- I got the question last Saturday, it was quite surprising!
I was so totally blown away by the chair that it took a while before it landed, says Ingrid Carlberg.
Ingrid Carlberg comes from a background as a journalist and non-fiction writer, and has written a book about Alfred Nobel and the Nobel Prize.
She sees her new assignment as honorable, important and responsible.
What do you think you can bring to the Academy?
- Hard to say but I hope that I will be able to contribute to strengthening the role of non-fiction in literature.
I think it has a very important role to play in society today ... so as to highlight it both as enjoyable reading and as a genre that tries to portray reality based on facts.
How do you see the power that will be included in the Swedish Academy?
- I have not even reflected on it.
I hope I can remain my ordinary self, I'm not that interested in power.
"It's about literature"
Steve Sem-Sandberg, who was also asked this weekend, has not thought that the new role involves power, but sees it as a position of trust.
- For me, this is an assignment that is about literature.
To read, interpret, understand and nurture and protect it.
I have read for almost my entire life.
I intend to continue to do so in the Academy as well.
There is nothing more important to me, he says.
There have been storms around the Academy in recent years. Do you have any worries now that you are going to join?
- I do not want to comment on it before I even set foot in the Stock Exchange.