{"id":3048,"date":"2018-05-05T03:52:55","date_gmt":"2018-05-05T10:52:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/?p=3048"},"modified":"2018-05-05T03:52:55","modified_gmt":"2018-05-05T10:52:55","slug":"sex-abuse-scandals-latest-casualty-the-2018-nobel-prize-in-literature-the-new-york-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/?p=3048","title":{"rendered":"“Sex Abuse Scandal\u2019s Latest Casualty: The 2018 Nobel Prize in Literature”, The New York Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Christina Anderson<\/span> and Richard P\u00e9rez-Pe\u00f1a, May 4, 2018<\/span><\/p>\n

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STOCKHOLM \u2014 A cultural impresario, accused of using his influence to coerce women into having sex. Powerful associates who are said to have covered for him, playing down his misconduct or looking the other way. Newly emboldened victims, who have come forward with accounts of his misbehavior.<\/p>\n

These elements of scandal, by now familiar in the #MeToo era, claimed an unusual casualty on Friday: The Nobel Prize in Literature, the world\u2019s most prestigious accolade for writing.<\/p>\n

The Swedish Academy<\/a>, the 232-year-old panel of writers and scholars that has conferred the prize since 1901, announced<\/a> that it would take the extraordinary step of postponing this year\u2019s award until next year, when it will name two winners \u2014 something it has not done since delaying the 1949 prize, bestowed on William Faulkner in 1950.<\/p>\n

The academy said it would focus on rebuilding public trust, on restoring a reputation tarnished by a wide-ranging scandal<\/a> that has divided Sweden\u2019s normally consensual society and even drawn in the royal family as unwitting players. The academy is involved only in the literature award, so other Nobel Prizes are not affected.<\/p>\n

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At the center of the scandal is Jean-Claude Arnault, a 71-year-old photographer with close ties to the academy stretching over three decades. Mr. Arnault is married to a member of the academy, the poet Katarina Frostenson, and is a close friend of other members. The couple owns the Forum, a well-known cultural center in Stockholm that received funding from the academy.<\/p>\n

In November, the newspaper Dagens Nyheter reported that he had groped, harassed or assaulted at least 18 women over the years.<\/p>\n

Accusers said that Mr. Arnault used his sway in the arts world, including his connections to the academy, to pressure young women into sex, and that some of his offenses took place at academy-owned properties in Stockholm and Paris.<\/p>\n

One woman, the artist Anna-Karin Bylund, says<\/a> she complained about to the academy in 1996 that Mr. Arnault had assaulted her, only to be rebuffed. Another woman, the novelist Gabriella Hakansson, says Mr. Arnault assaulted her in 2007. Just this week, it was reported that Mr. Arnault had groped Crown Princess Victoria,<\/a> heir to Sweden\u2019s throne.<\/p>\n

The police have opened an investigation; through his lawyer, Mr. Arnault has denied any wrongdoing.<\/p>\n

Sara Danius, the first woman to be chosen as the academy\u2019s permanent secretary (essentially, its chief administrator), severed the group\u2019s ties with Mr. Arnault and Forum, and commissioned an investigation by a law firm. Along with sexual misconduct, Mr. Arnault has also been accused of leaking information about prize winners on numerous occasions, potentially profiting bookmakers who wage money on who will win.<\/p>\n

Ms. Danius was not rewarded for her efforts at accountability. Several members of the academy, including some of Ms Danius\u2019s allies, resigned in disgust over the allegations, and Ms. Danius was herself forced out<\/a> from the top post, although she remains a member of the academy. (On the same day, Ms. Frostenson also stepped down.)<\/p>\n

Ms. Danius\u2019s demotion prompted mass protests<\/a> by critics who said that a woman had been scapegoated for the sexual misconduct of a man<\/a>, and that Ms. Danius had been punished for trying to introduce openness and accountability to a group that preferred to close ranks.<\/p>\n

[Read more about the Swedish Academy\u2019s crisis here.<\/em><\/a>]<\/em><\/p>\n

With the academy depleted by resignations, and its secretive workings exposed to unflattering scrutiny, the Nobel Foundation, which manages the industrialist Alfred Nobel\u2019s legacy and oversees all of the awards, stepped in to warn that the scandal risked tarnishing the prizes as a whole.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe crisis in the Swedish Academy has adversely affected the Nobel Prize,\u201d Carl-Henrik Heldin, chairman of the Nobel Foundation, said in a statement<\/a> early Friday. He said that while the award was intended to be awarded yearly, it should be postponed when the group choosing winners had a problem \u201cso serious that a prize decision will not be perceived as credible.\u201d<\/p>\n

Until Friday, the academy had insisted that it was sticking to its usual schedule, winnowing potential laureates to a shortlist by summer and anointing a prize winner in October. \u201cBut confidence in the academy from the world around us has sunk drastically in the past half year,\u201d the acting permanent secretary, the literary scholar Anders Olsson, told Swedish Radio on Friday, \u201cand that is the decisive reason that we are postponing the prize.\u201d<\/p>\n

Another member, the historian Peter Englund, wrote in an email: \u201cI think this was a wise decision, considering both the inner turmoil of the Academy and the subsequent bloodletting of people and competence, and the general standing of the prize. Who would really care to accept this award under the current circumstances?\u201d<\/p>\n

Mats Svegfors, a well-known editor and publisher, now retired, said the affair threatened to damage Sweden as a whole.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen institutions fail that means that gradually we will lose trust, and that means that we lose confidence in our society,\u201d he said. \u201cWhen we realized that the Swedish Academy, that the institution doesn\u2019t work, it hurts our self-perception.\u201d<\/p>\n

Inga-Britt Ahlenius, a former high-level official in the Swedish government and at the United Nations, whose name was floated as someone who could lead an investigation into the scandal, said the academy had \u201cno administrative management, which makes it hard to change or evolve.\u201d She likened the academy to a train \u201cwithout the locomotive.\u201d<\/p>\n

The resignations have left the academy with only 10 active members \u2014 too few, under its rules, to elect new ones.<\/p>\n

Academy appointments are for life, and until this week, the organization\u2019s rules did not provide for resignations; members who quit were treated as merely inactive, but could not be replaced.<\/p>\n

On Wednesday, King Carl XVI Gustaf of Sweden, the academy\u2019s patron, who said he had followed the matter \u201cwith great concern,\u201d announced that he had changed the rules to allow resignations, and to allow the panel to replace any member who had been inactive for two years. It was a rare intervention by the monarch, whose role is mostly ceremonial.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are bringing in legal expertise and we are going to get better at what we do,\u201d said Mr. Olsson, the new acting permanent secretary. \u201cWe must vote in new members, and fast.\u201d He promised increased transparency, and \u201cmore and better dialogue\u201d internally and with both the monarchy and the Nobel Foundation.<\/p>\n

The academy also promised on Friday that \u201croutines will be tightened regarding conflict-of-interest issues and the management of information classified as secret,\u201d and that \u201cinternal work arrangements and external communication will be refreshed.\u201d<\/p>\n

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That was not enough to quell the furor. Kjell Espmark, a historian and one of the academy members who resigned, said he would not return because a more complete purge was needed.<\/p>\n

Events have exposed \u201cthe rot that has taken hold within the academy,\u201d he said. \u201cIts high-minded goals have given way to nepotism, attempts to whitewash serious infractions, broken conflict of interest rules, musty macho values and arrogant bullying.\u201d<\/p>\n

After meeting on Thursday, members of the academy had voiced optimism that the prize could be awarded in October, as usual. The news that the prize would, instead, be postponed prompted speculation that the academy had bowed to pressure from the Nobel Foundation.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Nobel Foundation presumes that the Swedish Academy will now put all its efforts into the task of restoring its credibility as a prize-awarding institution,\u201d Mr. Heldin, the foundation\u2019s chairman said, \u201cand that the academy will report the concrete actions that are undertaken.\u201d<\/p>\n

The academy was founded in 1786 as the arbiter of Swedish language and letters, and was designated by Nobel, in his will, to award the literature prize in his name. It began choosing winners in 1901, and for almost as long, some of its choices have been assailed as politicized, parochial or just misguided.<\/p>\n

The list of prize winners has been heavy on authors, many of them Scandinavian, who are not well-remembered generations later, while the academy has passed over writers like Twain, Tolstoy, Proust and Joyce. In one notorious selection, it bestowed the 1974 prize on two of the academy\u2019s own members, Eyvind Johnson and Harry Martinson, snubbing candidates like Vladimir Nabokov, Jorge Luis Borges and Graham Greene, none of whom ever got the nod.<\/p>\n

The decision to award the Nobel to Bob Dylan in 2016 \u2014 the first American to be so recognized since the novelist Toni Morrison, in 1993 \u2014 was one of the most-debated arts awards in recent memory.<\/p>\n

Christina Anderson reported from Stockholm, and Richard P\u00e9rez-Pe\u00f1a from London.<\/em><\/p>\n

The New York Times<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Christina Anderson and Richard P\u00e9rez-Pe\u00f1a, May 4, 2018 STOCKHOLM \u2014 A cultural impresario, accused of using his influence to coerce women into having sex. Powerful associates who are said to have covered for him, playing down his misconduct or looking the other way. Newly emboldened victims, who have come forward with accounts of his […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1001004,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[53],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3048"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1001004"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3048"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3048\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3049,"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3048\/revisions\/3049"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3048"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3048"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3048"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}