Sex abuse scandal torpedoes a Nobel Prize
No literature award this year because of infighting, panel says
STOCKHOLM — The Swedish panel that awards the Nobel Prize in Literature said Friday it would take the extraordinary step of not naming a laureate this year — because of the infighting and public outrage that 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.
It’s the first year since the Second World War that the panel has decided not to bestow one of the world’s most revered cultural honours.
The academy is involved only in the literature award, so the 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,” CarlHenrik Heldin, chair of the Nobel Foundation, said Friday.
“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 November, a Swedish newspaper reported that 18 women said they had been sexually assaulted or harassed by JeanClaude 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 Arnault had groped Sweden’s crown princess, Victoria.
Through his lawyer, he has denied all of the allegations.
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 Frostenson, of Forum, a cultural centre 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 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 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 Danius had been punished for trying to introduce openness and accountability to a group that preferred to close ranks.
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.”