Literary circles which have been engaged in speculation for weeks will be set this Thursday, October 5 at 1:00 p.m. when the Swedish Academy will reveal the lucky winner.
Will the 2023 Nobel Prize in Literature go to a Russian writer or will the Swedish Academy opt for a more discreet Nordic author? The prestigious literature award, awarded on Thursday October 5, could make an overtly political choice, according to experts.
An anti-Putin Nobel?
The name of the Russian novelist and Kremlin opponent Lyudmila Oulitskaya, compared by critics to the giants Leo Tolstoy or John Steinbeck, often comes up in predictions.
Anti-Putin, she has rebelled against Russian political power since the start of the war in Ukraine, denouncing an offensive “insane”.
For Björn Wiman, cultural editor-in-chief of the daily Dagens Nyheter (DN), the Academy would send “a very political message” by distinguishing this author exiled in Germany.
But his heart leans towards Salman Rushdie, anticipated for many years: “It’s about time he won, if that’s the case, I’ll take my hat off to the Academy” because it would salute freedom of expression. The famous British writer is being pursued by a fatwa issued by Iran for his Satanic Verses (1988) and was the victim of a serious attack in August 2022.
A more confidential choice?
The Swedish Academy could also, as it often does, reward a pen less known to the general public, such as that of the avant-garde Chinese writer Can Xue or the Norwegian Jon Fosse, playwright whose plays are the most performed in Europe.
These names, alongside that of Australian writer Gerald Murnane, feature in the top 5 betting sites whose predictions have proven surprisingly correct in recent years.
“But it still remains very difficult to guess and know” how do the members of the Academy decide, who say they do not take current societal or political debates into account when awarding the award, underlines Lina Kalmteg, literary journalist at Swedish Public Radio (SR), to AFP.
And as with the other Nobels, the jury’s deliberations are sealed for 50 years.
Reflection of the times
The members of the Academy take Alfred Nobel’s will as a point of reference: the prize must be awarded to a writer whose literary work has demonstrated “powerful ideal”.
A wish sometimes colored by the geopolitical situation of the world, notes Paul Tenngart, professor of literature at Lund University, in an article.
He takes the example of Ivan Bunin, the first Russian writer to be crowned in 1933, known for his extremely critical texts against the Bolshevik regime and whose work was banned in the USSR until the death of Stalin.
Like every year, the names of other Nobel Prize winners “usual” are circulating, such as the Hungarian Laszlo Krasznahorkai, the Romanian Mircea Cartarescu, the Frenchwoman Maryse Condé, the Kenyan Ngugi wa Thiong’o and the Somalian Nuruddin Farah.
Since the #MeToo scandal which shook the Academy in 2018, followed by the controversy caused by the awarding of the award to the Austrian writer Peter Handke due to his defense of the Serbs during the wars of the 1990s in the Balkans, the cenacle is trying to get a makeover.
Last year, the award went to Annie Ernaux, French author of a work recounting the emancipation of a woman of modest origins, who became a feminist icon.
And the previous edition had crowned the British novelist Abdulrazak Gurnah, born in Zanzibar, who explores the torments of exile, anti-colonialism and anti-racialism.
“In recent years, there is a greater awareness around the fact that we cannot remain in a Eurocentric perspective, that we need more equality, that the price reflects the times,” says Carin Franzén, a literature professor at Stockholm University who hopes to see Canadian poet Anne Carson win the prize this year.
To honor this ambition, the Swedish Academy consults external experts to understand the exact scope of works from other horizons.
In the meantime, the figures show that the road to equality is still long.
Since the creation of the prize in 1901, only 17 women have won the prestigious literary prize, out of a total of 119 winners. And for 16 French winners, an Arabic-speaking author was distinguished: Naguib Mahfouz in 1988 (Egypt).