The press release is kept very short. In consultation with the Nobel Foundation, the Swedish Academy has decided to form a new committee to award the Nobel Prizes in 2019 and 2020. The surprise is that in addition to five members of the Academy, five external experts are also allowed to co-decide on the next two Nobel Prize winners.
This opening of the decision-making body is obviously a consequence of the scandal surrounding the husband of Academician Katerina Frostenson, Jean-Claude Arnault. Arnault has been charged with rape, and he is also suspected of having previously divulged the names of winners. An indirect consequence of the scandal was that the award of the Nobel Prize for literature was suspended for 2018.
The Nobel Foundation, which manages the estate of its original founder, Alfred Nobel, set conditions in the summer that would have to be met by the Swedish Academy so that it could continue to be responsible for awarding the most prestigious literary award in the world. Otherwise, another committee could take over the award.
According to the newspaper "Dagens Nyheter", who first reported on the new prize committee, one of these conditions was that external experts should also be included in the decision. First of all, according to the newspaper report, the academy and its permanent secretary, Anders Olsson, have still banned it - but that's what happens.
The five Academy members on the committee are Horace Engdahl, Kristina Lugn, Anders Olsson, Jesper Svenbro, and Per Wästberg, who will chair the committee.
Appointed as external experts were: 31-year-old literary and theater critic Mikaela Blomqvist, 56-year-old Kristoffer Leandoer - a connoisseur of French and fantasy literature, 45-year-old translator Henrik Petersen, 73-year-old novelist Gun-Britt Sundström, as well as the only 27 years old critic Rebecka Kärde, living in Berlin.