Nobel Prize in Literature 2019: the journey of controversy

Le Regard Libre Nº 59 - Ivan Garcia

In 2019, the Nobel Prize for Literature was awarded to Austrian writer Peter Handke, one of the most widely read German-language authors in the world, for his outstanding body of work. However, the new laureate soon provoked criticism and indignation, especially in the Balkans, for his «pro-Serbian» or even revisionist stance on the conflict in the former Yugoslavia. He wrote a book about this conflict, the account of a trip he made in 1995, which caused a media uproar. The current controversy over the 2019 Nobel Prize for Literature highlights the limits of what can and must be said about the world, and about a writer's mission: to howl with the wolves or to stand out from the herd?

Le 10 décembre dernier, à Stockholm, eut lieu la remise des prix Nobel de littérature 2018 et 2019 à deux lauréat