The Swedish Academy has now made its decision on the Nobel Prize in literature. This year's winner is the Austrian author Peter Handke. At the same time, the prize for 2018 is awarded to the Polish author Olga Tokarczuk.
There are two worthy Nobel laureates. Tokarczuk is internationally acclaimed for versatile and exciting authorship. Handke is both influential and controversial, with many great novels and also significant as a film director.
The award to Tokarczuk and Handke is presented in the shadow of the deep crisis that the Swedish Academy has been in. Its reputation has been badly damaged by its way of handling the charges and the rape case against Jean Claude Arnault.
The role his wife played in the academy's decision to financially support Arnault's cultural club has been questioned. Personal contradictions and intrigues have resulted in seven members leaving the academy.
Therefore, when the decision was made last year not to award any Nobel Prize in literature , we were many who were grateful for this. As the award has a high international reputation, it is necessary that it be awarded by an institution with high confidence. This was missing from the academy last year.
But the question is whether the Swedish Academy has now regained this confidence?
Certainly, there have been some necessary changes to its statutes, including that a member has the opportunity to leave the academy at their own request. After the drop-offs, new members have also been elected, so that only one chair will be vacant after December 20.
Another news is also the composition of the Nobel Committee, which has produced the proposals for prize winners in literature.
The new thing is that there have also been five external members. Only four of the Swedish Academy's own members have been members of the committee after Horace Engdahl left this assignment.
But this is not enough to restore confidence in the Swedish Academy.
The fact that external members are hired by the Nobel Committee need not be regarded as a strength. It can also be seen as a weakness that the academy does not consider itself to have enough members with the expertise and judgment required for this important assignment.
What would now be needed is that the academy's new members show that they have this competence.
Perhaps even more important is that the Swedish Academy shows that it understands the gravity of the crisis it suffered in connection with the revelations about Jean Claude Arnault's sexual harassment.
As several reviewers have pointed out, it would have been wise if this year they were content to award a single literature award and completely refrained from appointing an award winner for 2018. This would have been a clear and symbolic indication that the academy understood how serious the scandal was.
But the reputation of the Nobel Prize depends not only on the trust of the Swedish Academy as an institution.
It is crucial that the award winners are generally regarded as well-qualified writers. Here it has sometimes failed - the choice of Bob Dylan hardly raised the price.
Therefore, it is important that the literature being awarded has a recognized high quality. We can hope that the election of Peter Handke and, in particular, Olga Tokarzcuk as award winner contributes to this.