By: Ringo Bones
Maybe I’m not just the only one who was “slightly relieved”
that this year’s Nobel Literature Prize announcement delay did not happen when
the Swedish Academy awarded their prestigious accolade to the “most unseemly”
recipient of them all – i.e. the iconic American singer/songwriter Bob Dylan
back in 2016. But given the reason(s) behind this year’s delay, could this
eventually bring down the Swedish Academy?
Apparently, this all started when the academy’s permanent
secretary, Prof. Sara Danius, resigned when divisions started to emerge back in
November 2017 when French photographer Jean-Claude Arnault who ran a cultural
project with funding from the Swedish Academy, was accused by 18 women of
sexual assault. Several of the alleged incidents reportedly happened in properties
belonging to the academy. Mr. Arnault denies the allegations. The delay of this
year’s announcement for the Nobel Literature Prize laureate is largely due to
the women members of the academy’s fear of a #MeToo backlash if they choose to
run the academy like it’s “business as usual”.
As a compromise, two prizes for literature will be awarded
next year, one for 2018 and one for 2019. This is not the first time that this
had happened. On five occasions, a prize for one year has been awarded at the
same time as the following year’s prize. For example, American playwright
Eugene O’Neill was given the 1936 Nobel Literature Prize in 1937.
Unfortunately, this year’s delay for a Nobel Literature Prize laureate raised
rumors of a “conspiracy” in various social media platforms when various
prominent authors and playwrights around the world accused the academy of being
“infiltrated” by a nefarious right-wing-white-supremacists organizations like
Breitbart and Cambridge Analytica after the academy’s alleged postponement in
considering Kenyan writer Ngugi wa Thiong’o as the 2018 Nobel Literature Prize
laureate.
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