Haruki Murakami, the Japanese author, is being considered for the Nobel Prize for Literature. British author Kazuo Ishiguro had won this coveted prize last year.
According to the report in The Japan Times, Haruki Murakami has withdrew his name from the list of contending candidates for this new prize set up as an alternative Nobel Prize for Literature. Earlier, The Nobel Prize for Literature had been postponed after Jean-Claude Arnault was accused of sexual assault and harassment, He’s a cultural icon and husband of academy member Katarina Frostenson who stepped down as a member after the scandal.
While sharing the news of Haruki Murakami‘s decision, The organisers of the New Academy Prize in Literature said that the author apparently expressed his gratitude on being nominated but said that he wanted to ‘concentrate on writing, away from media attention.’
Earlier this year, The Academy declared its decision of postponing the Nobel Prize for Literature following the allegations.
According to a report in CNN, the academy’s permanent secretary, Anders Olsson in a statement had said, “We find it necessary to commit time to recovering public confidence in the academy before the next laureate can be announced.” He had also added that the decision was taken “out of respect for previous and future literature laureates, the Nobel Foundation and the general public.” The next Literature Prize will be announced in 2019.
47 authors were nominated by Sweden’s librarians. Based on the voting results, the forty-seven nominated authors have now been reduced to four finalists. The shortlist is the result of a global online voting campaign where people from all over the world could vote for forty-seven international authors nominated by Swedish librarians. These finalists were Haruki Murakami (Japan), Kim Thúy (Canada), Maryse Condé (France/Guadeloupe), and Neil Gaiman (United Kingdom).
