William Älgebrink, author and winner of Crimetime's debut prize:
In the future, I think Stephen Graham Jones will get it. He writes only horror and unfortunately is not yet translated into Swedish. I would recommend "The only good Indians" and perhaps above all "The buffalo hunter hunter".
Malou von Sivers, presenter and author:
Joyce Carol Oates. And then I think Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie would be a worthy winner, she is the next generation after Oates and tells stories that you become completely absorbed in.
"Will get it"
Chigozie Obioma, author:
I think Don DeLillo should be considered. And Scholastique Mukasonga – I think she will get it one day. Maybe Salman Rushdie too. His "Midnight's Children" is a really good novel.
Pelle Andersson, publisher and author:
Someone I think is reasonable, even from our own publishing house, is Samar Yazbek, the Syrian author. Then I think Joyce Carol Oates, who has been on the lists for a long time, could pull up the prize again and make it public and broad.
"Fantastic songwriter"
Julia Quinn, romance author:
I was delighted when Bob Dylan won. So I continue on that path and say Bruce Springsteen. I think he is a fantastic songwriter, I listened to one of my favorite songs "Jungleland" yesterday and thought just that he is a poet – a brilliant poet.
Lina Wolff, author, August Prize winner and translator:
–The Argentine author César Aira. His prose breathes a kind of playful freedom that opens up new spaces in literature. In a time when storytelling is not uncommonly used to create toxic, manipulative narratives, he stands for pure, pleasure-filled fiction.
"A lovely cocktail"
Elin Cullhed, author and August Prize winner:
–Sara Stridsberg. She has her own unparalleled literary universe and a language that cuts through time. Her novels always make you confront the prevailing order – in the world and in people's lives – and glimpse another one beneath. It is both realistic and decadent in a lovely cocktail.
Sara Gordan, author and translator:
–Jewish-French-Algerian Hélène Cixous has since her debut in the late 1960s challenged the boundary between poetry, philosophy, prose, and drama and has been one of the most important precursors to feminist and postcolonial writing. As a second choice, Jamaica Kincaid. A very worthy winner!
The 2025 prize winner will be announced on Thursday, 9/10 at 1 pm.
Last year, the prize went to the South Korean author Han Kang "for her intense poetic prose, which confronts the traumas of history and exposes human vulnerability".
