The Swedish Academy has postponed this year’s Nobel Prize for Literature. Reason, sex related case.
This is for the first time the Swedish Academy had to postpone the announcement of Nobel Prize for Literature because of sex related charges.
The Academy said Friday, “it intends to decide on and announce the Nobel Prize in Literature for 2018 in parallel with the naming of the 2019 laureate.”
The Nobel Academy, founded in 1786, has on seven previous occasions chosen to reserve the prize: in 1915, 1919, 1925, 1926, 1927, 1936 and 1949.
According to CNN the crisis centres on a string of allegations against Jean-Claude Arnault, a leading cultural figure in Sweden and husband of Katarina Frostenson,who was an academy member until she stepped down in the wake of the scandal.Arnault is facing multiple accusations of sexual assault and harassment.
He is also said to have touched the Swedens’s crown princess Victoria inappropriately at Swedish Academy event.
SBSNEWS reports that the Academy plunged in crisis since November, in the wake of 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 Arnault.
This the second time the Literature prize was postponed, the first being in 1943 during second world war time.
Ten members of Nobel Academy met on Thursday and decided to reserve the prize for next year.