There won’t be a Nobel Prize in Literature this year but the Swedish Academy that awards the prestigious prize is still in the limelight.
Jean-Claude Arnault, a French citizen who is a major cultural figure in Sweden, is at the centre of a sex abuse and financial crime scandal that has tarnished the academy and forced it to take a year off in its deliberations.
The 72-year-old is now on trial in Stockholm, facing two counts of rape of a woman seven years ago. A verdict in his case is expected on Monday, the same day that the 2018 Nobel Prize announcements kick off with the Karolinska Institute announcing who wins the Nobel award in physiology or medicine.