Posted on October 12, 2019 at 8:00 AM by Sadye Scott-Hainchek
The drama surrounding the Nobel Prize in Literature shows no signs of stopping.
The Irish Times reported Friday that prize organizers are investigating a hoax call received by Irish author John Banville, purporting to be from the Swedish Academy and “informing” him that he’d won the Nobel Prize.
It didn't seem impossible; Banville has won a number of literary prizes, including the Booker Prize, and the calls appeared to be coming from Stockholm.
Of course, at this point, we all know that Olga Tokarczuk and Peter Handke were, in fact, the winners.
And after that announcement was made, Banville received a voicemail claiming that internal tensions had resulted in Banville’s prize being withdrawn and going to one of the other authors.
For his part, Banville believes that the prank was intended to reflect poorly on the Academy, rather than targeting him specifically.
The 2018 prize was awarded belatedly this year, having been put on hold partly because of sexual-harassment allegations against photographer Jean-Claude Arnault, whose wife was on the Nobel committee.
Some of the reported incidents took place occurred at properties owned by the Swedish Academy, which administers the Nobel prizes.
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Categories: Today in Books