2018 Nobel Prize in Literature Cancelled Because of Sexual Abuse Scandal in Committee

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Alessandra Kelley

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https://www.theguardian.com/books/2...e-2018-cancelled-after-sexual-assault-scandal

Holy smokes.

Riven by infighting and resignations following allegations of sexual misconduct, financial malpractice and repeated leaks, the Swedish Academy has said no Nobel prize for literature will be awarded this year.

For the first time since 1949, the secretive jury that hands out the world’s most prestigious literary prize will not unveil a winner this autumn, instead revealing two laureates in 2019, it announced on Friday.

At the root of the institution’s unprecedented crisis are a raft of wide-ranging allegations against Jean-Claude Arnault, a photographer and leading cultural figure in Sweden, who is married to Katarina Frostenson, an academy member and author.

Last November, the Swedish newspaper Dagens Nyheter published detailed allegations by 18 women accusing Arnault of sexual harassment and physical abuse over a period of more than 20 years, in France and Sweden and including at properties owned by the academy.

As the escalating scandal unfolded, Dagens Nyheter also reported that an internal investigation by the academy had concluded that Arnault may have leaked the names of seven Nobel literature laureates – the subject of heavy betting – in advance, including those of Bob Dylan in 2016 and Harold Pinter in 2005.

The hidebound and traditionally deeply patriarchal academy’s inability to respond adequately to the allegations against Arnault sparked a bitter internal feud, with members exchanging public insults in the pages of the Swedish media.
 

Maryn

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My local paper had only the announcement that infighting meant they weren't going to award. They skipped the reason why. Great reporting, people.

And thank you, Alessandra.
 

Alessandra Kelley

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One of the women Arnault groped, witnesses claim, was Sweden's Crown Princess Victoria.

According to Ms Witt-Brattström, at their next visit in 2006 Mr Engdahl was instructed by the Swedish Court to ensure that the Crown Princess was never left alone with Mr Arnault.

Margareta Thorgren, the Royal Court's press chief, said it would "neither confirm or deny" the Svenska Dagbladet story.

"What we have heard regarding this man is horrifying generally but we will not give any comment regarding this latest story that the Crown Princess has been touched," she said.
 

frimble3

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Jean-Claude Arnault, a photographer and leading cultural figure in Sweden, who is married to Katarina Frostenson, an academy member and author.
So, there's a leading cultural figure, and photographer, which gives him reason to ask people to pose for him, and to offer 'mentoring'. And his respectable wife, an academy member and author herself, to provide an additional veneer of respectability.
Why do I think that 18 women accusing him is the tip of the iceberg?
 
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Twick

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If a man can't keep his hands to himself around the Crown Princess of his country, I shudder at what he would try on other women.

(Reminds me of someone's rule a couple of decades ago for politicians putting hands on women staffers, etc. - "If you'd not touch Queen Elizabeth in that way during a royal visit, don't do it." But apparently we have a new breed of groper against whom royal protocol is not a defense.)
 

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There's nothing good to be said about this situation, so I'll pose a digression: Assuming the award will be given in 2019, who would you consider major candidates? Because Bob Dylan won the 2016 prize, the likelihood of an American winning is remote, but had he not passed away last week, Philip Roth would have been a candidate. Among living American writers, John Irving comes to mind.

Likewise, with Ishiguro winning the 2017 prize, a British writer winning again is improbable.

As the history of the Novel in Literature suggests that the committee tends to spread the award around in various ways, and it hasn't been awarded to a female writer for a few years, that would seem a likely possibility. And likewise, perhaps, someone who doesn't write in English.

So who would make a good recipient for 2019?

caw
 
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Maxinquaye

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It's weird.

One of the reasons why it has become so bad is that it's very, very difficult to change trusts in Swedish law. You basically have to fold the trust and redo it from the ground up. The Norwegians have it easier with their prize. They can change that trust much more easily.

The science prizes and the literature prize? They're captive inside their organisations, and inside the wills that govern them. Otherwise, the "Nobel Prize" in Economics would have been folded into the rest of the prizes, instead of being given out by the Central Bank.

This can have very strange outcomes. There are trusts in Sweden with a lot of money inside them that can't disperse the money they have because the beneficiaries don't exist anymore. A while back, there was some hand-wringing about a trust who had to support miner handymen stricken by poverty - a class of worker that doesn't exist anymore. Just like thatchers or switchboard operators. The trust for the miner handymen had over one million dollars in it.

So, you have this Royal Academy that was set up in the 1700s as a reward for idle rich noblemen to extract a pension from the state without having to do any work. Whoever is admitted has to post for life, as was meant back when the point was to get that pension. When Alfred Nobel wrote his will, the Royal Academy didn't actually want to give out the prizes because it was work, and that wasn't part of the deal.

And since people can't leave the institution, you have all sorts in it. The infighting becomes extra petty and extra poisonous at the best of times. At worst, like now, you have dangerous individuals in the periphery.
 
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