Klas Östergren made his announcement through Swedish newspaper Svenska Dagbladet on Friday morning:

”The Swedish Academy has for a long time had serious problems and now tried to solve them in a way that allows obscure regards take precedence over its own bylaws and that is a betrayal of its founders and its guardian, not to mention its function to serve the motto talent and taste. Therefore I have chosen to not participate in the institution's activity any longer. ”When leading voices within the Academy put friendship and other irrelevant considerations before the responsibility of this integrity I can no longer participate in its work”, Espmark wrote in a note to Dagens Nyheter. Peter Englund, also an author and historian—as well as previous permanent secretary of the Academy—wrote on his blog:

"Decisions have been made that I neither believe in nor can defend, and I have thus decided to no longer participate in the work of the Swedish Academy." The Academy has been reeling since it was revealed as part of the #MeToo campaign in November that several members, as well as members' wives and daughters, had allegedly been assaulted by the well-known figure at the center of the scandal. The Swedish Academy has been rocked by a series of rows over a scandal that emerged last year, when several women accused a man – who is not a household name in Sweden but has strong ties to the Academy and is a well-known figure on Stockholm's cultural scene – of sexual abuse and harassment. STOCKHOLM (Reuters) - Three members of the Swedish Academy, the body that selects the winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature, have withdrawn from its board in protest over the handling of allegations of sexual misconduct by a man married to another member. Ostergren condemned "a betrayal of the founder and his great protector", referring to the Academy's founder, Swedish King Gustav III, and inventor Alfred Nobel, who left some of his fortune to the institution.
Three members of the Swedish Academy leave their seats after failing to oust another member whose husband is accused of sexual misconduct including raping young female writers.