, after, in an unprecedented decision, 2018 ran out of winner.

"The Nobel Prize for Literature will be awarded once again and this fall the 2018 and 2019 winners will be announced," the Nobel Committee announced in March in a statement.

• • Kazuo Ishiguro wins the Nobel Prize for Literature 2017

The reason for the suspension of the award in 2018 was a sexual scandal that concluded with his principal implicated sentenced to prison for rape.

The old stock exchange building in Stockholm is home to the Swedish Academy. FREDRIK SANDBERG / AFP / Getty Images)

The decision was announced in May 2018 by the 230-year-old Swedish Academy, one of Sweden's most respected institutions.

"We consider it necessary to devote time to regaining public confidence in the academy before announcing our next recipient," said Anders Olsson, permanent secretary of the academy, in a statement. He added that the academy acts “out of respect for the previous and future winners in literature, for the Nobel Foundation and for the general public”.

In early 2018, six members of the Swedish Academy resigned, including the director of the institution, Sara Danius. Its members, elected by secret ballot, must be approved by the king and traditionally occupy their positions for life.

Sex scandal

The scandal focused on Jean-Claude Arnault, a French photographer husband of the poet Katarina Frostenson, who was a member of the academy until she resigned after the scandal. Arnault, a key cultural figure in Sweden, then faced multiple accusations of sexual harassment and rape.

The cases were first reported by the Swedish newspaper Dagens Nyheter at the end of 2017. In a statement then sent to CNN by email, Arnault's lawyer, Bjorn Hurtig, said his client denied all allegations. He was eventually convicted of one of the rape charges.

The academy was also under fire for violating its own conflicts of interest regulations by financing the Kulturplats Forum, a cultural center managed by Arnault and Frostenson.

In 1943, the last time the literature prize was postponed, World War II was in full swing and the Nazis ruled much of the European continent.

- With information from Judith Vonberg of CNN.

Nobel Prize in Literature