The New Academy Prize in Literature was established in 2018 as an alternative to the Nobel Prize in Literature, which was not awarded in 2018 and instead postponed until 2019. The winner was announced on 12 October 2018, the prize being given to the Guadeloupean-French author Maryse Condé, who was praised by the jury as a "grand storyteller [whose] authorship belongs to world literature, describing the ravages of colonialism and the postcolonial chaos in a language which is both precise and overwhelming."
The New Academy was formed as non-profit organization in 2018, not affiliated with either the Nobel Foundation or the Swedish Academy, and was dissolved in December 2018, with its "alternative Nobel" remaining a one-off award.
Nominations Following an open invitation to the world, calling for public votes for 47 candidates nominated by Swedish librarians, the New Academy announced that the four finalists for the prize were Maryse Condé, Neil Gaiman, Haruki Murakami, and Kim Thúy. There were 12 nominees each from Sweden and the United States, five from United Kingdom, three each from France and Canada, and two each from Italy and Nigeria.
On 17 September 2018, Murakami requested that his nomination be withdrawn, saying he wanted to "concentrate on writing, away from media attention."
List of nominees for the New Academy Prize in Literature No. Nominee Country Genre(s)1Maryse Condé (1934–2024)novel, drama, essays2Haruki Murakami (b. 1949)novel, short story, essays3Neil Gaiman (b. 1960)novel, short story, poetry, screenplay4Kim Thúy (b. 1968)novel5Margaret Atwood (b. 1939)novel, short story, poetry, essays, literary criticism6Paul Auster (1947–2024)novel, short story, essays, memoirs, poetry, screenplay, translation7Don DeLillo (b. 1936)novel, short story, drama, screenplay, essays8Kerstin Ekman (b. 1933)novel9Jamaica Kincaid (b. 1949)novel, essays, short story10David Levithan (b. 1972)novel, short story, essays11Cormac McCarthy (1933–2023)novel, drama, screenplay, short story12Ian McEwan (b. 1948)novel, short story, screenplay, drama13Joyce Carol Oates (b. 1938)novel, drama, poetry, short story, essays, literary criticism14Nnedi Okorafor (b. 1974)novel, short story15Sofi Oksanen (b. 1977)novel, drama, poetry, essays16Thomas Pynchon (b. 1937)novel, short story, essays17Meg Rosoff (b. 1956)novel18J. K. Rowling (b. 1965)novel, screenplay19Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o (1938–2025)novel, drama, short story, essays20Jeanette Winterson (b. 1949)novel, short story, memoirs21Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (b. 1977)novel, short story, essays22Johannes Anyuru (b. 1979)novel, poetry23Silvia Avallone (b. 1984)novel, poetry24Nina Bouraoui (b. 1967)novel, short story, songwriting25Anne Carson (b. 1950)poetry, essays26Inger Edelfeldt (b. 1956)novel, poetry27Elena Ferrante (b. 1943)novel28Jens Ganman (b. 1971)novel, essays, songwriting, screenplay29Siri Hustvedt (b. 1955)novel, poetry, essays30Jenny Jägerfeld (b. 1974)novel31Jonas Hassen Khemiri (b. 1978)novel, short story, drama, essays32Édouard Louis (b. 1992)novel, essays33Sara Lövestam (b. 1980)novel, short story34Ulf Lundell (b. 1949)novel, poetry, songwriting35Amos Oz (1939–2018)novel, short story, essays36Sara Paborn (b. 1972)novel37Agneta Pleijel (b. 1940)novel, poetry, essays, literary criticism38Marilynne Robinson (b. 1943)novel, essays39Arundhati Roy (b. 1961)novel, essays40Jessica Schiefauer (b. 1978)novel41Jón Kalman Stefánsson (b. 1963)novel, poetry42Patti Smith (b. 1946)poetry, songwriting43Zadie Smith (b. 1975)novel, short story, drama, essays44Peter Stamm (b. 1963)novel, essays, drama, translation45Sara Stridsberg (b. 1972)novel, drama, essays46Donna Tartt (b. 1963)novel47Olga Tokarczuk (b. 1962)novel, short story, poetry, essay, screenplay
The winner The New Academy Prize in Literature was awarded to Maryse Condé. The jury said in its citation:
Maryse Condé received the prize on 10 December 2018 at a ceremony at Berns salonger in Stockholm. The prize sum, 320 000 Swedish crowns, was created through crowdfunding and sponsorship.
Condé, a writer from Guadeloupe, was particularly noted for her novels Segu (1984), Tree of Life: A Novel of the Caribbean (1987) and Windward Heights (1995). When Condé died in 2024, The Guardian obituary of her noted that she had considered this award an especially important achievement and that she had dedicated the prize to all the people of Guadeloupe, saying: "We are such a small country, only mentioned when there are hurricanes or earthquakes and things like that. Now we are so happy to be recognised for something else."
Reactions The establishment of the prize caused several negative reactions in Swedish media, some criticizing the New Academy's intention to award "morally good literature" and cultural journalist Göran Sommardal called the prize "pathetic". Swedish author Ulf Lundell, himself one of the 47 nominees for the prize, said he thought that "no author of any self-preservation will accept it". Internationally, reactions were more positive, Alison Flood wrote in The Guardian: "Perhaps the most striking detail of all is found not in the names, but the fine print. The New Academy is enforcing a gender quota on the shortlist stage, stipulating that it comprises two men and two women. How different this is to the Nobel, which counts among its 114 winners just 14 women", and also praised the nomination process of public votes: "How open. How inclusive."
References
External links The New Academy