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On Thursday next week, the Swedish Academy announces this year’s winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature, the 117th consecutive award.
According to DN information, the Nobel Committee, which for the second year in a row is made up partly of external members, will present its final statement to the Academy before this week’s meeting. The formal decision on the winner is made hours before the announcement itself.
This year’s award marks at the same time, the end of the period in which the Academy included external experts in the Nobel Committee, the compromise solution that developed during the crisis of the department. When the system is removed, the department will revert to a Nobel Committee made up of only ordinary members.
– Now there will be no more external. This was an agreement that we made in two years with the Nobel Foundation. Now the Academy replaces them with interns, says member and committee member Per Wästberg to DN.
He doesn’t want to speculate on whether the work on the Nobel Prize will change when the current system is repealed. However, Wästberg praises the three outside members who have been involved in the work over the past two years, Rebecka Kärde, Mikaela Blomqvist and Henrik Petersen, describing them as “very talented”.
Officially, the Swedish Academy does not want to comment on what the new Nobel Committee will look like. Commission member and chair Anders Olsson writes in a comment to DN that the composition will be presented during the second half of October.
The work of the newly formed Nobel Committee during last year’s premiere year was not easy. Two of the five outside members from the start, Gun-Britt Sundström and Kristoffer Leandoer, left their assignments shortly before the Nobel Prize after dissatisfaction with the workings of the job.
In the last week, Leandoer has commented on his decision again, first in an Albanian online newspaper and then in more detail in a text in Svenska Dagbladet (29/9). In her post, she writes about the selection of the Peter Handke award winner and the difficulties with the committee’s work:
“I realized too late that we, and by ‘we’ I mean both committee members and candidates, were tokens in an internal power game,” writes Leandoer, who declined to comment on the issue for DN.
Gun-Britt Sundström
Photo: Julia Mård
Gun-Britt Sundström writes in a comment to DN that shares Kristoffer Leandoer’s description of the role of outsiders. At the same time, he adds that what “happened last year belongs to history” since the composition of the Academy has changed since then:
“‘Doing ready-made works’ is a pious expression used when someone was allowed to carry on with what others had created the conditions for. It also fits as a description of the external role in the appearance of the Nobel Prize winners last year, with the difference that we couldn’t know what we were getting into, ”writes Gun-Britt Sundström and continues:
“I share Kristoffer Leandoer’s assessment of the role we gradually acquire in the power game. Perhaps no one at the Academy had foreseen or foreseen it. This was certainly not what the Nobel Foundation had wanted to achieve by forcing the Nobel Committee to include outsiders in its discussions. “
Anders Olsson has declined to comment on Kristoffer Leandoer’s post. Per Wästberg says he holds Leandoer high as a critic and essayist, and that he understands that it can be difficult to come up with new names in discussions of the Nobel Prize.
– But everyone who comes up with new names, as he has, we study them very carefully. We have time to do that. If he didn’t get away with it, it’s because others don’t think they can be in such a high position at the time, says Per Wästberg.
Critic and translator Henrik Petersen has remained a member of the external committee for 2020. He describes this year’s work as “very different” from last year.
“The assignment came unexpectedly for us on the external committee and the situation was new and naturally difficult for the Academy to plan. After a while we landed on collaboration and this year he has felt much more united. Fewer collisions rooted in the need for affirmation, especially with myself! Henrik Petersen writes in an email response.
You external members are finalizing your appointment, how does it feel to leave the Nobel Committee?
“I have loved the work. The uninterrupted reading of world-class contemporary literature has meant even more to me than I thought. But I also hope I can isolate myself, working on two books that I have started. “
Do you think it would be good for the Academy to continue with external members?
“He would be with us in that case! It is a special situation with secrecy, difficult as it is, but even more so if there are more people involved.”
For Nobel Prize discussions, a special secret applies, which has led to challenges during the crown pandemic. The IT policy of the Swedish Academy states that “nothing having to do with the Nobel Prize should be communicated by email. Everything must be taken in analog form or by telephone ”.
Henrik Petersen describes that this year’s work has also changed in practical terms. Meetings have been fewer and, instead, they have sometimes had to be replaced by phone calls where passwords have been used.
“Above all, it has meant more individual work and more written than oral. Everyone sent a note on September 1, the texts were added completely independently of each other, “writes Petersen.
Coronapandemin has, as previously reported, it also affected regular work at the Academy. Meetings were held in the spring by email, but resumed this fall. Members who do not have the opportunity to be physically present can participate with the help of digital solutions, including through a video link.
Nobel ceremonies are also affected by the pandemic. Only a few journalists can be present at the Stock Exchange when the Academy announces the winner next week. It is already known that the Nobel Banquet will be canceled while the award ceremony is held digitally.
“The pandemic has required adjustments at various points, but the work of the Nobel Committee and the Academy has been able to continue according to plan,” Anders Olsson writes in a comment.
