Leak in Nobel deliberations suspected after bettors pick Le Clézio
Last Updated: Friday, October 10, 2008 | 11:20 AM ET
CBC News
J.M.G. Le Clézio is a French author. Bettors raised odds on him to 2-to-1 ahead of the Nobel Prize announcement Thursday. (Kirsty Wigglesworth/Associated Press) The jury for the Nobel Prize for literature suspects a leak after a surprising number of bettors tapped French writer J.M.G. Le Clézio as the winner.
"I have a strong suspicion that there has been a leak in the system this time," Horace Engdahl, the permanent secretary of the Swedish Academy said in an e-mail Friday. "I don't want to say more."
British betting firm Ladbrokes received a large number of bets on Le Clézio in the days before Thursday's announcement.
So many, in fact, that betting was halted on Wednesday. Ladbrokes has a Nordic division and outlets in Belgium and Ireland as well as allowing online betting from other parts of Europe.
"Suddenly, there were more and more bets on him," said Lasse Dilschman, head of Ladbrokes' Nordic division. "The odds went from 15-to-1 to below 2-to-1. That's when we decided to close."
A week before the prize was announced, most betting centred around Israel's Amos Oz, Italy's Claudio Magris and Syrian-born poet Adonis (Ali Ahmed Said Asbar).
No one was betting on American authors following remarks last week by Engdahl that Americans were too insular and ignorant to compete with European writers.
Engdahl said he was reading works by Le Clézio while in Paris the weekend before the announcement, but he kept the book covered.
"Of course I camouflaged Le Clézio's latest book when I read it," Engdahl said.
Le Clézio, who has a British father and a French mother, is the author of more than 30 books, include Le Procés-Verbal (The Interrogation) and Désert.
He was a considered an innovator early in his career and explores such themes as adolescence, insanity and language.
The Swedish Academy, in announcing the award, called Le Clézio an "author of new departures, poetic adventure and sensual ecstasy, explorer of a humanity beyond and below the reigning civilization."
