NOT P(?) Nobel Prize for Literature Canceled for 2018 "Who would really care to accept this award under the current circumstances?"

[Allan Balliett]

NYT May 04

No 2018 Nobel Prize in Literature, Panel Says Amid Sex Scandal

By CHRISTINA ANDERSON and RICHARD PÉREZ-PEÑAMAY 4, 2018

STOCKHOLM — The Swedish panel that awards the Nobel Prize in Literature
said on Friday that it would take the extraordinary step of not naming a
laureate this year — not because of a shortage of deserving writers, but
because of the infighting and public outrage that have engulfed the group
over a sexual abuse scandal.

The Swedish Academy said it would postpone the 2018 award until next year,
when it will name two winners, making this the first year since World War
II that the panel has decided not to bestow one of the world’s most revered
cultural honors. The academy is involved only in the literature award, so
other Nobel Prizes are not affected.

Though the prizes should be awarded annually, they can be postponed or
skipped “when a situation in a prize-awarding institution arises that is so
serious that a prize decision will not be perceived as credible,”
Carl-Henrik Heldin, chairman of the Nobel Foundation, which governs all of
the prizes, said in a statement posted online Friday morning. “The crisis
in the Swedish Academy has adversely affected the Nobel Prize. Their
decision underscores the seriousness of the situation and will help
safeguard the long-term reputation of the Nobel Prize.”

Peter Englund, a member of the academy, wrote in an email: “I think this
was a wise decision, considering both the inner turmoil of the Academy and
the subsequent bloodletting of people and competence, and the general
standing of the prize. Who would really care to accept this award under the
current circumstances?”

The announcement that there will be no 2018 prize is the latest in a series
of blows to the academy that, occurring in the glare of the #MeToo
movement, have drawn worldwide attention.


In Nobel Scandal, a Man Is Accused of Sexual Misconduct. A Woman Takes the
Fall. APRIL 12, 2018

In November, a Swedish newspaper reported that 18 women said they had been
sexually assaulted or harassed by Jean-Claude Arnault, who is closely tied
to the Swedish Academy and is accused of using his stature in the arts
world to try to coerce women into sex. Other allegations against him
emerged later, including a report that Mr. Arnault had groped Sweden’s
crown princess, Victoria.

Through his lawyer, he has denied all of the allegations.

Mr. Arnault, a photographer, is married to a member of the academy,
Katarina Frostenson; is a close friend to other members; and is co-owner,
with Ms. Frostenson, of Forum, a cultural center in Stockholm that received
funding from the academy. Some events were said to have occurred at
academy-owned properties in Stockholm and Paris, and at least one woman’s
complaints to the academy about Mr. Arnault more than 20 years ago were
rebuffed.

The crisis escalated when the academy dismissed another member, Sara
Danius, as its permanent secretary, the group’s chief official — the first
woman to hold that post — though she remained part of the panel. She had
severed the group’s ties with Mr. Arnault and Forum, and commissioned an
investigation of the academy from a law firm.

Her demotion prompted mass protests by critics who said that a woman had
suffered for the misdeeds of a man, and that Ms. Danius had been punished
for trying to introduce openness and accountability to a group that
preferred to close ranks.

In practical terms, the academy was prepared to stick to its usual
schedule, winnowing potential laureates to a shortlist by summer and
anointing a prize winner in October, its acting permanent secretary, Anders
Olsson, told Swedish Radio on Friday. “But confidence in the academy from
the world around us has sunk drastically in the past half year,” he said,
“and that is the decisive reason that we are postponing the prize.”


The decision not to award the literature prize this year “is a sensational
piece of news, but it was the only possible decision,” Bjorn Wiman, culture
editor of the Swedish newspaper Dagens Nyheter, told Swedish Radio. “It
wasn’t possible under these conditions to appoint a winner. It would have
been an insult to anyone who received it.”

Some of the academy’s 18 members resigned over Ms. Frostenson’s continued
membership, and several more quit over the treatment of Ms. Danius. That
left the group with 10 active members — too few, under its rules, to elect
new members.

But academy appointments are for life, and until this week, the
organization’s rules did not provide for resignations; it viewed those who
quit as members who had become inactive, but could not be replaced.

On Wednesday, King Carl XVI Gustaf, the academy’s patron, who said he had
followed the matter “with great concern,” announced that he had changed the
academy’s rules to allow members to leave, and to allow the panel to
replace any member who had been inactive for two years. It was a rare
intervention by the monarch, whose role is mostly ceremonial.

Mr. Olsson said: “We are bringing in legal expertise and we are going to
get better at what we do. We must vote in new members, and fast.” He
promised increased transparency, and “more and better dialogue” with the
royal court and the Nobel Foundation.

After meeting on Thursday, members of the academy had voiced optimism that
the prize could be awarded in October, as usual.

“I see it as self-evident that we are still capable of awarding the prize,”
Kristina Lugn, a panel member, told Dagens Nyheter. “We have a short
nomination list with five candidates left. If we can’t do this then I think
everyone should resign.”

Such comments raise the possibility that the Nobel Foundation might have
pressured the Swedish Academy to change its position.

“The Nobel Foundation presumes that the Swedish Academy will now put all
its efforts into the task of restoring its credibility as a prize-awarding
institution,” Mr. Heldin, the foundation chairman said, “and that the
academy will report the concrete actions that are undertaken.”