Nobel prize in literature sets sights on diversity after year of scandal

Maryse Condé and Margaret Atwood among those tipped for the prize as Swedish Academy aims to restore its shattered reputation

Next week, the Swedish Academy will announce not one Nobel literature laureate but two, as the prize seeks to move on from a year of unprecedented scandal. The head of the award’s committee is confident the prize can make a comeback by avoiding the “male-oriented” and “Eurocentric” perspective that has dominated judging in the past.

The Nobel prize in literature was postponed last year after a sexual abuse and financial misconduct scandal, which led to a series of resignations at the Swedish Academy, which runs the award. Jean-Claude Arnault, whose wife Katarina Frostenson was a member of the Academy until she quit in January over breaches of secrecy, was convicted of rape in October 2018 and jailed for two years.

It will take time to regain trust and respectability

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