Nobel affiliate charged

STOCKHOLM— A Swedish prosecutor brought rape charges Tuesday against Jean-Claude Arnault, the man at the center of a scandal that shook international cultural circles and led to the cancellation of this year’s Nobel Prize in literature.

The charges are the first to emerge from a furor that has damaged the reputation of the Swedish Academy, the 232-year-old body that awards the literature prize.

Mr. Arnault, 71, has long been a cultural gatekeeper in Sweden and beyond — a French photographer who ran Forum, a cultural center in Stockholm that received financial support from the Swedish Academy.

The scandal erupted in November, when the newspaper Dagens Nyheter reported on accusations of sexual misconduct against Mr. Arnault by 18 women, over three decades, putting him and the Swedish Academy at the heart of Sweden’s most prominent #MeToo episode.