Nobel prize judges quit over handling of sexual misconduct allegations

With seats on the jury intended to be for life, no one has ever technically left the secretive Swedish Academy – but Peter Englund, Klas Östergren and Kjell Espmark have all resigned

Three members of the secretive committee that selects the winner of the Nobel prize for literature have resigned from the jury in protest at how it has handled the sexual harassment allegations made against a man with close links to the board.

Peter Englund, the former permanent secretary of the Swedish Academy, and the authors Klas Östergren and Kjell Espmark, all separately resigned from the 18-person jury on 6 April. Membership of the Swedish Academy is intended to be for life, so no one has technically left it before; in 1989, three judges quit when the academy did not denounce Iran’s Ayatollah Khomeini’s call for the death of author Salman Rushdie after the publication of The Satanic Verses. At the time, the academy declined to accept their resignations.

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