No 2018 Nobel Prize in Literature, Panel Says Amid Sexual Abuse Scandal
May 4, 2018 by admin
Filed under Choosing Lingerie
In November, a Swedish newspaper reported that 18 women said they had been sexually assaulted or harassed by Jean-Claude Arnault, who is closely tied to the Swedish Academy and is accused of using his stature in the arts world to try to coerce women into sex. Other allegations against him emerged later, including a report that Mr. Arnault had groped Sweden’s crown princess, Victoria.
Through his lawyer, he has denied all of the allegations.
Mr. Arnault, a photographer, is married to a member of the academy, Katarina Frostenson; is a close friend to other members; and is co-owner, with Ms. Frostenson, of Forum, a cultural center in Stockholm that received funding from the academy. Some events were said to have occurred at academy-owned properties in Stockholm and Paris, and at least one woman’s complaints to the academy about Mr. Arnault more than 20 years ago were rebuffed.
The crisis escalated when the academy dismissed another member, Sara Danius, as its permanent secretary, the group’s chief official — the first woman to hold that post — though she remained part of the panel. She had severed the group’s ties with Mr. Arnault and Forum, and commissioned an investigation of the academy from a law firm.
Her demotion prompted mass protests by critics who said that a woman had suffered for the misdeeds of a man, and that Ms. Danius had been punished for trying to introduce openness and accountability to a group that preferred to close ranks.
In practical terms, the academy was prepared to stick to its usual schedule, winnowing potential laureates to a shortlist by summer and anointing a prize winner in October, its acting permanent secretary, Anders Olsson, told Swedish Radio on Friday. “But confidence in the academy from the world around us has sunk drastically in the past half year,” he said, “and that is the decisive reason that we are postponing the prize.”
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The decision not to award the literature prize this year “is a sensational piece of news, but it was the only possible decision,” Bjorn Wiman, culture editor of the Swedish newspaper Dagens Nyheter, told Swedish Radio. “It wasn’t possible under these conditions to appoint a winner. It would have been an insult to anyone who received it.”
Some of the academy’s 18 members resigned over Ms. Frostenson’s continued membership, and several more quit over the treatment of Ms. Danius. That left the group with 10 active members — too few, under its rules, to elect new members.
But academy appointments are for life, and until this week, the organization’s rules did not provide for resignations; it viewed those who quit as members who had become inactive, but could not be replaced.
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On Wednesday, King Carl XVI Gustaf, the academy’s patron, who said he had followed the matter “with great concern,” announced that he had changed the academy’s rules to allow members to leave, and to allow the panel to replace any member who had been inactive for two years. It was a rare intervention by the monarch, whose role is mostly ceremonial.
Mr. Olsson said: “We are bringing in legal expertise and we are going to get better at what we do. We must vote in new members, and fast.” He promised increased transparency, and “more and better dialogue” with the royal court and the Nobel Foundation.
After meeting on Thursday, members of the academy had voiced optimism that the prize could be awarded in October, as usual.
“I see it as self-evident that we are still capable of awarding the prize,” Kristina Lugn, a panel member, told Dagens Nyheter. “We have a short nomination list with five candidates left. If we can’t do this then I think everyone should resign.”
Such comments raise the possibility that the Nobel Foundation might have pressured the Swedish Academy to change its position.
“The Nobel Foundation presumes that the Swedish Academy will now put all its efforts into the task of restoring its credibility as a prize-awarding institution,” Mr. Heldin, the foundation chairman said, “and that the academy will report the concrete actions that are undertaken.”
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