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The Swedish Academy had planned to hold elections for the vacant seats as early as the spring, but was delayed due to the crown pandemic. The two new members will join the Academy in connection with the ceremonial meeting on December 20.
Steve Sem-Sandberg was Long associated with Svenska Dagbladet and is now active as a critic for Dagens Nyheter. Among other things, he has translated works by John Berger and Jon Fosse and published several acclaimed novels. Among the “The poor of Łódź” who were awarded the August 2009 Prize and have achieved great international success.
In his writing, Steve Sem-Sandberg has often addressed the question of free will, or perhaps rather the deficiencies of free will. His novel characters often perform cruel acts that they do not want to perform or do not know they are doing.
Steve Sem-Sandberg
Photo: Alexander Mahmoud
“He is very honored, of course, and I was very happy and flattered to be asked,” Steve Sem-Sandberg writes in an email to DN.
The Academy asked him this weekend and he says he doubted if he would say yes, in part because of what it will mean for his own authorship.
“Above all, I have thought about what it can mean to me personally. I live quite far away and I wish I could continue to do so, although I realize that now it may be more difficult. “
Steve Sem-Sandberg will replace him Kristina Lugn, who passed away this spring, in chair number 14.
“She was not only a great poet, but also a great personality. No one will be able to replace it, ”he writes.
How do you see the continued work of the Academy to restore your reputation?
“I can’t reasonably have a clue about it before he took office.”
What can you contribute to the work of the Academy?
“Reading. Also, hopefully, good judgment.”
Ingrid Carlberg has among other things, he worked as a journalist at Dagens Nyheter and visiting professor of journalism at the University of Gothenburg. In 2012 she was awarded the August prize in the non-fiction category for the biography “Here’s a room waiting for you” about diplomat Raoul Wallenberg and last year she was nominated for the same award for her biography of Alfred Nobel.
In September, Ingrid Carlberg received the “Nobel” prize from the Royal Swedish Academy of Engineering Sciences for scientificity in journalism. The jury wrote in the motivation that she wrote “the definitive biography of the engineer, innovator, entrepreneur and great donor Alfred Nobel”.
Carlberg succeeds the late Göran Malmqvist in chair 5. A total of nine new members have been elected to the Academy since the crisis began in April 2018, when several members left their chairs.
Permanent Secretary of the Swedish Academy Mats Malm says that the two new members are exactly what the Academy needs.
– Ingrid Carlberg means an extension towards non-fiction outside the limits of the humanities. Steve is a fantastic writer and critic and also a translator who will strengthen the work of the Academy very well, says Mats Malm.
At the same time, he says that Göran Malmqvist had language skills that covered a large part of the world and that now they are not being replaced.
– But we will create an environment around the Nobel Committee in the future so that we can better cover the different areas of language. We will utilize a number of experts from the field who will ensure that the Academy receives stable and long-term monitoring from the outside world. Now we put that experience further outside the Academy.
How will that work be organized?
– We will report more next week. I have no further comment at this time. But we do it to ensure access to solid knowledge in as many language areas as possible, says Mats Malm.
He also confirms that the external Nobel Committee will not continue with the end of the two-year term.
– It was fixed in two years and it was great, we are very grateful for the work that the outside members have done. We are now working on a model that we believe can work more broadly in the long term.
Academy member Per Wästberg says that he has not collaborated with any of the new members before, but that he followed everything they wrote.
– It is this – the writing – that is the basis for their being elected now, says Per Wästberg.
What do you hope and hope they contribute to the Swedish Academy?
– I can’t get into that. It is largely up to them to show what they can do, but we are so glad they said yes.
The text is updated.
