SWEDEN
NPR
SCOTT NEUMAN
The head of the Swedish Academy, the august body that awards the Nobel Prize for Literature, has stepped down after criticism of the institution’s handling of a sexual abuse scandal.
“It was the wish of the Academy that I should leave my role as Permanent Secretary,” Permanent Secretary Sara Danius, the first woman to head the Academy, told reporters. “I have made this decision with immediate effect.”
The controversy stems from allegations of sexual assault and harassment against Jean-Claude Arnault, the husband of one of the Academy’s members, Katarina Frostenson.
As NPR’s Colin Dwyer reported earlier this week, “Those allegations first surfaced when the #MeToo movement hit Sweden last November, and the Stockholm daily Dagens Nyheter reported that the man — whom the newspaper has identified only as ‘Cultural Profile’ — had allegedly sexually assaulted or harassed at least 18 women over the past two decades.”
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