Nobel award committee members quit

Two external members of the Nobel literature prize committee quit on Monday after criticizing the scandal-hit Swedish Academy.

The 233-year-old Academy was forced to introduce several new measures after a sex scandal involving the husband of a former member escalated into a bitter row that meant it had to postpone the 2018 award.

External members were added to assist the Nobel committee in choosing candidates. Author Kristoffer Leandoer said he was leaving because he had “neither the patience nor the time” to wait for the committee to complete its reforms.

“The Academy and I have a different perspective on time, one year is far too long in my life and far too short in the life of the Academy,” he wrote in an article in Svenska Dagbladet newspaper.

Leandoer said his decision was not linked to the decision to award the 2019 prize to controversial Austrian writer Peter Handke, for which the Academy has received criticism both domestically and internationally.

But Gun-Britt Sundstrom said in a statement published in Dagens Nyheter newspaper that the choice of Handke had been interpreted as if literature stood above politics and she did not share that view.

Handke has been heavily criticized for his portrayal of Serbia as a victim during the Balkan wars and for attending the funeral of former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic. Milosevic died in 2006 in The Hague, where he was about to stand trial for war crimes.

After these two members left the Nobel committee, it was comprised of four members of the Academy and five external members until Monday.