Polish author Olga Tokarczuk and Austrian author Peter Handke have been awarded the Nobel Literature Prize for 2018 and 2019, respectively, the Swedish Academy announced on Thursday.
Anders Olsson of the Swedish Academy said they receive close to 200 nominations every year, and this year it shortlisted eight people, from which Tokarczuk and Handke were chosen. The decision-making process is kept secret.
The academy has widened its perspective from a more eurocentric and male-oriented one earlier, Olsson said.
According to The Guardian, the favourites for this year’s prizes included Canadians Margaret Atwood and poet Anne Carson, Maryse Condé from Guadeloupe, Japanese author Haruki Murakami and Kenyan writer Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o.
There are two laureates this year after allegations of corruption and sexual assault shook the Swedish Academy, leading to the cancellation of the prize in 2018 for the first time in nearly 70 years.
The move also led to the formation of the New Academy which put forth its own prize as the alternative Nobel which Maryse Condé won last year.
India’s Rabindranath Tagore was the first non-European Laureate of the Nobel Literature Prize when he was awarded the prize in 1913.
The academy’s decision to award the 2016 prize to singer-songwriter Bob Dylan was seen as a highly controversial.