The Swedish Academy has announced that the choice for the Nobel Literature Prize would be revealed this Thursday. In a statement published on their website, the Swedish Academy stated that the laureate would be announced at 1:00 pm (11:00 GMT)
“The Swedish academy has decided to announce the name of this year’s Nobel Literature Prize laureate on Thursday, October 5, at 1:00 pm”
This decision is in order for the 18 Academy members to reach a decision following the Bob Dylan debacle, last year. Not only was Dylan the first singer and songwriter to win the prestigious award, he also kept silent about his win for several weeks and refused to show for the formal prize ceremony in Stockholm in December.
The decision of the Academy to award Dylan last year sparked the kind of public opinion and unnecessary publicity the renowned discreet academy is normally keen to avoid.
Literary critic for Swedish daily Svenska Dagbladet, Clemens Poellinger, suggested that the academy will make a very conservative choice this year and predicted that nothing sensational should be expected.
For some time, the Academy has kept its repute for its cloak-and-dagger methods of choosing laureates in order to prevent any leaks, resorting to using codenames for authors and fake book covers for public readings.
As usual, there is speculation about possible winners this same year and the list is still awash with the same names that make rumour annually. Prominent amongst them are kenya’s Ngugi wa Thiong’o, Canadian author Margaret Atwood, Syrian poet Adonis, Israel’s Amos Oz and David Grossman, Philip Roth and Don DeLillo from the United States, Ismail Kadare from Albania and Haruki Murakami of Japan.
Nine million Swedish kronor which is estimated around $1.1 million or 937,000 euros is the amout of money that comes with the prize.