 |
|
| Peter Handke | |
In a highly unusual move, PEN America has issued a statement by its president, author Jennifer Egan, criticizing the Swedish Academy's award of the 2019 Nobel Prize for Literature yesterday to Austrian author, playwright and translator Peter Handke.
Egan wrote: "PEN America does not generally comment on other institutions' literary awards. We recognize that these decisions are subjective and that the criteria are not uniform. However, today's announcement of the 2019 Nobel Prize in Literature to Peter Handke must be an exception. We are dumbfounded by the selection of a writer who has used his public voice to undercut historical truth and offer public succor to perpetrators of genocide, like former Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic and Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic. PEN America has been committed since the passage our 1948 PEN Charter to fighting against mendacious publication, deliberate falsehood, and distortion of facts. Our Charter further commits us to work to 'dispel all hatreds and to champion the ideal of one humanity living in peace and equality.' We reject the decision that a writer who has persistently called into question thoroughly documented war crimes deserves to be celebrated for his 'linguistic ingenuity.' At a moment of rising nationalism, autocratic leadership, and widespread disinformation around the world, the literary community deserves better than this. We deeply regret the Nobel Committee on Literature's choice."
At the same time, as the Guardian notes, other writers, including Salman Rushdie, Hari Kunzru and Slavoj Žižek, have objected to the selection of Handke for the award. Kunzru commented, for example, that Handke "is a fine writer, who combines great insight with shocking ethical blindness." And in 1999, Rushdie called Handke "international moron of the year," and said yesterday he stood by that characterization.