As the Nobel Prize season has begun, the stage is stage on Thursday for the literary world to welcome a new laureate. However, the event holds an extra edge given the recent controversies surrounding the award.
In 2018 the award was postponed after sex abuse allegations rocked the Swedish Academy and sparked a mass exodus of members.
The allegations led to the revamp of the academy to gain trust of the Nobel Foundation. In 2019, two laureates were named, with the 2018 prize going to Poland’s Olga Tokarczuk and the 2019 award to Austria’s Peter Handke.
Handke, who is a strong supporter of the Serbs during the 1990s Balkan wars and is also known as an an apologist for Serbian war crimes ignited protests against his prize.
Several countries including Albania, Bosnia and Turkey boycotted the Nobel awards ceremony in protest, and a member of the committee that nominates candidates for the literature prize resigned.
Looking at the nominations now, it can be said that the academy is looking at harmonious contenders like Kenya’s Ngugi Wa Thiong’o, Canadian poet Anne Carson and Japanese novelist Haruki Murakami.