Gunilla Lundgren, founder of the Nobel in Rinkeby, says that she was recently told that the 2018 Nobel Laureate in literature, Olga Tokarczuk, will not come to Rinkeby during her Sweden visit. Something that Dagens Nyheter was the first to tell.

"It is with all the prize-winners that come here that they receive a great many invitations to all sorts of things this week and then they have to decide for themselves what they can do, what they want to do," writes the Nobel Museum's communications manager in an email to the Cultural News .

- No Nobel Laureate is coming to Rinkeby this year. It's very boring, it's the 31st of the year and during these years it's only been twice, right in the beginning, that no Nobel Laureate has come to us, ”Gunilla Lundgren tells the Culture News.

For 30 years, students in Rinkeby have received visits from the Nobel Laureate in literature, with a few exceptions, such as Bob Dylan. Then came the Nobel Laureate in chemistry, Jean Pierre Sauvage.

Handke was not invited

In mid-November, Nobel in Rinkeby announced that 2019 award-winner Peter Handke was not invited.

"We do not want to involve the children in this big thing about Peter Handke," Gunilla Lundgren told the Culture News in connection with that decision.

Gunilla Lundgren says that they have instead chosen to invite a replacement.

- We think this is a democracy event that our districts also receive this attention they rarely get and that we raise the multilingual as something good. So of course, we are sorry. But we do not give up, we find new solutions and as guest of honor comes Olga Tokarczuk's translator.

- We will do very well.