Three members return to Swedish Academy after sex scandal

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Three members of the Swedish Academy are returning for the benefit of the scandal-ridden body, which awards the Nobel Prize for Literature, a Swedish media outlet Svenska Dagbladet reported on Thursday.

The Academy has fallen apart since April due to the aftermath of a sex scandal. And this year’s prize-awarding was therefore postponed.

According to the report, Sara Danius, Kjell Espmark and Peter Englund have agreed to come back. The change will raise the headcount at the body sufficient to elect new members. The Swedish Academy originally has 18 permanent members.

"We are ready to help," Espmark was quoted as saying on Svenska Dagbladet, "we have to ask ourselves the question: what is most important, the well-being of the Academy or the personal issue?"

The Academy split amid Sweden's own #MeToo moment, during which 18 women made accusations of sexual assault and harassment against Jean-Claude Arnault, a local cultural influencer and husband of Academy member Katarina Frostenson.

Arnault and Frostenson together run a private cultural club, which had some financial relationships with the Academy. Arnault was also reported tipping off names of some Nobel Prize laureates before the announcement since 1996, although he denied all accusations.

In the “crisis of confidence,” the Academy voted not to dismiss Katarina Frostenson, in response to the public concern of not punishing her for her husband’s alleged wrongdoings.

Three male members quit in protest of such decision, followed by the withdrawals of Sara Danius and Katarina Frostenson as the internal feud continued in the academy.

(Cover: This file photo shows a portrait of Swedish inventor and scholar Alfred Nobel on the speaker's desk at the Nobel Forum in Stockholm, prior to the announcement of the Nobel Prize in Medicine on October 3, 2016. /VCG Photo)

(With input from Reuters and the Associated Press)