Austrian playwright and author Peter Handke, perhaps best-known in film circles for his screenplay of Wim Wenders’ classic Wings Of Desire, has won the 2019 Nobel Prize for Literature. Playwright, novelist, screenwriter and director Handke also wrote Wenders’ movie The Goalie’s Anxiety At The Penalty Kick and directed movies including The Left-Handed Woman and The Absence, both of which starred Bruno Ganz. The decision to award Handke won’t be without controversy given his support for the Serbs during the 1990s Yugoslav war, and for speaking at the 2006 funeral of Serb leader Slobodan Milosevic, who was accused of genocide and other war crimes. Meanwhile, Polish novelist and activist Olga Tokarczuk belatedly won the 2018 award, which was delayed by a year after a crisis in the academy sparked by allegations against Jean-Claude Arnault, the husband of Nobel Academy member Katarina Frostenson. Agnieszka Holland adapted one of Tokarczuk’s most celebrated novels into the 2017 movie Spoor.
- 10/10/2019
- by Andreas Wiseman
- Deadline Film + TV
The Nobel Prize for literature is the latest casualty of a sexual harassment scandal after the Swedish Academy announced that it would not be handing out a prize this year.
The organization revealed that it had made a decision to delay the 2018 prize until 2019 after being rocked by its own internal scandal. It said that it was in no shape to hand out the award after recent allegations revolving around French photographer Jean-Claude Arnault.
Arnault, who is married to academy member Katarina Frostenson, a poet who also receives financial support from the group. A string of sexual harassment accusations were made against the 71-year old as part of the #metoo campaign and there accusations that members of the academy were aware of the concerns and didn’t report them. A number of members of the academy have left in protest.
It marks the first time since 1943 that the prize has not been handed out.
The organization revealed that it had made a decision to delay the 2018 prize until 2019 after being rocked by its own internal scandal. It said that it was in no shape to hand out the award after recent allegations revolving around French photographer Jean-Claude Arnault.
Arnault, who is married to academy member Katarina Frostenson, a poet who also receives financial support from the group. A string of sexual harassment accusations were made against the 71-year old as part of the #metoo campaign and there accusations that members of the academy were aware of the concerns and didn’t report them. A number of members of the academy have left in protest.
It marks the first time since 1943 that the prize has not been handed out.
- 5/4/2018
- by Peter White
- Deadline Film + TV
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