The 2018 Nobel Prize in Literature will not be awarded, after sex-abuse allegations had caused several members of the Swedish Academy, which selects the winner, to hand in their resignations.

It will be the first time since 1943 that one of the most prestigious awards in the world of literature will not be handed out, the Beta news agency reported on Friday.

The academy said on Friday that the 2018 award would be given in 2019. The decision to skip this year was made at the academy’s weekly meeting in Stockholm, on the grounds that the institution’s credibility was shaken after a string of sex abuse allegations and financial scandals.

“We find it necessary to commit time to recovering public confidence in the Academy before the next laureate can be announced,” Anders Olsson, the academy’s permanent secretary, said in a statement.

He added the academy was acting “out of respect for previous and future literature laureates, the Nobel Foundation and the general public.”

The Swedish Academy’s internal feud was triggered by an abuse scandal linked to Jean-Claude Arnault, a major cultural figure in Sweden and the husband of the poet Katarina Frostenson, an academy member.

The 18-member academy later admitted that “unacceptable behavior in the form of unwanted intimacy” had taken place within its ranks, but its handling of unseemly allegations has shredded the body’s credibility, called into question its judgement, and forced its first female leader, Sara Danius to resign in April.

A debate over how to face up to its flaws has divided its members, appointed for life, into feuding camps, and prompted seven members of the prestigious institution to leave or disassociate themselves from the group.

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