2018 Nobel Literature Prize postponed after #Metoo turmoil

For the first time in almost 70 years there will be no Nobel Literature Prize this year, as the Swedish Academy that selects the laureate finds itself in turmoil over links to a man accused of sex crimes amid the #Metoo campaign.

“We find it necessary to commit time to recovering public confidence in the Academy before the next laureate can be announced,” the Academy’s interim permanent secretary Anders Olsson said in a statement Friday, adding two prizes would be announced in 2019.

The body has been plunged in crisis since November, in the wake of the global #Metoo campaign, when Swedish newspaper of reference Dagens Nyheter published the testimonies of 18 women claiming to have been raped, sexually assaulted or harassed by Jean-claude Arnault, an influential figure on the Swedish culture scene.

Arnault, the French husband of Academy member and poet Katarina Frostenson, has denied the allegations.

The revelations have sowed deep discord among the Academy’s 18 members about how to handle the matter, and in recent weeks, six of them have chosen to resign, including permanent secretary Sara Danius.

The last time the institution delayed a prize announcement was in 1949. William Faulkner received the prize a year later, the same year Bertrand Russell was honoured.

It has also reserved the prize on six other occasions: in 1915, 1919, 1925, 1926, 1927 and 1936, and four of those times the prize was delayed then awarded at the same time as the following year’s prize, the Academy said.