E' di circa una settimana fa la notizia dell'assegnazione a Peter
Handke, da parte della giuria, del premio Heinrich Heine consistente
nella somma di 50000 Euro che dovevano essere consegnati all'insigne
letterato austriaco a dicembre prossimo a Düsseldorf (si veda http://it.
groups.yahoo.com/group/jugoinfo/message/544).
La longa manus (pelosa) del circo del politically correct non è stata
certo ferma nemmeno stavolta. La consigliera comunale dei Verdi
tedeschi (il partito di Joska Fischer, tra i più slavofobi e attivi nel
fomentare lo squartamento della Jugoslavia) Karin Trepke ha dichiarato
che intende esercitare il diritto del consiglio comunale di Düsseldorf
di sovvertire il verdetto della giuria e revocare l'assegnazione del
premio al "serbo" Handke "amico del genocida Milosevic".
Come era facile prevedere in Germania si è sollevato un vespaio di
polemiche, sull'onda di quanto avvenuto recentemente in Francia dopo la
cancellazione di una pièce teatrale del perseguitato autore austriaco.
Di seguito una raccolta di articoli in inglese.
==New York Times== http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/31/arts/31arts.html
Council to Revoke Handke's Prize
The city council in Düsseldorf, Germany, will vote next week to
override the jury that chose the avant-garde Austrian author Peter
Handke to receive the $50,000 Heinrich Heine Prize for literature,
Agence France-Presse reported yesterday. Karin Trepke, a Green Party
member of the council, said it planned to exercise its right to
overrule the jury. Mr. Handke has been under fire for his sympathies
for the Yugoslav leader Slobodan Milosevic, who died in March in The
Hague while on trial for genocide and war crimes.
==Deutche Welle== http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,2144,2036907,00.
html
German Politicians to Block Prize for Milosevic Sympathizer
Local politicians in Düsseldorf are likely to block plans to award the
prestigious Heinrich Heine Prize to Austrian writer Peter Handke, who
has been criticized for his support of late Serb leader Slobodan
Milosevic.
Members of the Düsseldorf city council's four major parties, the
Christian Democrats, the Social Democrats, the Free Democrats and the
Greens all said they would vote against awarding the prize to Handke.
The writer had been named as the winner by a jury last week. But the
city council, which gives the prize money of 50,000 euros ($64,190),
must approve their decision. A vote has been scheduled for June 22.
"We're not going to make the money available," said one city council
member.
What's the damage?
Editorialists were divided on the likely decision to withhold the
prize.
"No one is going to dispute that this is an open affront against the
jury," wrote the left-wing Frankfurter Rundschau. "But first of all,
the jury was not united when doubts about the nomination arose. And
secondly, the damage for Düsseldorf would be even bigger if it accepted
honoring Handke in the name of Heine."
Writers at Berlin's left-wing die tageszeitung saw things differently.
"Heine doesn't deserve Handke and Handke doesn't deserve the Heine
Prize," it wrote. "But there's no doubt that Heine would have rejected
the political control of a jury. This form of censorship would be much
worse than awarding the prize to the wrong person."
The move to honor Handke came just a month after France's foremost
theater company decided not to stage one of his plays because of a
eulogy he delivered for Milosevic, the former Yugoslav president and
alleged war criminal who died in March. Handke had described Milosevic
as "a man who defended his people."
While Handke, who lives in France, refused to comment on the
controversy regarding the decision to award him the prize, he answered
his critics in an op-ed piece in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung on
Tuesday.
"Nowhere in my work I have called Slobodan Milosevic 'one' or 'the'
victim," he wrote.
==CBC Arts (Canada)==http://www.cbc.
ca/story/arts/national/2006/05/30/peter-handke.html
German controversy over award for author Peter Handke
A political and cultural row is brewing in Germany over a decision to
award the Heinrich Heine literature prize to Peter Handke, the Austrian
author who courted controversy with his eulogy at the funeral of
Slobodan Milosevic.
The Austrian author was named winner of the 50,000-euro ($70,745)
prize, given by the city of Duesseldorf.
But political and literary leaders are arguing whether the writer,
known for his pro-Serbian statements and writings, should be allowed to
receive the prize. Handke produced a travelogue in 1996 that showed
sympathy for the Serbs as victims of the Balkan wars.
Earlier this month, the Parisian theatre company Comédie-Française
withdrew his play Voyage to the Sonorous Land or the Art of Asking from
its 2006-07 season following his appearance at Milosevic's funeral.
"For my soul and my conscience it was impossible to welcome this
person into my theatre," company administrator Marcel Bozonnet said,
adding that to host someone's work in the theatre was "an act of
recognition, of love."
Milosovic died in prison in the Hague in March, while awaiting trial
for war crimes.
At Milosevic's funeral, Handke paid respect to him as "a man who
defended his people."
Some of his defenders have argued the words of Handke's eulogy were
mistranslated.
The jury for the Heine prize said that "in his work, Peter Handke
obstinately follows the path to an open truth. He sets his poetic gaze
onto the world regardless of the public opinion and its rituals."
But Germany's Green Party Leader Fritz Kuhn has urged Duesseldorf to
overturn the decision of its jury and stop Handke from collecting the
award.
It is a "scandal" to honour Handke with the prize, and a slap in the
face of the victims of former Serb strongman Milosevic, he said.
The Duesseldorf city council is considering whether to demand a new
decision from the jury, whose choice was not unanimous.
Journalist and feminist critic Alice Schwarzer defended what she saw
as Handke's courageous opposition to the political mainstream. "In a
time of general demonization of Serbia, he risked positioning himself
against the one-sided allocation of blame," Schwarzer said.
Handke wrote the experimental play Offending the Audience and the
novel The Goalie's Anxiety at the Penalty Kick, but may be best known
for writing the novel Wings of Desire, which was turned into a film by
Wim Wenders.
"Why don't people just open . . . my works instead of accusing me?"
Handke said in an interview with Le Monde after the Comédie-Française
decision.
"I wrote about the Serbs, because no one was writing about them, even
if I also think about the Croat and Muslim victims," said the writer,
who lives in France.
Milioni di oggetti, impossibile non trovare quello che cerchi.
Dallo spillo all'elefante, non ti stupire.
Sei su eBay!
http://adfarm.mediaplex.com/ad/ck/724-7199-4110-179?id=2
Handke, da parte della giuria, del premio Heinrich Heine consistente
nella somma di 50000 Euro che dovevano essere consegnati all'insigne
letterato austriaco a dicembre prossimo a Düsseldorf (si veda http://it.
groups.yahoo.com/group/jugoinfo/message/544).
La longa manus (pelosa) del circo del politically correct non è stata
certo ferma nemmeno stavolta. La consigliera comunale dei Verdi
tedeschi (il partito di Joska Fischer, tra i più slavofobi e attivi nel
fomentare lo squartamento della Jugoslavia) Karin Trepke ha dichiarato
che intende esercitare il diritto del consiglio comunale di Düsseldorf
di sovvertire il verdetto della giuria e revocare l'assegnazione del
premio al "serbo" Handke "amico del genocida Milosevic".
Come era facile prevedere in Germania si è sollevato un vespaio di
polemiche, sull'onda di quanto avvenuto recentemente in Francia dopo la
cancellazione di una pièce teatrale del perseguitato autore austriaco.
Di seguito una raccolta di articoli in inglese.
==New York Times== http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/31/arts/31arts.html
Council to Revoke Handke's Prize
The city council in Düsseldorf, Germany, will vote next week to
override the jury that chose the avant-garde Austrian author Peter
Handke to receive the $50,000 Heinrich Heine Prize for literature,
Agence France-Presse reported yesterday. Karin Trepke, a Green Party
member of the council, said it planned to exercise its right to
overrule the jury. Mr. Handke has been under fire for his sympathies
for the Yugoslav leader Slobodan Milosevic, who died in March in The
Hague while on trial for genocide and war crimes.
==Deutche Welle== http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,2144,2036907,00.
html
German Politicians to Block Prize for Milosevic Sympathizer
Local politicians in Düsseldorf are likely to block plans to award the
prestigious Heinrich Heine Prize to Austrian writer Peter Handke, who
has been criticized for his support of late Serb leader Slobodan
Milosevic.
Members of the Düsseldorf city council's four major parties, the
Christian Democrats, the Social Democrats, the Free Democrats and the
Greens all said they would vote against awarding the prize to Handke.
The writer had been named as the winner by a jury last week. But the
city council, which gives the prize money of 50,000 euros ($64,190),
must approve their decision. A vote has been scheduled for June 22.
"We're not going to make the money available," said one city council
member.
What's the damage?
Editorialists were divided on the likely decision to withhold the
prize.
"No one is going to dispute that this is an open affront against the
jury," wrote the left-wing Frankfurter Rundschau. "But first of all,
the jury was not united when doubts about the nomination arose. And
secondly, the damage for Düsseldorf would be even bigger if it accepted
honoring Handke in the name of Heine."
Writers at Berlin's left-wing die tageszeitung saw things differently.
"Heine doesn't deserve Handke and Handke doesn't deserve the Heine
Prize," it wrote. "But there's no doubt that Heine would have rejected
the political control of a jury. This form of censorship would be much
worse than awarding the prize to the wrong person."
The move to honor Handke came just a month after France's foremost
theater company decided not to stage one of his plays because of a
eulogy he delivered for Milosevic, the former Yugoslav president and
alleged war criminal who died in March. Handke had described Milosevic
as "a man who defended his people."
While Handke, who lives in France, refused to comment on the
controversy regarding the decision to award him the prize, he answered
his critics in an op-ed piece in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung on
Tuesday.
"Nowhere in my work I have called Slobodan Milosevic 'one' or 'the'
victim," he wrote.
==CBC Arts (Canada)==http://www.cbc.
ca/story/arts/national/2006/05/30/peter-handke.html
German controversy over award for author Peter Handke
A political and cultural row is brewing in Germany over a decision to
award the Heinrich Heine literature prize to Peter Handke, the Austrian
author who courted controversy with his eulogy at the funeral of
Slobodan Milosevic.
The Austrian author was named winner of the 50,000-euro ($70,745)
prize, given by the city of Duesseldorf.
But political and literary leaders are arguing whether the writer,
known for his pro-Serbian statements and writings, should be allowed to
receive the prize. Handke produced a travelogue in 1996 that showed
sympathy for the Serbs as victims of the Balkan wars.
Earlier this month, the Parisian theatre company Comédie-Française
withdrew his play Voyage to the Sonorous Land or the Art of Asking from
its 2006-07 season following his appearance at Milosevic's funeral.
"For my soul and my conscience it was impossible to welcome this
person into my theatre," company administrator Marcel Bozonnet said,
adding that to host someone's work in the theatre was "an act of
recognition, of love."
Milosovic died in prison in the Hague in March, while awaiting trial
for war crimes.
At Milosevic's funeral, Handke paid respect to him as "a man who
defended his people."
Some of his defenders have argued the words of Handke's eulogy were
mistranslated.
The jury for the Heine prize said that "in his work, Peter Handke
obstinately follows the path to an open truth. He sets his poetic gaze
onto the world regardless of the public opinion and its rituals."
But Germany's Green Party Leader Fritz Kuhn has urged Duesseldorf to
overturn the decision of its jury and stop Handke from collecting the
award.
It is a "scandal" to honour Handke with the prize, and a slap in the
face of the victims of former Serb strongman Milosevic, he said.
The Duesseldorf city council is considering whether to demand a new
decision from the jury, whose choice was not unanimous.
Journalist and feminist critic Alice Schwarzer defended what she saw
as Handke's courageous opposition to the political mainstream. "In a
time of general demonization of Serbia, he risked positioning himself
against the one-sided allocation of blame," Schwarzer said.
Handke wrote the experimental play Offending the Audience and the
novel The Goalie's Anxiety at the Penalty Kick, but may be best known
for writing the novel Wings of Desire, which was turned into a film by
Wim Wenders.
"Why don't people just open . . . my works instead of accusing me?"
Handke said in an interview with Le Monde after the Comédie-Française
decision.
"I wrote about the Serbs, because no one was writing about them, even
if I also think about the Croat and Muslim victims," said the writer,
who lives in France.
Milioni di oggetti, impossibile non trovare quello che cerchi.
Dallo spillo all'elefante, non ti stupire.
Sei su eBay!
http://adfarm.mediaplex.com/ad/ck/724-7199-4110-179?id=2