# New Academy Prize in Literature

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On 17 September 2018, Murakami requested that his nomination be withdrawn, saying he wanted to "concentrate on writing, away from media attention."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) |
| 1 | Maryse Condé (1934-2024) | France | novel, drama, essays |
| 2 | Haruki Murakami (b. 1949) | Japan | novel, short story, essays |
| 3 | Neil Gaiman (b. 1960) | United Kingdom | novel, short story, poetry, screenplay |
| 4 | Kim Thúy (b. 1968) | Vietnam Canada | novel |
| 5 | Margaret Atwood (b. 1939) | Canada | novel, short story, poetry, essays, literary criticism |
| 6 | Paul Auster (b. 1947) | United States | novel, short story, essays, memoirs, poetry, screenplay, translation |
| 7 | Don DeLillo (b. 1936) | United States | novel, short story, drama, screenplay, essays |
| 8 | Kerstin Ekman (b. 1933) | Sweden | novel |
| 9 | Jamaica Kincaid (b. 1949) | Antigua and Barbuda United States | novel, essays, short story |
| 10 | David Levithan (b. 1972) | United States | novel, short story, essays |
| 11 | Cormac McCarthy (1933–2023) | United States | novel, drama, screenplay, short story |
| 12 | Ian McEwan (b. 1948) | United Kingdom | novel, short story, screenplay, drama |
| 13 | Joyce Carol Oates (b. 1938) | United States | novel, drama, poetry, short story, essays, literary criticism |
| 14 | Nnedi Okorafor (b. 1974) | Nigeria United States | novel, short story |
| 15 | Sofi Oksanen (b. 1977) | Finland | novel, drama, poetry, essays |
| 16 | Thomas Pynchon (b. 1937) | United States | novel, short story, essays |
| 17 | Meg Rosoff (b. 1956) | United Kingdom | novel |
| 18 | J. K. Rowling (b. 1965) | United Kingdom | novel, screenplay |
| 19 | Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o (b. 1938) | Kenya | novel, drama, short story, essays |
| 20 | Jeanette Winterson | United Kingdom | novel, short story, memoirs |
| 21 | Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (b. 1977) | Nigeria | novel, short story, essays |
| 22 | Johannes Anyuru (b. 1979) | Sweden | novel, poetry |
| 23 | Silvia Avallone (b. 1984) | Italy | novel, poetry |
| 24 | Nina Bouraoui (b. 1967) | France | novel, short story, songwriting |
| 25 | Anne Carson (b. 1950) | Canada | poetry, essays |
| 26 | Inger Edelfeldt (b. 1956) | Sweden | novel, poetry |
| 27 | Elena Ferrante (b. 1943) | Italy | novel |
| 28 | Jens Ganman (b. 1971) | Sweden | novel, essays, songwriting, screenplay |
| 29 | Siri Hustvedt (b. 1955) | United States | novel, poetry, essays |
| 30 | Jenny Jägerfeld (b. 1974) | Sweden | novel |
| 31 | Jonas Hassen Khemiri (b. 1978) | Sweden | novel, short story, drama, essays |
| 32 | Édouard Louis (b. 1992) | France | novel, essays |
| 33 | Sara Lövestam (b. 1980) | Sweden | novel, short story |
| 34 | Ulf Lundell (b. 1949) | Sweden | novel, poetry, songwriting |
| 35 | Amos Oz (1939–2018) | Israel | novel, short story, essays |
| 36 | Sara Paborn (b. 1972) | Sweden | novel |
| 37 | Agneta Pleijel (b. 1940) | Sweden | novel, poetry, essays, literary criticism |
| 38 | Marilynne Robinson (b. 1943) | United States | novel, essays |
| 39 | Arundhati Roy (b. 1961) | India | novel, essays |
| 40 | Jessica Schiefauer (b. 1978) | Sweden | novel |
| 41 | Jón Kalman Stefánsson (b. 1963) | Iceland | novel, poetry |
| 42 | Patti Smith (b. 1946) | United States | poetry, songwriting |
| 43 | Zadie Smith (b. 1975) | United Kingdom | novel, short story, drama, essays |
| 44 | Peter Stamm (b. 1963) | Switzerland | novel, essays, drama, translation |
| 45 | Sara Stridsberg (b. 1972) | Sweden | novel, drama, essays |
| 46 | Donna Tartt (b. 1963) | United States | novel |
| 47 | Olga Tokarczuk (b. 1962) | Poland | 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 is a grand storyteller. Her authorship belongs to world literature. In her work, she describes the ravages of colonialism and the postcolonial chaos in a language which is both precise and overwhelming. The magic the dream and the terror is as also love constantly present. Fiction and reality overlap each other and people live as much in an imagined world with long and complicated traditions as the ongoing present. Respectfully and with humour she narrates the postcolonial insanity disruption and abuse but also human solidarity and warmth The dead live in her stories closely to the living in a multitudinous world where gender race and class are constantly turned over in new constellations."
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."