The members of the Swedish Academy emphasize that literature – not politics – decides which author receives the Nobel Prize. However, global political considerations are still given great weight both in pre-speculations and in the reception of the prize winner.
This year, the Nobel Prize cannot go to a Russian author, not even to a regime-critical one, emphasizes Johan Hilton, cultural editor at Göteborgs-Posten, to the French news agency AFP. According to his reasoning, even an outspoken Putin critic like the long-tipped Ljudmila Ulitskaja would be unthinkable.
It's politically impossible. I would be very surprised, he says to the news agency AFP.
After French Annie Ernaux and Norwegian Jon Fosse, many are tipping a non-European author, preferably a woman. But Mikael van Reis, former cultural editor at Göteborgs-Posten, suggests a male European instead.
Invaluable
In SvD, van Reis highlights Hungarian Péter Nádas, whose chances were further strengthened after the latest work in Swedish translation: Nádas' 1,200-page long autobiography "Illuminated Details" is described as invaluable literature about the individual in authoritarian systems.
My firm conviction is that this committee and this academy cannot overlook a giant like Péter Nádas, he says to SvD.
After the great academic crisis, only one former member of the Nobel Committee remains, Chairman Anders Olsson. In addition to the permanent secretary Mats Malm, Anders Olsson has had the four authors Ellen Mattson, Steve Sem-Sandberg, Anne Swärd, and Anna-Karin Palm to help him select candidates for the so-called shortlist. It is from this that the Academy has now chosen this year's prize winner.
Does Not Want
Among the favorites for a long time is poet and professor of ancient Greek, Canadian-American Anne Carson, as well as Jamaica Kincaid, who came to the USA as a 16-year-old au pair. She has at least previously said to SVT's "Babel" that she does not want the Nobel Prize.
Why would I? It's not like oxygen or water.
Of 120 prize winners, only 17 have been women, of whom 8 have received the prize in the last 20 years.
30 English-speaking authors have received the Nobel Prize in Literature, 16 French-speaking, two Chinese-speaking, and one Arabic-speaking: Naguib Mahfouz in 1988.
This year, the prize money amounts to eleven million kronor.
2023 Jon Fosse, Norway
2022 Annie Ernaux, France.
2021 Abdulrazak Gurnah, United Kingdom/Zanzibar
2020 Louise Glück, USA.
2019 Peter Handke, Austria.
2018 Olga Tokarczuk, Poland.
2017 Kazuo Ishiguro, United Kingdom/Japan.
2016 Bob Dylan, USA.
2015 Svetlana Aleksijevitj, Belarus.
2014 Patrick Modiano, France.
