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Tomas Riad, a Swedish Linguists Professor of Egyptian origins, has been chosen as a member of the Swedish Academy, a cultural institution amongst many of its chores is to judge the winners of the Nobel Prize winner in literature. Riad was appointed during a prestigious ceremony held at the old Stock Exchange House in Stockholm, in the presence of their Majesties King Carl XVI Gustav and Queen Silvia of Sweden.

Born in Stockholm in 1959, Tomas Riad is a Professor at the Department of Scandinavian Languages at Stockholm University since 1992. He has also worked at Stanford University in the United Stated and the University of Vilnius in Lithuania. Last spring he became a visiting researcher at the University of Saint-Denis, in Paris. Riad is also a violinist, and he studied Music at the Royal College in London and worked for a certain period in the 1980s as a full time musician.

The Swedish Academy is an independent cultural institution, founded in 1786 by King Gustav III in order to advance the Swedish language and the Swedish literature. Since 1901, the Academy is the institution that decides on the winner of the Nobel Prize in literature.

Among the Academy’s members is the renowned Professor Sture Allén, who visited Egypt in October this year to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the birth of the Nobel Prize Laureate in literature Naguib Mahfouz, by giving lectures in Cairo and Alexandria.

For more information about the Swedish Academy we refer to their website: www.svenskaakademien.se