And it came to pass.
The Nobel Literature committee has finally announced that this year’s prize is on hold. According to it, next year two winners would be announced to make up for this year’s suspension. It is the first time since 1948 during World War II when no winner was announced.
In the last two weeks when the scandal broke, I wrote about it and hinted at this possibility. The suspension is to make the committee get its acts together and save the prize from being tarnished. I stand with the committee because it is not in any doubt that it is the world’s leading literary prize which literary aficionados look forward to every October. So what it means is that this October many of us would not need to be on the lookout and worry ourselves whether Ngugi wa Thiongo, Ayi Kwei Armah or some other obscure or distant writer would win the prize.
With this suspension is there anyone still in doubt that sex is the real weapon of mass destruction (WMD)? In literature as in real life we can count millions of individuals across the two genders that sex has catapulted to the zenith of life endeavours and as many that it has brought down.
The Nobel Literature committee has confirmed that sex has the power. How this would affect the credibility of the selection process is what the committee has tried to save. If a winner is to be announced later this October I am sure many would have questioned the choice and the winner may perhaps also decide to turn down the award, this might happen if the winner is well known and the committee may have eggs on its face.
So to save itself it decided to shelve the award this year. In announcing this, Carl-Henrik Heldin, chairman of the Nobel Foundation, which governs all of the prizes, said at the weekend that “The crisis in the Swedish Academy has adversely affected the Nobel Prize. Their decision underscores the seriousness of the situation and will help safeguard the long-term reputation of the Nobel Prize.”
However, this is only applicable to the Literature Prize because the other prizes have not been affected. This is May and the committee had to announce this on time as a way to demonstrate the integrity of the Prize and show that it is above board and does not support injustice because most of the prize winners have been writers who preach justice and stand for fairness and societal wellbeing.
I honestly don’t know how Jean-Claude Arnault, the man at the centre of this world controversy is feeling at this time. What does it mean to be in the news on the world stage for all the wrong reasons? A few writers who would have been looking towards October hoping and praying that one of them would be announced as the winner would now no longer expect this and have to wait for another year.
But does postponing the announcement of a winner and doing so next year by announcing two winners take away the shine from the Prize?
For a winner I don’t think it matters even if only for the honour it confers and the expected soaring of sales of books, autographs, celebrity status and lots of speaking engagements with the huge honorarium it earns. I hope with this the Nobel Academy has been able to save the integrity of this world icon from the real WMD.