Nobel Foundation wants temporary committee to oversee literature award

The Nobel Foundation wants the Swedish Academy to hand over the responsibility for awarding the Nobel literature prize to a new committee, according to a letter seen by newspaper Dagens Nyheter on Friday.

In this file photo taken on May 07, 2005 the gold replica of the Nobel medal is on display during the function of the Replacement of the Nobel Medallion at Shantiniketan, about 200 kms north of Calcutta. [File Photo: VCG]

The Nobel Foundation oversees the Nobel awards and the literature prize is awarded by the Swedish Academy. After a crisis last Spring, following accusations of sexual harassment against a cultural figure with close ties to the Swedish Academy, the illustrious institution decided to postpone the 2018 Nobel Prize in Literature. 

The Nobel Foundation's chairman writes in the letter that last Spring's events have had "a tangibly negative impact on the Nobel Prize's standing, not least internationally".

According to the report published by Dagens Nyheter on Friday, the Foundation believes the Swedish Academy lacks legitimacy and wants to see a new temporary committee that should be made up of new members and be independent of the Academy. It should operate until the Swedish Academy "has been restored in a way that also restores trust".

Dagens Nyheter also cited a response from the Swedish Academy's stand-in permanent secretary, Anders Olsson, which apparently states that the Academy members' ability to appoint a Nobel literature laureate has not been affected by the crisis and that it would be strange to hand that task over to an external committee.

In an email statement to Swedish Television, Olsson wrote that he did not want to comment on the information published by Dagens Nyheter since the letters "are part of an ongoing, internal dialogue between the Academy and the Nobel Foundation which should not be disrupted".