Peter Handke

[Stewart]

Peter Handke (born 6 December 1942, in Griffen, Austria) is an avant-garde Austrian novelist and playwright.

Ever the enfant terrible, Peter Handke exemplifies the complexity of writing as an Austrian in the post WW2 period, and his work has continually provoked controversy and outrage on a variety of fronts.
While studying, he established himself as writer, linking up with the Grazer Gruppe (the Graz Authors' Assembly), an association of young writers. The group published the literary digest manuskripte. Both Elfriede Jelinek and Barbara Frischmuth were among its members.
Handke abandoned his studies in 1965, when the German Suhrkamp Verlag accepted his novel Die Hornissen (The Hornets) for publication.

He gained popular attention after a spectacular appearance at a meeting of avant garde artists belonging to the Gruppe 47 in Princeton, New Jersey, U.S., where he presented his play Publikumsbeschimpfung (Offending the Audience).

When Elfriede Jelinek was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2004, she stated that she considered Peter Handke a more worthy recipient than herself and that she had been awarded the prize merely because she is female.

In 1996 his travelogue Eine winterliche Reise zu den Fl?ssen Donau, Save, Morawa und Drina oder Gerechtigkeit f?r Serbien (A Journey to the Rivers: Justice for Serbia) created considerable controversy, as Handke portrayed Serbia among the victims of the Balkan War. In the same essay, Handke also frontally attacked Western media for misrepresenting the causes and consequences of the war. This controversy still rages.

In 2006 Handke was nominated for the Heinrich Heine Prize, but the prize money of ?50,000 is subject to approval by the city council of D?sseldorf. Members of the council's major parties stated they would vote against awarding the prize to Handke, resulting in the prize being withdrawn.

RELATED LINKS


Peter Handke on Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Handke)
The Peter Handke affair (http://www.signandsight.com/features/809.html/)

[liehtzu]

In light of the topic of Peter Handke threatening to overwhelm the Nobel Discussion board I suggest it be moved here.

[liehtzu]

On the Nobel forum Formerly Appelhead said:

Funny enough to quote stuff from articles that one has not read oneself, right? Here is the unabridged version of the mentioned article (in German unfortunately) just to show how silly this is:

http://archiv.tagesspiegel.de/drucke...06/2571718.asp (http://archiv.tagesspiegel.de/drucken.php?link=archiv/03.06.2006/2571718.asp)

Some excerpts? Here we go:

[...] Dabei hatte der Dichter Handke gewaltigen Erfolg, dem es gelang, viele Serben davon zu überzeugen, dass ihre Landsleute keine Verbrecher seien, sondern Opfer einer wohlüberlegten Weltverschwörung. Dieser Dichter steht heute allerdings wegen falscher Darstellung vor dem Gericht der europäischen Öffentlichkeit. Weil sich herausgestellt hat, dass den Heine-Preis für Völkerverständigung ein Lügner bekommen würde. [...]
Der große Bauernfänger Milosevic hatte sich selbst im Netz des Todes verfangen, als er sich weigerte, Medikamente einzunehmen, in der Meinung, so eine Behandlung in Russland erzwingen zu können. [...]
Jemandes Werk aus ideologisch-politischen Gründen zu zensieren, es vom Spielplan zu nehmen, jemandem einen Preis wegzunehmen, ist für mich ein unzulässiger Akt. Selbst wenn es Peter Handke ist, ein Mann mit völlig falschen Anschauungen von der aktuellen Politik, außerdem ein großer Dichter seiner Sprache, besonders in früheren Jahren. Der Preis, den sie ihm jetzt zu verleihen versuchen, verkompliziert das Problem aber. Es ist, als amnestiere man damit das ganze Grauen der Gewaltherrschaft in Serbien in den letzten Jahrzehnten. Dieser große Manipulator mit seiner Sicht auf den Krieg ist selbst manipuliert, weil er zu einem Gewicht auf der Waage von Interessen wird, die sehr wenig mit der Sache der Literatur zu tun haben. Wenn jemand Gerechtigkeit für Handke fordert, muss er zuerst Gerechtigkeit für Serbien fordern, um es vor falschen Anwälten zu schützen. Denn wie er dieses Land vertritt, ist beleidigend. [...]

A quick translation of the marked parts:
[...] Thereby the poet Handke had tremendous success, who managed to convince many Serbs believe that their countrymen were not criminals but victims of a deliberate worldwide conspiracy. Though this poet today is standing trial before the court of he European public for false representation. [...]
Milosevic, the great charlatan himself got caught in the web of death, when he refused to take medication, in the opinion, to enforce with that a treatment in Russia. [...]
Even if it is Peter Handke, a man with a completely erroneous views of current politics [...]
But the price they are now trying to give him complicates the problem. It's like one gave amnesty to the full horror of tyranny in Serbia in recent decades. This great manipulator with his view on the war himself got manipulated, because he is a weight on the balance of interests that have very little to do with the cause of literature. [...]

So think twice before you continue to make a fool of yourself with such ridiculous and factual incorrect posts... I really try not to bother anymore and ignore such posts. I won't answer on the other post above, it is too silly...

.................................................. ....................

...and I typed out a long response that I ended up deleting because it's not worth the bother.

Peter Handke wrote some good books: The Goalie's Anxiety at the Penalty Kick, Across, The Sorrow Beyond Dreams, Short Letter Long Farewell... By all means, if one has yet to form a frothing verdict on this evil man, I highly recommend them.

[lenz]

The Goalie's Anxiety at the Penalty Kick is wonderful and really great, in my humble opinion.

[adaorardor]

Handke will surely go down in history as one of the greatest writers of this era, no? Masterpieces over the course of a half-century like Kaspar, The Goalie's Anxiety at the Penalty Kick, Repetition, A Sorrow Beyond Dreams, On A Dark Night I Left My Silent House (not to mention more controversial recent perhaps-masterpieces like The Loss of the Image and My Year in the No-Man's-Bay). Such a powerful and intuitive vision which carries on the projects of past titans yet is so distinctly Handke's own.

[lenz]

Handke will surely go down in history as one of the greatest writers of this era, no? Masterpieces over the course of a half-century like Kaspar, The Goalie's Anxiety at the Penalty Kick, Repetition, A Sorrow Beyond Dreams, On A Dark Night I Left My Silent House (not to mention more controversial recent perhaps-masterpieces like The Loss of the Image and My Year in the No-Man's-Bay). Such a powerful and intuitive vision which carries on the projects of past titans yet is so distinctly Handke's own.

Yes, I agree. In spite of questionable political involvement, I think he will be remembered as one of the great writers of his time.

[accidie]

I see on today's Complete Review blog (Literary Saloon) that Handke has just been denied yet another literary prize for which he was selected. This time it was a corporate sponsor who refused to award the prize.

[Liam]

Link, please, :).

[Rumpelstilzchen]

Link, please, :).
http://www.complete-review.com/saloon/archive/201109c.htm#xz9

[Daniel del Real]

Spanish newspaper El País recently interviewed controversial Peter Handke. Here are some excerpts I was able to translate


Permeability is decisive. What counts is that the writer becomes a figure of transition, by which all things pass. In fact literature does not progress but varies.


I once said, long ago, oh, if could write like Chekhov, these stories, plays like Anton Chekhov. And then someone told me: "But if it already exists!, You don't need to. Write down what Chekhov transmits you from his world, motion, rythm, quality and the trembling.


Once I said that a great author closes the way for his followers, but only for them finding their own way. The opposite of writers such as Thomas Bernhard, who is easy to imitate. A writer who is easy to imitate, in the end, does not deserve to be called a good writer.

There are many interesting subjects in the conversation, but I'm too lazy to translate them all, so here´s the original link.

http://www.elpais.com/articulo/portada/Handke/tiempo/elpepuculbab/20111105elpbabpor_3/Tes

[kpjayan]

Interesting.. I just started reading Short Letter, Long Farewell last night... re-released in 2009.

I read this in the intro..


"I want something to open up, which is why I wrote an article in Liberation, hoping that people will return to what it is that I actually wrote", Handke sais in 2006. "That they don't just look at what I wrote about Yugoslavia, but that they consider how I write, my view, my rhythm"

[Daniel del Real]

Here's the interview made by el País, now fully translated. Enjoy.

http://jsmyth.wordpress.com/2011/11/16/handke/

[Rumpelstilzchen]

Once I said that a great author closes the way for his followers, but only for them finding their own way. The opposite of writers such as Thomas Bernhard, who is easy to imitate. A writer who is easy to imitate, in the end, does not deserve to be called a good writer.


Btw, Daniel. I just read a few articles about the relationship between Handke and Bernhard. This seems to be really interesting. I mean, both are probably the two most famous male writers of Austrian post-war literature. It seems that Handke was a big admirer of Bernhard in the beginning, calling him "the most gifted of us all" for example. But then something must have happened between the two, because starting from the mid 80s Handke bas been attacking Bernhard regularly on a verbal level in the hardest way. It seems that the reasons for this have not been clarified for the public yet. Apparently there was an infamous meeting between the two in 1983. I found (German) newspaper articles were people speculate if maybe a big clash between them happened at that meeting that caused all of this. The author of the Handke biography, which just came out in Germany one or two years ago, has made the statement that he might write a book exclusively dealing with the Handke-Bernhard relationship. Looking forward to this :)

[Daniel del Real]

Btw, Daniel. I just read a few articles about the relationship between Handke and Bernhard. This seems to be really interesting. I mean, both are probably the two most famous male writers of Austrian post-war literature. It seems that Handke was a big admirer of Bernhard in the beginning, calling him "the most gifted of us all" for example. But then something must have happened between the two, because starting from the mid 80s Handke bas been attacking Bernhard regularly on a verbal level in the hardest way. It seems that the reasons for this have not been clarified for the public yet. Apparently there was an infamous meeting between the two in 1983. I found (German) newspaper articles were people speculate if maybe a big clash between them happened at that meeting that caused all of this. The author of the Handke biography, which just came out in Germany one or two years ago, has made the statement that he might write a book exclusively dealing with the Handke-Bernhard relationship. Looking forward to this :)

This is very interesting and it is most likely the author of Handke's biography will take it in a more formal non fiction style. It would also be interesting if another writer can take this anecdote and start filling the gaps with fiction.

[Cleanthess]

Happy 70th. Birthday to Peter Handke.

[Daniel del Real]

Happy 70th. Birthday to Peter Handke.

Wow, I thought he was younger