EYES ON THE PRIZE

Rape Charges Filed in Swedish Nobel Prize Scandal

The scandal that shook the Swedish Academy will now be argued in court.

A Swedish prosecutor announced Tuesday that she would bring rape charges against Jean-Claude Arnault—the man who ignited an abuse scandal in the Swedish Academy and derailed the awarding of the 2018 Nobel Prize in Literature, according to The New York Times. Rape allegations against Arnault surfaced last November, with accusers saying he used his status as a “cultural gatekeeper” and “sway in the arts world” to “pressure young women in the arts into sex,” reports the Times. After the allegations emerged, the Academy (which included his wife, Katarina Frostenson) descended into infighting so fractious that it failed to award a Nobel Prize in Literature for the first time in 69 years. Most of the allegations against Arnault occurred too long ago to be prosecuted under Swedish law—but he was charged Tuesday for two rape allegations from 2011, both of which came from the same woman. “I think my evidence is so good that I have to indict him,” said senior public prosecutor Christina Voigt.