Do We Still Need the Nobel Prize in Literature? / Carrie V Mullins. In: Electric Literature March 8, 2019

Rape, infighting, secrets, financial malpractice; the scandal surrounding the Nobel Prize in Literature began in November 2017 when Swedish newspaper Dagens Nyheter published allegations by eighteen women that they had been sexually assaulted by Jean-Claude Arnault, a 71-year-old Swedish-French photographer. Arnault was married to Katarina Frostenson, a member of the Swedish Academy, and over the following months the man who boasted to be the “19th member of the committee” was accused of 20 years of sexual assaults, including incidents at properties owned by the Academy—not to mention other illegal activities, such as leaking the names of soon-to-be laureates, which are subject to heavy betting. By this past October, when the Stockholm district court unanimously sentenced Arnault to two years in prison for rape, seven of the academy’s eighteen members had already quit in protest, and no prize was awarded for 2018. As permanent secretary Anders Olsson stated, “We find it necessary to commit time to recovering public confidence … before the next laureate can be announced. This is out of respect for previous and future literature laureates, the Nobel Foundation and the general public.”
The hiatus is over; this week the Nobel Foundation announced that it will award two prizes for literature in 2019. It is also taking steps to address some of the issues raised by the Arnault scandal, like appointing five external members to help select the Nobel laureates, considering a time limit on membership, and reviewing how to handle resignations and expulsions. For the first time, it will eject any members who are subject to conflict of interest or criminal investigations.
No conflict of interest, no criminals. These are certainly steps in the right direction, yet they’re so obvious and overdue that you have to wonder what exactly we’ve been so impressed by all these years. It feels a bit like getting to Oz only to realize the Wizard is a tiny man hiding behind a green curtain, shouting “look away!”—though in this case the Wizard is an exclusive group of Academy members who serve for life and who have kept the Nobel prize process a closely guarded secret. The group is so small that when seven members resigned last year, it caused a crisis and left less than the minimum twelve-person quorum to pick a winner. We know that the Academy reviews around 200 nominations in February, then announces a shortlist in May, and a final five in the summer, but the full explanation of why a winner was chosen is sealed in the Nobel archives, only to be released 50 years later. During the scandal the Nobel Foundation itself criticized the Academy for how it has “cultivated a closed culture over a long period of time.” ... [mehr] https://electricliterature.com/do-we-still-need-the-nobel-prize-in-literature-64ec1fd340cc