Winner questions Nobel glory

2005-10-14 10:31

British playwright and poet Harold Pinter. (Ian West, AP File)

London - British playwright Harold Pinter is unsure whether the Nobel committee gave him its esteemed prize for literature in part because of his fierce opposition to the US-led war in Iraq.

The Times newspaper also speculated on Friday on whether the Swedish Academy had seen Pinter, who wrote his signature works almost half a century ago, as the sharpest stick with which to "poke America in the eye" this year.

Other newspapers, however, merely celebrated the news that the 75-year-old master of the heavy pause had received the 2005 Nobel Prize for literature.

Pinter, who is also well known as an outspoken political campaigner, revealed he only found out he had won the $1.3m award about 20 minutes before the official announcement on Thursday.

"They called me and said you're going to receive a call from the chairman of the Nobel committee and I think I said 'why'," he told the Guardian newspaper.

Explaining its decision, the jury said Pinter's work "uncovers the precipice under everyday prattle and forces entry into oppression's closed rooms".

The playwright, who is recovering from a fall a couple of days ago and has a bandage on his forehead, told the BBC that he found this remark interesting.

"It implies that they have not only given me this award for my work but for my political engagement, which of course is in my work, I think, anyway to a great extent. You can't divorce one from the other," he said on Thursday night.

Timing is curious

The laureate has actively campaigned against the March 2003 invasion of Iraq, notably calling British Prime Minister Tony Blair a "deluded idiot" and US President George W Bush a "mass murderer".

He agreed that the timing of his award was curious against the backdrop of the daily chaos in Iraq.

"I feel even more strongly now than I ever did about the mendacity and the corruption and the injustice of so many of the actions taken by what are called freedom-loving Western democracies," Pinter said.

"I view them with contempt and that contempt grows stronger every day. I am talking about the United States and Great Britain."

Pinter said he thought Blair should be brought before the International Court of Justice as a war criminal.

At the same time, he added: "I am actually waiting for flowers from Tony Blair".

The Times also commented on the timing of the Nobel award, saying that there were two explanations.

Either the committee felt that 2005 was a good year to honour a man who wrote his most famous plays in the late 1950s.

Or "Pinter is just about the biggest and sharpest stick with which the Nobel committee can poke America in the eye," it said in an editorial titled "Pause for thought".

- AFP