Anders Olsson, the acting permanent secretary of the Swedish Academy, announced that the Swedish Academy is postponing the award of 2018 Nobel literature prize: ReutersThe Swedish Academy says no Nobel in Literature in 2018 as 'it is coming to terms with an unprecedented fallout.'
The Guardian said the Academy is 'mired in controversy over its links to a man accuse of sexual assault'.
This is the first no-announcement in 75 years.
Two winners will be announced in 2019.
The issue pertains to sexual assault allegations against French photographer Jean-Claude Arnault, the husband of Academy member and poet Katarina Frostenson.
The Academy says the time will be used to recover public confidence.
Other instances
In the history of the Nobel Foundation, the Nobel Prize for Literature was not awarded in 1914, 1918, 1935, 1940, 1941, 1942 and 1943.
Of this, 1914 and 1918 were the years when the world was crumbling under the weight of World War I (1914-1918).
The Academy chose to restrain the prizes in these years.
The same repeated in 1940, 1941, 1942, and 1943, the years when the powers of the day waged the disastrous World War II (1939-1945).
In 1935, there was no Nobel for literature as the Academy Board concluded that none of the nominations met the standards prescribed by the founder Alfred Nobel. One-third of the prize money was allocated to the Main Fund and the rest to the Special Fund of the prize section.
Even the next year, in 1936, though Eugene O'Neill was chosen for the prize he received his Nobel Prize one year later, in 1937.
During the selection process in 1936, the Nobel Committee for Literature had decided that none of the year's nominations met the criteria as outlined in the will of Alfred Nobel.
According to the Nobel Foundation's statutes, the Nobel Prize can, in such a case, be reserved until the following year, and this statute was then applied. Eugene O'Neill, therefore, received his prize for 1936 one year later, in 1937.
