Seldom have literary awards caused so much anger
to believe that the Swedish Academy, which awards the Nobel prize in literature, did not know that it would be fanning the flames of Europe’s culture wars. On October 10th Olga Tokarczuk, a dreadlocked vegetarian feminist, won the prize for 2018. At the same time the 2019 award was given to Peter Handke , an Austrian whom many see as an apologist for genocide.
Last year the academy failed to award its prize because it was engulfed in a sex scandal. This year the two awards caused controversy which had nothing to do with the literary merits of either. One of Mr Handke’s most notorious books is his 1996 “Journey to the Rivers: Justice for Serbia”, which he published as part of his defence of Slobodan Milosevic and the wartime leaders of the Serbs. The award has sent shock waves through the former Yugoslavia and beyond.
In 2006 Mr Handke gave an oration at Milosevic’s funeral. During the wars he had repeated a Serbian propaganda line that Bosnian Muslims had killed their own people to elicit Western support. He also minimised what two international tribunals found to be genocide: the 1995 murder by Bosnian Serbs of some 8,000 Muslim men and boys at Srebrenica. Aleksandar Hemon, a Bosnian-American writer, called him “the Bob Dylan of genocide apologists”.
The other laureate, Ms Tokarczuk, upsets a different group of people. A staunch opponent of Poland’s nationalist ruling Law and Justice party, she has been denounced as a traitor for supporting gay rights and suggesting that Poles should face up to unpleasant parts of their history, including the suppression of minorities and murder of Jews. Still,ministers mostly managed to swallow their distaste. The minister of finance even said he was willing to waive the income tax due on her prize.
France Dernières Nouvelles, France Actualités
Similar News:Vous pouvez également lire des articles d'actualité similaires à celui-ci que nous avons collectés auprès d'autres sources d'information.
A Nobel economics prize goes to pioneers in understanding povertyThe laureates' experiments taught the economics profession that randomised trials could work in the field
Lire la suite »
Nobel laureate Myron Scholes says the smart money is pessimistic, betting on inflationNobel laureate Myron Scholes said the smart money is getting nervous.
Lire la suite »
Katie Price's mucky mansion vs Peter Andre's spotless houseKatie, 41, recently gave a tour of her house, showing off stacks of rubbish, graffitied walls and bird poo on the floor
Lire la suite »
Trump advisor Peter Navarro reportedly invented and quoted a fictional character in his booksTessa Morris-Suzuki, a professor at the Australian National University, discovered that a character named Ron Vara in Navarro's books is fictional, reported The Chronicle of Higher Education newspaper.
Lire la suite »
Peter Andre shares hilarious clip of daughter Princess after he pulls off prankThe TV presenter and former hitmaker tricked his daughter into thinking he had brought her a pricey gift
Lire la suite »