The interest of members of the Swedish Academy (the Nobel Prize laureate for literature) is limited to five candidates out of two hundred writers who were betting - with the support of publishers and critics - on the crowning of this award, which will be announced in October.

Usually the countdown to the award begins in this period of the year, when the Swedish Academy members (their number 18) decide to keep the race confined to only five names, without revealing them, which opens the door to a flood of speculation and betting, according to a report by the Spanish newspaper, El Pais. .

This year’s session is of a special nature, given the prevailing atmosphere due to the outbreak of the Coronavirus, and being the first year after the stormy phase that the donor academy went through due to ethical issues and sexual scandals, some of which reached the courts, and because of which the award was canceled in 2018, before being awarded the following year in conjunction With the 2019 award.

The newspaper quoted sources from the Swedish Academy that the preliminary list of the two hundred candidates included dozens of writers, among them the Romanian Mercia Cartarescu, the Hungarian Laslo Karsnahorke, the French Milan Kundera and Nina Lorowe, the Finnish Sophie Oksanen, the Norwegian John Fossey, the Kenyan Ngoji Wathengo, and the Israeli David Grossman.

The newspaper drew the opinions of critics and publishers from Spanish-speaking countries and other countries, who suggested that the award be returned to Mircea Cartaresco, or Laslo Karsnahorke, and they did not exclude the coronation of the Israeli Grossman, or the Syrian poet Adonis, whose name appears several years ago.

According to Spanish poet and translator Paco Orez, a Swedish literature specialist and familiar with the scenes of the Nobel Prize "Anything can happen, and sometimes there is a trade-off between two candidates. A third name is resorted to to settle the dispute."

For the book, candidates with an Anglo-Saxon background, experts - questioned by the newspaper - favor the fortunes of Canadian Anne Carson, Australian Gerald Murnan, British John Banville and literary critic Julian Barnes.

In addition to the Kenyan writer Wengo, other African names are being drawn, among them the Somali novelist Noureddine Farah, 74, who has lived outside his country for a long time, and Nigerian novelist Shimamanda Ngozi Adishi.

The newspaper cited the opinion of Scottish writer William Boyd, who alluded to the possibility of crowning the Spanish writer Javier Marias, whose name has been floating for several years among the most fortunate candidates, or French Eric Orsina, the Americans Jonathan Franzen and Ann Tyler, and the Australian Richard Flanagan and Peter Curry.

For his part, Spanish academic Miguel Science was not excluded from the list of potential candidates this year, the British writer of Indian origin, Salman Rushdie, said that the Swedish Academy is fearful of repercussions due to the anger caused by his novel "Satanic Verses" that were considered offensive to religion in several Islamic countries.

The newspaper also drew the opinion of a publisher - who preferred not to be named - she said that she would prefer the award to be awarded to American writer Stephen King this year, commenting on this possibility, saying, "It will be wonderful; he has done a lot to encourage reading."

The writer Juan Cruz concluded his article by saying that, whether it is a bet or a guess, the Nobel Prize game has become open through literary hustle and bustle in the summer and the curtain falls in the fall, and it is not excluded that the prize will go to an African writer.