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Swedish King Wants to Let Nobel Body Members Resign


FILE - Permanent Secretary of the Swedish Academy Sara Danius announces the 2016 Nobel Prize in Literature during a presser at the Old Stockholm Stock Exchange Building in Stockholm, Sweden, Oct. 13, 2016.
FILE - Permanent Secretary of the Swedish Academy Sara Danius announces the 2016 Nobel Prize in Literature during a presser at the Old Stockholm Stock Exchange Building in Stockholm, Sweden, Oct. 13, 2016.

Sweden's king wants to change the statutes of the Swedish Academy, which awards the Nobel Literature Prize each year, to allow its life-appointed board members to resign.

Academy head Sara Danius stepped down last week amid turmoil at the academy over the alleged sexual misconduct of a man married to an academy board member, Swedish poet Katarina Frostenson.

The latter left the academy when Danius withdrew. A week earlier, three male members had resigned over the academy's vote not to remove Frostenson.

King Carl XVI Gustav — the body's patron who must approve any of its secret votes — said Wednesday "that anyone who no longer wishes to be a member of an association should be able to withdraw."

Members of the 18-seat board now are not technically permitted to leave.

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