Complex sentence: The choice for Eyvind Johnson and Harry Martinson was very controversial as both were on the Nobel panel themselves and Graham Greene, Saul Bellow and Vladimir Nabokov were the favored candidates that year.
Split into simpler sentences: The choice for Eyvind Johnson and Harry Martinson was very controversial as both were on the Nobel panel. They and Graham Greene, Saul Bellow and Vladimir Nabokov were the favored candidates that year.