Nobel Literature Prize 2025: Experts Predict Western Male Author Following Han Kang's Historic Win

The Nobel literature prize announcement scheduled for Thursday is anticipated to recognize a male author from the Western world, according to expert predictions following South Korean writer Han Kang's historic win last year as the first Asian woman to receive this prestigious honor.

Should the Swedish Academy select another female recipient this year, it would create an unprecedented scenario in Nobel literature history, as no two women have ever won in consecutive years. The gender disparity among laureates remains stark, with women accounting for just 18 out of 121 winners since the prize's inception in 1901.

Stockholm literary critics speaking to AFP expect a Western male author to receive the accolade this time, mentioning Australia's Gerald Murnane, Romania's Mircea Cartarescu, Hungary's Laszlo Krasznahorkai and Peter Nadas as potential recipients, alongside Swiss postmodernist Christian Kracht.

Betting sites currently show Murnane and Krasznahorkai with the lowest odds, joined by India's Amitav Ghosh, whose name has rapidly gained traction merely two days before the announcement.

The 18-member Swedish Academy responsible for awarding the prize maintains that gender, nationality, and language do not influence their selection process.

However, as Sveriges Radio culture critic Lina Kalmteg observed to AFP, "Even if they say that they don't think in terms of representation, you can still look at the list (of past laureates) and see patterns—'OK, this year was a European, now we can look a little further afield. And now we go back to Europe. Last year was a woman, let's choose a man this year.'"

Following the #MeToo scandal that shook the Academy in 2018, every alternate laureate has been female, suggesting deliberate efforts to address historical gender imbalance and rectify past oversights.

Bjorn Wiman, culture editor at Sweden's prominent newspaper Dagens Nyheter, told AFP he believes this year's winner will be a man "from the Anglo-Saxon, German or French-language world."

Christian Kracht, the 58-year-old German-language postmodernist author known for his work on pop culture and consumerism, has emerged as a favorite in literary circles. Wiman noted that "many members of the Swedish Academy were there, sitting in the front row during his event" at this year's Gothenburg Book Fair, which typically precedes the Nobel announcement by several weeks.

"And that is usually a sure sign," he added, mentioning a similar occurrence before Austrian playwright Elfriede Jelinek's 2004 win.

Australian author Gerald Murnane has also garnered significant attention this year. Born in Melbourne in 1939, his writing draws heavily from personal life experiences.

His 1982 novel "The Plains," which explores Australian landowners' culture, was described by the New Yorker as a "bizarre masterpiece" that reads more like a dream than literature.

"The question is whether he'll answer the phone (when the Academy calls), I don't know if he even has one," joked Josefin de Gregorio, literary critic at Svenska Dagbladet, another major Swedish newspaper.

"He's never left Australia. He lives in the countryside, he doesn't make himself very accessible," she explained.

"I hope he wins, I want more people to discover his wonderful work," de Gregorio added.

Australian Aboriginal writer Alexis Wright has also been mentioned among potential recipients.

Other regularly discussed candidates include Antiguan-American author Jamaica Kincaid, Canada's Anne Carson, Chile's Raul Zurita, and Argentina's Cesar Aira.

The last South American laureate was Peru's Mario Vargas Llosa in 2010, leading Kalmteg to suggest the region may be due for recognition. She specifically mentioned Mexican authors Cristina Rivera Garza and Fernanda Melchor as possibilities.

With no public shortlist and the prize committee's deliberations sealed for 50 years, predicting the Academy's decision remains challenging.

The Academy has traditionally favored illuminating relatively unknown writers, with Wiman noting its past reputation for being "openly elitist, artistically."

"Authors like Han Kang would have been unthinkable five or six years ago," he remarked, highlighting that she was already internationally established and only 53 years old, whereas the Academy previously tended to honor older male authors.

The 2025 Nobel Prize in Literature winner, who will receive a $1.2 million award, will be announced Thursday at 1:00 pm (1100 GMT).