Sex, Financial Scandals Halt 2018 Nobel Prize Award
LAGOS – One
of the greatest feasts in global academia is the annual presentation of Nobel
Prize, considered as the most prestigious award in the world. Winners are
announced every October and the official presentation holds in December in
Sweden and Norway.
Shortly before the final announcement, millions of
people who visit the website of the Nobel Foundation are always overwhelmed
with anxiety on whose name will be fit enough for the annual coveted prize.
But for the first time since 1943, the Prize will
not be awarded this year. No thanks to the sex abuse and financial crimes
scandals involving a member of Swedish Academy, the body that chooses the
winner.
The sex-abuse scandal was linked to Jean-Claude Arnault, a major cultural
figure in Sweden, who is also the husband of poet Katarina Frostenson, an
academy member.
Since its inception, four Africans have so far
received the award. Professor Wole Soyinka was the first Black African to
receive the award in 1986. Others are Naguib Mahfouz, first African Arab
(1988); Nadine Gordimer, first African woman (1991) and J.M Coetzee, a South
African in 2003.
A leading Swedish newspaper published sexual misconduct claims from 18 women
against Arnault, who runs a cultural center the academy used to help fund. The
71-year-old Arnault has denied the allegations, but police say they are
investigating some of them.
Arnault has also been suspected of violating
century-old Nobel rules by leaking names of winners of the prestigious award —
allegedly seven times, starting in 1996. It was however not clear to whom the
names were allegedly disclosed. The academy has since banned Arnault from Nobel
events.
The Nobel Foundation therefore concluded that the
Nobel Prize in literature risks losing its dignity from the scandals.
Mads Rosendahl Thomsen, a literature professor at
Denmark’s Aarhus University, said “it could be sensible” for the academy to
postpone the 2018 literature prize until the internal issues are resolved.
Three members of the 18-strong academy resigned in
protest over a decision not to expel Frostenson, followed days later – amid
protests that women were being made to carry the can for male misbehaviour – by
the permanent secretary, Sara Danius, who had battled in vain to reform it, and
by Frostenson herself.
Sunday
INDEPENDENT ran exclusive interviews with eminent writers
on the recent scandals and the decision to postpone the award till 2019.
Nigerian born Tanure Ojaide, professor at the University of North Carolina at
Charlotte, told our reporter that the decision of the Academy was reasonable to
preserve the value of the prize.
“The Nobel Prize for Literature is the ultimate
literary prize and the Nobel Committee does not want the prize to be tainted.
The Prize this year would have been highly diminished amidst these scandals. I
personally applaud the decision to maintain the integrity of the Nobel
Committee. The Prize will be more appreciated and its winner better honoured
after this move to avoid the perception of corruption and not giving the prize
to those who deserve it. Not giving the Prize out this year is a wise decision.
One year to protect a sacred legacy that started in 1943 is a small prize to
pay to protect literature’s tradition of writing excellence and its role in
human development,” he said.
Mallam Denja Abdullahi, the National President of
the Association of Nigerian Authors (ANA), however disagreed with the
Committee’s decision, claiming that the non-award is not likely related to the
scandals.
“The Nobel Prize for Literature award has always
been ringed with secrecy and mafia-like operational procedure. So, it is bound
to be buffeted with the kind of controversy it is enmeshed in presently. It is
time the secrecy surrounding the administration of the prize is jettisoned for
good and the process liberalized. I found it hard to relate the scandal to the
non-award of the prize this year. They should tell us more how that is
related.”
Abdullahi also told our reporter that the committee
has never been fair to Africa.
“The Nobel committee always disappoints us every
year in Africa and in the third world with the enthroning of obscure writers
and writings and looking the other way from talented and gifted writers in the
third world whose politics they may not like. We sure can wait another year.”
But Ikeogu Oke, winner of 2017 Nigeria Prize for
Literature endorsed the postponement, saying the Committee has displayed rare
sense of credibility.
“It means the Nobel committee is living up to its
moral responsibility. Literature, and the recognition of those who create it, should
have moral components. This type of internal sanitizing by the committee seems
to me to recognise that it can help restore faith in the integrity of the
award.”
Also in the views of Folu Agoi, President, PEN
International, Nigerian Centre, the Committee is expected to reappraise its
operation and policies, especially in the areas of linguistic biodiversity and
cultural realities.
His words: “The development is sad news for
literature, considering the impact of literary prizes, the Nobel prizes in particular,
on literary productions and how much members of the literary community have
been looking forward to the next edition of the prize, despite the dust raised
by some recent decisions of the administrators of the prize. The Bob Dylan
issue is still fresh in many minds. One hopes that the crisis of the Swedish
Academy will serve as a catalyst to transform the system, to instigate a
reappraisal of its operations and possible revision of some of its policies and
attitudes, for instance, with respect to linguistic biodiversity, cultural
realities and choice of literary expression.”
Between 1901, when the first Nobel Prize was
awarded, and 2017, a total of 923 Nobel Prizes have been awarded to individuals
and organisations. Together, they represent a major contribution to the
cultural and scientific history of the world.
There have been 896 prizes awarded to individuals
and 27 to organisations. Only a few recipients have been honoured more than
once, which means that a total of 892 individuals and 24 unique organisations
have received prizes to date.
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