The triumph of two authors from Europe will surprise those who had hoped the Academy might acknowledge a writer from further afield
IT WAS A SPECIAL edition of the Nobel prize in literature. Following the suspension of the award last year in the wake of a sexual-abuse scandal, on October 10th the Swedish Academy announced the winners of both the 2018 and 2019 medals. From shortlists of eight writers, they chose to crown Olga Tokarczuk, a Polish novelist, and Peter Handke, an Austrian playwright, scriptwriter and memoirist. Each writer will receive 9m Swedish krona , a medal and a diploma.
Earlier this month, Anders Olsson, chair of the Nobel prize in literature committee, had said that formerly the jurors “had a more Eurocentric perspective on literature,” but that now they “are looking all over the world”.
Although Ms Tokarczuk’s work has found a wide readership in Britain and America, she has proved a thorn in the side of right-wing patriots in Poland who object to her saying that the country’s leadership committed “horrendous acts” of colonisation in the past, particularly of peoples in large territories to the east of present-day Poland, such as Ukraine.
Mr Handke’s Slovene roots on his maternal side led to an early interest in Yugoslavia. He became a long-standing supporter of the Serbian leader and war criminal, Slobodan Milosevic, and spoke at his funeral in 2006. In his eulogy he said: “I don’t know the truth. But I look. I listen. I feel. I remember. This is why I am here today, close to Yugoslvia, close to Serbia, close to Slobodan Milosevic.
Perhaps the Nobel committee made a conscious decision to pair these two European writers together. Although they have very different literary approaches and writing styles, they are both concerned with contested lands, about who owns memory and about the central human need to tell stories.
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