Peter Handke wins Nobel Prize for Literature

Yesterday Polish writer Olga Torarczuk and German novelist and short story writer Peter Handke were awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature.

Handke was born in Austria in 1942. He lived with his Carinthian mother for a short time in Pankow, which was then in the Soviet Zone of Berlin and later was the area of East Berlin where senior party functionaries lived.

Handke's first writing was published in his Catholic school newspaper in Austria.

He has lived in Düsseldorf, Berlin, Paris, Salzburg and spent a year in the US.

He spoke at the funeral of Slobodan Milošević. He is sympathetic towards the Serbian nationalists. And that brings him into difficulty with many writers.

Handke was nominated for the Heinrich Heine Prize but because of his political views the prize was withdrawn.

His Nobel award is sure to cause much controversy. In the past Handke expressed the view that there should not be a Nobel Prize for Literature.