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No Nobel Prize for literature 2018

Denis Mukwege and Nadia Murad are now known as 2018’s Nobel Laureates for their efforts to end the use of sexual violence as a weapon of war and armed conflict. Plus, George Smith, Frances Arnold and Greg Winter have been announced as the winners of Nobel Prize in Chemistry. These laureates are now the subject of wide discussion across the globe.

But then that’s not what triggers curiosity. No literary stalwart has been announced as the Nobel Laureate for 2018. The curiosity comes to the fore with the admission of the much revered Swedish Academy that “unacceptable behaviour in the form of unwanted intimacy” had occurred in its ranks, but its handling of unseemly allegations has shredded the body’s credibility, called into question its judgment and forced its first female leader to resign. If the sexual violence has earned Mukwege and Murad the Nobel Prize, the same phenomenon has ‘postponed’ the announcement of a literary laureate for 2018.

The internal feud stems from a sex-abuse scandal allegedly linked with Claude Arnault a cultural stalwart in Sweden. The troubling factor is that he is married to Poet Katarina Frostenson, a member of the Academy. Arnault could be deemed as the miniature Trump as 18 complaints of sexual misconduct have been received against him. Arnault has, of course, denied connection with any such complaint.

The Nobel Foundation itself says the Nobel Prize in literature risks losing its dignity from the scandals. According to Peter Englund, Permanent Secretary of the Swedish Academy, the Nobel Prize for literature is generally based on an overall assessment. It’s a life’s work that is rewarded more than individual books. Novelists have received the most prizes. The reason may be that it is the most practised literary genre, Englund adds.

According to King Carl XVI Gustaf, the ceremonial patron of the academy, the members are compelled to resign though they have no technical grounds allowed. About 12 people are required to vote in a new member. If the academy chose to go ahead and pick a winner for 2018, it would have formed a blotch on the escutcheon.

This is not the first instance that the Nobel Prize has faced controversy. The prestigious prize allocated for other fields such as science and medicine and peacemaking in addition to literature have been withheld 49 times. The prize was not given during the World War II period (1940 – 1942) that followed 1914, 1918 and 1935. The years 1914, 1918 and 1943 witnessed the prize awarded to the fields of science and medicine. 1935 also saw no suitable candidate worthy of the award in literature.

Of the last 10 winners, just Mo Yan and Svetlana Alexievich live outside North America or Western Europe. The 2010 laureate, Mario Vargas Llosa, is Peruvian but has resided in Spain, primarily, for more than two decades. The only Arab writer to take the prize was Egypt’s Naguib Mahfouz in 1988. Of the three African Nobel recipients, two, Nadine Gordimer and J.M. Coetzee, were white.

In 2008, when Horace Engdahl, the then-permanent secretary of the Swedish Academy, declared that “you can’t get away from the fact that Europe still is the centre of the literary world.”

All the same, no Nobel in literature in 2018? It could come as an insult to the literati and the readership alike.

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Literature Nobel Prizes that caused a stir

2017: The Prize goes to a songwriter.

Bob Dylan became the first singer-songwriter to obtain the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2016, shocking quite a few literature purists. Then Dylan didn’t even seem that interested by the recognition. He didn’t show up at the awards ceremony and simply sent a brief thank-you speech instead of the traditional Nobel lecture. He finally collected his prize in Stockholm in March 2017.

2004: Too many people for Elfriede Jelinek

When she was honoured with the prize in 2004, Austrian author Elfriede Jelinek also refused to go to the awards ceremony. “I cannot manage being in a crowd of people. I cannot stand public attention,” the reclusive playwright said. The Swedish Academy had to accept her agoraphobia, but she did, at least, hold her Nobel lecture — per video.

1997: ‘Not literature’: Dario Fo

When Italian comedian and playwright Dario Fo won the prize in 1997, the announcement came as a shock to many literary critics, who saw him as just an entertainer and not a real literary figure with an international standing. The satirist fired back with his Nobel speech, which he titled “Against jesters who defame and insult.”

1989: Resignations in support of Salman Rushdie

While the famous author of “The Satanic Verses” never won the Nobel Prize in Literature, some members of the Swedish Academy felt their organization should denounce Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini’s fatwa calling for Salman Rushdie’s assassination in 1989. The Academy refused to do so, and three members resigned in protest.

1964: Did Jean-Paul Sartre want the money?

The French philosopher and playwright was awarded the 1964 Nobel Prize in Literature, but he declined it, saying that “a writer should not allow himself to be turned into an institution” by accepting official honours. It was rumoured that he later asked for the prize money anyway — but that story was never confirmed.

1958: Boris Pasternak couldn’t accept the prize

The Soviet author, world famous for his novel “Doctor Zhivago,” obtained Nobel recognition in 1958. However, Soviet authorities forced him to decline the prize; he wouldn’t be able to re-enter the country if he went to the Stockholm ceremony. Even though he followed his government’s orders, he was still demonized afterwards. His son picked up the award in 1989, 29 years after the author’s death.

1945: Literature, not Peace: Winston Churchill

Although British Prime Minister Sir Winston Churchill was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize in 1945, he actually obtained the award for his written works — mostly memoirs, history volumes and speeches — in 1953. The jury praised “his mastery of historical and biographical description as well as for brilliant oratory in defending exalted human values.”

1929: A late tribute to Thomas Mann

Thomas Mann received the prize in 1929, but it wasn’t for his most recent work, “The Magic Mountain” (1924), which the jury found too tedious. The distinction instead recognized his debut novel, “Buddenbrooks” — published 28 years earlier. Time had apparently added to its value. The jury said, it “has won steadily increased recognition as one of the classic works of contemporary literature.”

1907: Rudyard Kipling, the youngest winner

Winning the award in 1907 at the age of 41, British author Joseph Rudyard Kipling, best known for “The Jungle Book” (1894), remains the youngest Nobel laureate in literature to this day. However, his legacy has since been marred by the fact that Kipling, who spent his early childhood and some of his adult life in India, vehemently spoke out in defence of British colonialism.


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