For the first time in its 75 year old history, the Swedish Academy on Friday announced that there would be no Nobel prize for literature this year, reports said.
According to the report published in The Guardian, the Swedish Academy, which has become mired in controversy over its links to a man accused of sexual assault, announced for the first time in 75 years, the secretive jury that hands out the world’s most prestigious literary award will not unveil a winner this autumn, instead revealing two winners in 2019.
“The decision, announced at 9am Swedish time following a meeting on Thursday, comes after a string of sexual assault allegations made against the French photographer Jean-Claude Arnault, the husband of academy member and poet Katarina Frostenson. After the allegations against Arnault were made public in November, three members of the 18-strong jury that selects the literature laureate resigned in protest over the decision not to expel Frostenson. Arnault was also accused of leaking the names of seven former Nobel winners. He denies both claims,” mentioned the report.
The reputation of the prize, which has been won by names from Samuel Beckett to Rabindranath Tagore, was also called into question in 2016 when the academy voted for the musician Bob Dylan as its Nobel laureate “for having created new poetic expressions within the great American song tradition”, stated the report.