A string of sex abuse allegations and financial crimes scandals have forced the Nobel Prize in literature to be postponed until next year.
The Swedish Academy said that sex abuse allegations and other issues within its ranks had ‘tarnished’ the body’s reputation.
As a result, the 2018 prize will be given in 2019 instead, the academy announced today.
The old Stock Exchange Building, home of the Swedish Academy in Stockholm, Sweden, which has announced that it will not select a Nobel literature prize winner for 2018
The decision was made at a weekly meeting in Stockholm on the grounds that the academy is in no shape to pick a winner after a string of sex abuse allegations and financial crimes scandals.
Swedish Academy member Katarina Frostenson, left and photographer Jean-Claude Arnault attend the Kings Nobel dinner at the Royal Palace in Stockholm (file photo)
In a statement, the academy said the decision ‘was arrived at in view of the currently diminished Academy and the reduced public confidence in the Academy’.
It will be the first time since wartime 1943 that the prestigious award is not handed out.
The crisis began when the Swedish Academy brought in lawyers to investigate sexual misconduct claims from 18 women against Jean-Claude Arnault.
He is a major cultural figure in Sweden who is married to Katarina Frostenson, a poet who is a member of the academy.
Six members of the academy, including three male members – Klas Ostergren, Kjell Espmark and Peter Englund- resigned over the academy’s vote not to remove her.
It means there are only 11 active members of the academy and the rules require that new members must be elected by 12 members.
The crisis came to a head after the decision of the permanent secretary, Sara Danius, to step down on 12 April, prompting King Carl XVI Gustaf to intervene, promising reforms to enable to academy to continue.
Danius, 56, a Swedish literature historian at Stockholm University, said the turmoil at the academy has ‘already affected the Nobel Prize quite severely.’
The sex scandal led to Sara Danius (pictured) stepping down as the permanent secretary of the Swedish Academy
Her withdrawal is the first by a permanent secretary in more than 230 years.
The academy later admitted that ‘unacceptable behavior in the form of unwanted intimacy’ took place within its ranks, but its handling of unseemly allegations has shredded the body’s credibility, called into question its judgment and forced its first female leader to resign.
A debate over how to face up to its flaws also divided its 18 members – who are appointed for life – into hostile camps and prompted seven members of the prestigious institution to leave or disassociate themselves from the secretive group.
‘We find it necessary to commit time to recovering public confidence in the Academy before the next laureate can be announced,’ Anders Olsson, the academy’s permanent secretary, said in a statement.
He said the academy was acting ‘out of respect for previous and future literature laureates, the Nobel Foundation and the general public’.