Can She Help Restore Trust in the Nobel Prize for Literature?

Because the literature prize has been a stuffy boys club for too long.
Why you should care
Because the literature prize has been a stuffy boys club for too long.
By Alison Langley
The Daily DoseFEB 17 2019|
Mikaela Blomqvist prefers reading quietly with a cup of tea and distances herself from the daily gossip within the small, insular cultural scene in Sweden. But that doesn’t mean the well-known, 31-year-old literary critic doesn’t have opinions. She just prefers to deliver them in assured, measured tones.
That might be why the Swedish Academy tapped Blomqvist of the Göteborgs-Posten — Sweden’s second-largest paper — to be on the committee that will recommend the next winner of the Nobel Prize in literature. It’s a major leap for Blomqvist.
“This seems like a very perfect job. To be able to read a lot and especially if you get to discuss [books] with competent people,” she says, seemingly oblivious to the importance of her task.
She’s not nervous about joining the literati, but does acknowledge that she’ll have to work harder, perhaps read more, to be taken seriously.
It’s the first time since the prize was first awarded in 1901 that nonmembers will join the prestigious committee that chooses — on behalf of the Nobel Foundation — the world’s highest honor in literature. The foundation has insisted on the change in the hopes that new members will restore trust after the academy was rocked by its own #MeToo moment and other scandals last year. And by adding young members (Blomqvist is joined by Rebecka Kärde, 27), the foundation hopes to rebut criticism that its laureates are too male and too mainstream.
Last year, Frenchman Jean-Claude Arnault, 72, who is married to Swedish poet and now ex-academy member Katarina Frostenson, was accused of sexually assaulting nearly 20 women, including the academy’s secretary. Arnault was found guilty on two counts of assault and sentenced to two and a half years in prison. Arnault and Frostenson are also accused of misusing academy funds, and an internal investigation found that Frostenson told her husband the names of at least seven past winners early so he could place large bets in Paris. The academy has said it “regrets” the incidents.
In the aftermath, eight of “The Eighteen,” as academy members refer to themselves, resigned or, in the case of Frostenson, were pushed out. Discredited and without a quorum, the academy was not allowed to nominate a literature prize last year. It hopes to name winners for 2018 and 2019 in October if the Nobel Foundation agrees.
Lars Heikensten, the Nobel Foundation CEO, said in a statement that selecting new members “means that a distance is created for the events of the past year,” and the academy “is clearly on the way to regaining its credibility.” Anders Olsson, the new permanent secretary who’s in charge of scrubbing away the memories of last year, pledges to improve communication with the public, make the academy’s work more transparent and enhance the ethical conduct of members.
Blomqvist downplays the pressure of being tapped to help restore confidence in the Nobel Prize in literature. Instead, she modestly plays up her strengths: She speaks and reads English, German and Spanish, and occasionally moderates panel discussions with authors at the Literature House in her hometown of Göteborg.