Harold Pinter wins Nobel Prize for Literature
       
13 October 2005
STOCKHOLM - British playwright Harold Pinter won the Nobel Prize for Literature on Thursday, the Swedish Academy announced.
The citation said that Pinter "in his plays uncovers the precipice under everyday prattle and forces entry into oppression's closed rooms".
Swedish Academy Permanent Secretary Horace Engdahl said Pinter "is a real professional. Actors love to perform in his plays. He has given the world of drama fantastic material to work with".
Engdahl also noted that Pinter has been involved in political issues and human rights.
Pinter's plays often centre on an enclosed space, which in the 1950s and 1960s had "an existential meaning", Engdahl said.
In later works "this has become an image of political oppression, of those held in torture chambers, interrogation rooms and prisons who are denied their rights, and their language to reach out to a world that could rescue them", Engdahl added.
Pinter, who turned 75 on October 10, made his debut as a playwright in 1957 with "The Room". Another early play was "The Birthday Party" (1957). His breakthrough came with "The Caretaker" in 1959, followed by "The Homecoming" in 1964.
In addition to writing for the stage, Pinter has also penned plays for radio and screenplays for film and television.
Among Pinter's best-known screenplays are those for "The Servant" (1963), "The Accident" (1967), "The Go-Between" from 1971, and "The French Lieutenant's Woman", based on the novel by John Fowles, which starred Meryl Streep and Jeremy Irons.
Born the son of a Jewish dressmaker in the north London borough of Hackney, Pinter has said that the anti-Semitism he encountered as a child was formative in his decision to become a playwright.
Harold Pinter is seen as the foremost representative of British drama in the second half of the 20th century, the academy said.
His work is now viewed as a modern classic, and the phrase "Pinteresque" has been coined to describe his style.
The prolific Pinter was credited by the Academy with restoring "theatre to its basic elements: an enclosed space and unpredictable dialogue, where people are at the mercy of each other, and pretence crumbles".
Initially, Pinter's work was described as a variation of absurd theatre but since is regarded as "a comedy of menace", the Academy said.
The announcement came as a surprise to many Thursday as Pinter had not been mentioned in the run up to the jury's decision. The last British winner of the prize was Trinidad-born V. S. Naipaul in 2001.
Last year's award to another dramatist, Austrian Elfriede Jelinek, was also a surprise, and the Italian dramatist Dario Fo received the prize in 1997.
Czech playwright and former president Vaclav Havel described Pinter's award as "absolutely deserved". "You don't really know how happy I am," Havel wrote in a congratulatory telegram to his friend Pinter.
A French translator of Pinter's work praised the Nobel winner as a man who was both uncompromising and loyal.
"He is an uncompromising man who can make you feel afraid," said Jean Pavans. "He is also deeply human, loyal to his friends. Of course, he is very impressive."
Pavans said that Pinter abandoned the theatre in the last years to write poetry and articles that were "fiercely anti-American" and strongly criticized the war in Iraq.
In Germany, theatre critics said that the prize was 30 years too late. "(Pinter's) last plays have not been on the stage (in Germany) for years," Franz Wille of Theater Heute (Theatre Today) magazine told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa.
       
13 October 2005
STOCKHOLM - British playwright Harold Pinter won the Nobel Prize for Literature on Thursday, the Swedish Academy announced.
The citation said that Pinter "in his plays uncovers the precipice under everyday prattle and forces entry into oppression's closed rooms".
Swedish Academy Permanent Secretary Horace Engdahl said Pinter "is a real professional. Actors love to perform in his plays. He has given the world of drama fantastic material to work with".
Engdahl also noted that Pinter has been involved in political issues and human rights.
Pinter's plays often centre on an enclosed space, which in the 1950s and 1960s had "an existential meaning", Engdahl said.
In later works "this has become an image of political oppression, of those held in torture chambers, interrogation rooms and prisons who are denied their rights, and their language to reach out to a world that could rescue them", Engdahl added.
Pinter, who turned 75 on October 10, made his debut as a playwright in 1957 with "The Room". Another early play was "The Birthday Party" (1957). His breakthrough came with "The Caretaker" in 1959, followed by "The Homecoming" in 1964.
In addition to writing for the stage, Pinter has also penned plays for radio and screenplays for film and television.
Among Pinter's best-known screenplays are those for "The Servant" (1963), "The Accident" (1967), "The Go-Between" from 1971, and "The French Lieutenant's Woman", based on the novel by John Fowles, which starred Meryl Streep and Jeremy Irons.
Born the son of a Jewish dressmaker in the north London borough of Hackney, Pinter has said that the anti-Semitism he encountered as a child was formative in his decision to become a playwright.
Harold Pinter is seen as the foremost representative of British drama in the second half of the 20th century, the academy said.
His work is now viewed as a modern classic, and the phrase "Pinteresque" has been coined to describe his style.
The prolific Pinter was credited by the Academy with restoring "theatre to its basic elements: an enclosed space and unpredictable dialogue, where people are at the mercy of each other, and pretence crumbles".
Initially, Pinter's work was described as a variation of absurd theatre but since is regarded as "a comedy of menace", the Academy said.
The announcement came as a surprise to many Thursday as Pinter had not been mentioned in the run up to the jury's decision. The last British winner of the prize was Trinidad-born V. S. Naipaul in 2001.
Last year's award to another dramatist, Austrian Elfriede Jelinek, was also a surprise, and the Italian dramatist Dario Fo received the prize in 1997.
Czech playwright and former president Vaclav Havel described Pinter's award as "absolutely deserved". "You don't really know how happy I am," Havel wrote in a congratulatory telegram to his friend Pinter.
A French translator of Pinter's work praised the Nobel winner as a man who was both uncompromising and loyal.
"He is an uncompromising man who can make you feel afraid," said Jean Pavans. "He is also deeply human, loyal to his friends. Of course, he is very impressive."
Pavans said that Pinter abandoned the theatre in the last years to write poetry and articles that were "fiercely anti-American" and strongly criticized the war in Iraq.
In Germany, theatre critics said that the prize was 30 years too late. "(Pinter's) last plays have not been on the stage (in Germany) for years," Franz Wille of Theater Heute (Theatre Today) magazine told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa.
