The backlash to Austrian novelist Peter Handke’s Nobel Prize for Literature win continues, with the author drawing condemnation by a major literary group and several fellow writers—but earning congratulations from his fellow Nobel winner.
The American nonprofit group PEN America issued a remarkable statement from its president, author Jennifer Egan, criticizing the Swedish Academy for selecting Handke, a defender of the late Serbian president Slobodan Milošević.
“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,” Egan said. “At a moment of rising nationalism, autocratic leadership, and widespread disinformation around the world, the literary community deserves better than this.”
Novelist Salman Rushdie didn’t directly address Handke’s win but told the Guardian that he stood by a comment he made 20 years ago calling Handke a runner-up for the title of “international moron of the year.”
Author Hari Kunzru concurred, telling the Guardian, “More than ever we need public intellectuals who are able to make a robust defence of human rights in the face of the indifference and cynicism of our political leaders. Handke is not such a person.”
But Olga Tokarczuk, who also was announced as a Nobel literature winner on Thursday, released a statement through her American publisher, Riverhead, that didn’t mention Handke’s controversial past.
“I believe in a literature that unites people and shows us how very similar we are, that makes us aware of the fact that we're all joined together by invisible threads. That tells the story of the world as if it were a living and unified whole, constantly developing before our eyes, in which we are just a small but at the same time powerful part,” she said. “My congratulations to Peter Handke for his Nobel prize. I’m very pleased that we both come from the same part of the world.”
Michael Schaub is an Austin, Texas-based journalist and regular contributor to NPR.
