from Ann Kjellberg, Book Post Editor At Book Post we try not to pay too much attention to prizes (or lists), but the news from some of the big ones has been juicy the last few weeks. The grandfather of them all, the Nobel for Literature, was suspended in May after sexual misconduct allegations surfaced against the husband of one of the members of the Swedish Academy, the outfit that selects the winner; the couple, Katarina Frostenson and Jean-Claude Arnault, ran a literary club together in Stockholm where, from the at times torrid accounts, they appear to have exploited their position as literary rain-makers with almost comical wickedness. The formerly august Academy was engulfed in scandal and the Nobel Foundation, keeper of dynamite-maker Alfred Nobel’s millions, withdrew the dough until the Academy cleans up its act. (Those with long memories will recall that Academy member Horace Engdahl, a defender of Arnault who calls his opponents “a clique of bad losers,” a few years ago raised a ruckus by declaring the US too provincial to produce Nobel-worthy writing. Critic Adam Kirsch and New Yorker editor David Remnick, among others, made spirited ripostes.)
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Notebook: August 5, 2018
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from Ann Kjellberg, Book Post Editor At Book Post we try not to pay too much attention to prizes (or lists), but the news from some of the big ones has been juicy the last few weeks. The grandfather of them all, the Nobel for Literature, was suspended in May after sexual misconduct allegations surfaced against the husband of one of the members of the Swedish Academy, the outfit that selects the winner; the couple, Katarina Frostenson and Jean-Claude Arnault, ran a literary club together in Stockholm where, from the at times torrid accounts, they appear to have exploited their position as literary rain-makers with almost comical wickedness. The formerly august Academy was engulfed in scandal and the Nobel Foundation, keeper of dynamite-maker Alfred Nobel’s millions, withdrew the dough until the Academy cleans up its act. (Those with long memories will recall that Academy member Horace Engdahl, a defender of Arnault who calls his opponents “a clique of bad losers,” a few years ago raised a ruckus by declaring the US too provincial to produce Nobel-worthy writing. Critic Adam Kirsch and New Yorker editor David Remnick, among others, made spirited ripostes.)