Sara Danius, who was the first woman to lead the Swedish Academy, which awards the Nobel Prize in Literature, and who was ousted in the aftermath of a sexual abuse and harassment scandal that roiled the academy, died on Oct. 12 in Stockholm. She was 57.

The cause was breast cancer, which was diagnosed six years ago, her mother, the author Anna Wahlgren, said on Facebook.

Ms. Danius, a literary scholar, professor and writer, was the permanent secretary of the academy from 2015 to 2018. As such, she played a central role in the hotly debated decision in 2016 to bestow the world’s most prestigious award for literature on a musician, Bob Dylan.

But a sex scandal the next year, when 18 women accused a board member’s husband of sexual assault, overshadowed the Dylan dust-up and led to Ms. Danius’s departure.