The scandal surrounding the Swedish Academy, which awards the Nobel Prize for Literature, is a richer one: The writer Sara Danius gave up her seat at the Academy on Tuesday, after she had already resigned the presidency of the academy barely a year ago as part of an abuse scandal.
"I decided to give up my seat," said the 56-year-old in Stockholm. Belonging to the academy, in the square that once occupied Selma Lagerlöf had been her "honor". The academy said that both sides had reached an appropriate agreement, leaving Danius officially to leave the academy.
Danius said in a statement to the press that she had offered to return to the academy as chairman. However, this had been rejected. "So I decided to leave the academy as a passive member," Danius was quoted as saying. According to the newspaper "Dagens Nyheter" she receives 2.1 million crowns (about 200 000 euros) from the Academy.
Sara Danius resigned from her post as Permanent Secretary to the panel in the wake of the harassment and corruption scandal at the Academy last April. Officially, however, the literary scholar remained a member of the Academy, as their statutes had not provided for withdrawal until then. These rules have since been changed.
Academy apologizes to Danius
The essayist and literature professor Danius was admitted to the academy in 2013. Two years later, she became the Permanent Secretary of the Academy and thus the face of this institution. She was the first woman since the founding of the Academy in 1786, who took over the post. Under her chairmanship in 2016 was the controversial decision to award the singer Bob Dylan with the Nobel Prize for Literature.
Sara Danius will be remembered for her impulses for new ways of thinking and her strong personal presence, the panel said. For the end of her term, there were "factual reasons". Please apologize for "charged polemics" and "mixing different questions".
With her resignation from the presidency of the Academy, Danius had responded to the allegations of abuse against Jean-Claude Arnault, a high-ranking cultural official close to the academy. The newspaper "Dagens Nyheter" had reported that Arnault had harassed or abused 18 female members of the Academy, women or daughters of academicians and employees for years.
In October, Arnault was sentenced to two years in prison for rape of a woman, and in an appeal sentence at the beginning of December, the sentence was increased to two years and six months in prison. Arnault has again appealed, the decision of Sweden's Supreme Court is still pending.
Because of the abuse scandal some Academy members canceled their cooperation, last year the award of the Nobel Prize for Literature had failed. This year, the Academy wants to award the prestigious award for compensation twice.
Three seats in the Academy are currently vacant, as the interim secretary of the Academy, Anders Olsson, announced on Tuesday. These would definitely be occupied by women in order to maintain the "balance between men and women in the academy". In mid-February, the Academy had appointed the Finnish-Swedish poet Tua Forsström as a new member.