For many years after the war there were no women members of the Academy which helps explain why astonishingly there was only one female

For many years after the war, there were no women members of the Academy, which helps explain why, astonishingly, there was only one female winner, or half-winner, of the Nobel Prize - the Swedish Nelly Sachs, who shared it in 1966 with the Israeli Shmuel Yosef Agnon - between 1945 and 1991. Each member is elected for life and is expected, upon taking up his position, to pay tribute in a long speech and monograph to his illustrious predecessor, without whose death the opportunity for him to be elected would not have arisen "Him" is, or was, the operative word. Roughly half are poets or novelists, and half are professors, with a few practising a bit of both. Allen is urging the Nobel Foundation to consider a better definition.But who exactly are the Academicians who decide the Nobel? Sture Allen hands me a list of the 18 current members. It may be better translated as "suitable" or "perfect", or it may suggest "belonging to the realm of ideas". Early on it was taken to mean spiritually uplifting, even positive, which, is why Tolstoy and Ibsen were denied the award. Allen, a linguist, believes that this is a mistranslation, or misreading The word Nobel used, idealisk, is comparatively rare.

We discuss, for example, Nobel's stipulation that the Literature Prize go to "work of an idealistic tendency". Tradition also decrees that meetings may be followed with a meal of pea soup and pancakes at Den Gyldene Freden (The Golden Peace), a restaurant donated to the Academy by the artist Anders Zorn.Sture Allen is happy to answer questions about the Nobel, so long as they don't bear on individual names. There is even one called The Great Prize, not to be confused with that other great prize, the Nobel.Members of the Academy are not paid, except for work on sub-committees, but they do traditionally receive a silver coin or plaquette, bearing the motto "Snille och smak" (Genius and discretion) each time they attend. The Swedes don't like to rush things.King Gustav also wished the Academy to promote poetry and oratory through competitions, and the Academy still administers a number of prizes, indeed an increasing number of them year by year: the Royal Prize, the Bellman Prize, the Swedish Language Prize, the Drama Prize, the Kellgren Prize, the Nordic Prize, the Finland Prize, the Swedish Teaching Prize There is a great list of these prizes, over 50 in all.

King Gustav also wished the Academy to give advice on correct linguistic usage, and to this end work began on a dictionary. Two hundred odd years after its establishment, the Academy still has no completed dictionary to its name, although it has reached volume 31, the letter S. The door opens straight into his cavernous office, large-windowed, with an imposing desk at the centre. The Swedish Academy, he explains, was founded in 1786, by King Gustav III, who wanted to set up an institution along the lines of the Academie Francaise to preserve and enrich Swedish language and literature. Art and Mammon sharing the same premises: it's not inappropriate, given that the Nobel Prize brings immense riches to its recipient.I ring the second-floor bell, which is answered by Sture Allen himself, a neat, handsome man in his mid-sixties, who looks a bit like a genial, tidied-up version of the late Anthony Burgess and whose shoulders don't seem to sag at all. I hadn't realised that the Academy's headquarters are situated on a floor of the Swedish Stock Exchange. To the right of the door - this partly explains my confusion - is a garish, illuminated screen giving the latest world share prices.

But what, I wanted to know, of the decision- makers? Who are the members at the centre of the annual farrago? How heavily do their shoulders sag from the burden of deeming for the world?THOUGH I have been given an address for the Swedish Academy, in Stockholm's Old Town, it takes me a little time to find the discreet nameplate to the left of the door. In all, the prize has been "reserved" - deferred to the following year - on six occasions, although the last time was more than 40 years ago.The decision process sounds as dutiful, bureaucratic and incorruptible as you'd expect of the Swedes. If there still isn't a majority verdict, the prize can be awarded jointly (though this has to be for reasons of literary affinity, not just because there is a tie), or held over. The expectation is that this will happen in mid-October, but the date is never fixed, and in theory a decision might not be arrived at until November. So clandestine is the process that even the announcement of the date of the announcement is not made until 48 hours before. Debate follows at each Thursday evening session (5pm-6.30pm), until there seems to be a majority - at which point a morning meeting is called for the following Thursday, in anticipation of a verdict and announcement. These are debated and sometimes altered, but a shortlist is arrived at before the summer recess begins on 31 May The Swedish Academy does not meet again until mid-September.