COPENHAGEN: The Swedish Academy asserted that the Nobel Prize in literature will be not awarded this year following sex-abuse allegations and other issues within its ranks that have discolored the body's status and reputation.

The academy in an official statement said on Friday the 2018 prize will be accorded in 2019. The decision was taken at a weekly meeting in Stockholm on the grounds that the academy is in no shape to decide on a winner after an awkward string of sex abuse allegations and financial crimes scandals.

In a statement, the academy said the decision "was arrived at in view of the currently diminished Academy and the reduced public confidence in the Academy."

It will be the first time since wartime 1943 that the high-status and most prominent award is not handed out.

The crisis in the Swedish Academy has badly affected the Nobel Prize. Their decision underscores the weightiness of the situation and will help uphold the long-term reputation of the Nobel Prize.

“ None of this impacts the awarding of the 2018 Nobel prizes in other prize categories,” said chairman of the board, Carl-Henrik Heldin adding that the Nobel Foundation now hopes the Academy to “put all its efforts” into “restoring its credibility”, and called on members to prove “greater openness towards the outside world” in the future perspective.

On a related note Membership of the body was established in 1786 by Swedish king Gustav III, is aimed to be for life, resulting in any resignations leaving an empty chair until the jury member’s death. Following the epidemic of recent resignations, the Swedish king Carl XVI Gustaf announced he would change the academy’s act, allowing new members to be recruited to replace resigning members.