The announcement took place in Stockholm. The prize is endowed with 920,000 euros and considered the most important literary award in the world. The Academy’s point of reference is Alfred Nobel’s will, which states that the prize should distinguish a writer whose literary work is evidence of a “powerful ideal.” The jury has decided between five finalists, whose names remain secretly for fifty yearsaccording to the strict rules of the Swedish Academy.

Since the #MeToo scandal that affected the Academy in 2018, followed by the controversy over the award to the Austrian Peter Handke due to his defense of the Serbs during the wars of the 1990s in the Balkans, the Swedish Academy has sought to renew itself.

Last year the award went to the Frenchwoman Annie Ernaux, whose work illustrates the emancipation of a woman of modest origin, who became a feminist icon. And the previous year, the British novelist Abdulrazak Gurnah, born in Tanzania, was consecrated, exploring the torments of exile, anti-colonialism and racism.

“In recent years, there is awareness that one cannot remain in one eurocentric perspectivethat more equality is required and that the award reflects its time,” said Carin Franzén, professor of literature at Stockholm University.

Since the creation of the Nobel Prize in Literature, Only 17 women have won the award out of a total of 119 laureates. The latest Nobel winners have been Annie Ernaux (France), Abdulrazak Gurnah (United Kingdom), the poet Louise Glück (United States), Peter Handke (Austria), Olga Tokarczuk (Poland), Kazuo Ishiguro (United Kingdom), the singer Bob Dylan (United States), Svetlana Alexievich (Belarus), Patrick Modiano (France) and Alice Munro (Canada).