This year’s winner of the Nobel Prize in literature is only one step away from receiving the much-deserved medal. The Swedish Academy announced on Friday that the name of the lucky writer will be made public on October 9, thus filling in the last gap of 2008’s Nobel announcements program.

However, the academy failed to reveal any details about the big winner of the prize, which is often considered to be the most important award for writers.

Since 1999, Horace Engdahl has had the annual task of announcing the recipient of the Nobel Prize in literature to the press. Thus, the academy’s permanent secretary is due to present this year’s winner as well.

Nevertheless, Horace Engdahl sparked controversy earlier this week as he told The Associated Press in an interview that the Europeans dominated the literary world, subtly referring to American writers as unpromising. “Of course there is powerful literature in all big cultures, but you can’t get away from the fact that Europe still is the center of the literary world ... not the United States,” Engdahl told the AP on Tuesday.

In addition to this, the Swedish Academy’s permanent secretary said that the United States is “too isolated” and “too insular” to represent a major force in literature.

His comments did not remain unanswered, however. For instance, David Remnick of The New Yorker explained that the Swedish Academy often overlooked significant literature figures such as Proust, Joyce or Nabokov and that being a great writer does not necessarily imply winning a Nobel Prize. Mr. Remnick even cited contemporary authors like Roth, Updike and DeLillo as worthy of the award.

The last American author to win the Nobel Prize in literature was Toni Morrison in 1993.

The announcements are due to start on Monday with the award in medicine, while the prizes will be handed out on December 10.