3 members of Nobel literature prize body to return
COPENHAGEN — Three members who quit the prestigious body that awards the Nobel Prize in Literature amid a scandal and internal feud are returning to the Swedish Academy, saying differences with a member are of less importance than the academy itself, a newspaper reported Thursday.
The Svenska Dagbladet daily says former Academy permanent secretary Sara Danius, Kjell Espmark and Peter Englund will rejoin the secretive 18-member body. They were among seven Academy members who stepped down as a sex-abuse and financial crimes scandal engulfed the body. In May the academy announced that no prize will be awarded this year.
Espmark told the daily “we are ready to help out” with electing new board members, but did not elaborate.
In June, Swedish prosecutors charged the man at the centre of the scandal with two counts of rape of a woman in 2011. Jean-Claude Arnault, a Swedish cultural figure and husband of Academy member Katarina Frostenson, has denied the allegations. Frostenson quit in April, at the same time as Danius.