Saturday they held the annual end-of-year bash at the Nobel Prize in Literature-deciding Swedish Academy, complete with royalty in attendance; see the whole overview (in Swedish ...) of the events, announcements, and festivities.
They make a lot of year-end announcements, including the awarding of many prizes and much money (nice to see among them: Peter Weiss-widow Gunilla Palmstierna-Weiss taking the Svenska Akademiens kungliga pris), and Gentlemen-author Klas Östergren took his seat (Stol nr 11) among 'the eighteen' -- see also his lecture-speech on taking his seat.
More Nobel-relevant: after six years, Peter Englund is stepping down as permanent secretary -- the guy in charge of the Swedish Academy's Nobel duties (and the one who comes through the doors and makes the announcement who won the prize on that Thursday in October). Taking his place will be Sara Danius -- the new girl on the block, who took her seat exactly a year ago.
First off, it's important to note that Englund isn't stepping down immediately: his term ends 31 May, which means he'll still be overseeing the early 2015 Nobel work, right through the selection of the longlist and then the final list of five or so 'priority candidates' -- the shortlist, as it were. Only then does Danius take over the reins. (See also Englund's post, Mitt sista halvår, at his Att vara ständig-weblog for more details -- and let's hope Danius starts her own weblog, too.)
The permanent secretary isn't (necessarily) a decisive figure in the selection of the Nobel candidate -- they like to present this as a group-effort, after all -- but certainly there's some room for influence, and so it's interesting to speculate how Danius' background might play a role in future Nobel decisions.
Her Swedish Academy biography is fairly detailed: disappointingly, she's an academic, rather than a creative writer (though: "she worked for a couple of years as a card dealer and croupier at a casino in Stockholm"); interestingly, she: "spent almost all the 1990s in the USA" (she has a PhD from Duke, where she studied under Fredric Jameson). An "extended version of her thesis" was published as The Senses of Modernism: Technology, Perception, and Aesthetics; see the Cornell University Press publicity page, or get your copy at Amazon.com or Amazon.co.uk. (Den blå tvålen sounds more intriguing ("Texten vibrerar av idéer och infall", said the Svenska Dagbladet review) -- it'll be interesting to see if this gets picked up in English now; see the Bonniers publicity page.) Born in 1962, she is also the second-youngest of the Swedish Academy eighteen -- though practically the same age as Englund was when he took over the duties.
Finally, Swedish Academy director Kjell Espmark gave the big speech of the evening -- and began with the words:
They make a lot of year-end announcements, including the awarding of many prizes and much money (nice to see among them: Peter Weiss-widow Gunilla Palmstierna-Weiss taking the Svenska Akademiens kungliga pris), and Gentlemen-author Klas Östergren took his seat (Stol nr 11) among 'the eighteen' -- see also his lecture-speech on taking his seat.
More Nobel-relevant: after six years, Peter Englund is stepping down as permanent secretary -- the guy in charge of the Swedish Academy's Nobel duties (and the one who comes through the doors and makes the announcement who won the prize on that Thursday in October). Taking his place will be Sara Danius -- the new girl on the block, who took her seat exactly a year ago.
First off, it's important to note that Englund isn't stepping down immediately: his term ends 31 May, which means he'll still be overseeing the early 2015 Nobel work, right through the selection of the longlist and then the final list of five or so 'priority candidates' -- the shortlist, as it were. Only then does Danius take over the reins. (See also Englund's post, Mitt sista halvår, at his Att vara ständig-weblog for more details -- and let's hope Danius starts her own weblog, too.)
The permanent secretary isn't (necessarily) a decisive figure in the selection of the Nobel candidate -- they like to present this as a group-effort, after all -- but certainly there's some room for influence, and so it's interesting to speculate how Danius' background might play a role in future Nobel decisions.
Her Swedish Academy biography is fairly detailed: disappointingly, she's an academic, rather than a creative writer (though: "she worked for a couple of years as a card dealer and croupier at a casino in Stockholm"); interestingly, she: "spent almost all the 1990s in the USA" (she has a PhD from Duke, where she studied under Fredric Jameson). An "extended version of her thesis" was published as The Senses of Modernism: Technology, Perception, and Aesthetics; see the Cornell University Press publicity page, or get your copy at Amazon.com or Amazon.co.uk. (Den blå tvålen sounds more intriguing ("Texten vibrerar av idéer och infall", said the Svenska Dagbladet review) -- it'll be interesting to see if this gets picked up in English now; see the Bonniers publicity page.) Born in 1962, she is also the second-youngest of the Swedish Academy eighteen -- though practically the same age as Englund was when he took over the duties.
Finally, Swedish Academy director Kjell Espmark gave the big speech of the evening -- and began with the words:
Litteraturkritiken befinner sig i kris, en allvarligare kris än någonsin tidigare.In Sweden, too, apparently, newspapers and magazines have less space and money for, and less interest in book coverage .....
[Literary criticism finds itself in crisis, in a more serious crisis than ever before.]