Book lovers fill gap left by tainted prize, but will Nobel be back in 2019?

This weekend, Guadeloupean novelist Maryse Conde arrives in Stockholm to collect the New Academy Prize, the so-called alternative Nobel conjured up by an ad hoc group of Swedish writers and artists as a replacement for the Nobel Prize in Literature. That prize, which is awarded by the Swedish Academy, was canceled this year following a scandal triggered by allegations of sexual harassment by Claude Arnault, husband of academy member Katarina Frostenson.

The organizers of the impromptu New Academy, founded by journalist and author Alexandra Pascalidou, hope that their “people’s choice” prize and the transparent manner by which the winner was ultimately chosen, will help stanch the wound to Sweden’s reputation that the