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The fact is that the Swedish Academy lacks the linguistic competence needed for a truly international jury, which is not surprising. Perhaps only three or four of the greatest universities in the world have such resources. Unprepared to read fluently and directly in major and populous languages such as Chinese, Arabic, or Hindi, not to mention minor ones, the Nobel committee is overly dependent on translations, whose occurrence and quality are notoriously capricious.
— Nobel Prize in Literature