Peter Handke (German:[ˈpeːtɐˈhantkə]; born 6 December 1942) is anAustrian novelist, playwright, translator, poet, film director, and screenwriter. He was awarded the2019 Nobel Prize in Literature "for an influential work that with linguistic ingenuity has explored the periphery and the specificity of human experience."[1] Handke is considered to be one of the most influential and original German-language writers in the second half of the 20th century.[2][3]
In the late 1960s, he earned his reputation as a member of theavant-garde with such plays asOffending the Audience (1966) in which actors analyze the nature of theatre and alternately insult the audience and praise its "performance", andKaspar (1967). His novels, mostly ultra objective,deadpan accounts of characters in extreme states of mind, includeThe Goalie's Anxiety at the Penalty Kick (1970) andThe Left-Handed Woman (1976).[4] Prompted by his mother's suicide in 1971, he reflected her life in the novellaA Sorrow Beyond Dreams (1972).
A dominant theme of his works is the deadening effects and underlying irrationality of ordinary language, everyday reality, and rational order.[4] Handke was a member of theGrazer Gruppe (an association of authors) and theGrazer Autorenversammlung, and co-founded the Verlag der Autoren publishing house in Frankfurt. He collaborated with directorWim Wenders, and wrote such screenplays asThe Wrong Move andWings of Desire.
Handke was born inGriffen, then in theGerman Reich'sReichsgau Carinthia.[2] His father, Erich Schönemann, was a bank clerk and German soldier whom Handke did not meet until adulthood. His mother Maria, aCarinthian Slovene, married Bruno Handke, a tram conductor andWehrmacht soldier from Berlin, before Peter was born.[7] The family lived in the Soviet-occupiedPankow district of Berlin from 1944 to 1948, where Maria Handke had two more children: Peter's half-sister and half-brother. Then the family moved to his mother's home town of Griffen. Peter experienced his stepfather as more and more violent due toalcoholism.[7]
As of early November 2019, there was an official investigation by the relevant authorities into whether Handke may have automatically lost hisAustrian citizenship upon obtaining a Yugoslav passport and nationality in the late 1990s.[15]
While studying, Handke established himself as a writer, linking up with theGrazer Gruppe (theGraz Authors' Assembly), an association of young writers.[9] The group published a magazine on literature,manuskripte [de], which published Handke's early works.[2] Group members includedWolfgang Bauer andBarbara Frischmuth.[16]
Handke's first play,Publikumsbeschimpfung (Offending the Audience), which premiered in Frankfurt in 1966 and made him well known,[18] was the first of several experimental plays without a conventional plot.[2] In his second play,Kaspar, he treated the story ofKaspar Hauser as "an allegory of conformist social pressures".[18]
In 2019, Handke was awarded theNobel Prize in Literature "for an influential work that with linguistic ingenuity has explored the periphery and the specificity of human experience."[1]
In 1977, reviewingA Moment of True Feeling,Stanley Kauffmann wrote that Handke "is the most important new writer on the international scene sinceSamuel Beckett."[22]John Updike reviewed the same novel inThe New Yorker and was equally impressed, noting that "there is no denying his [Handke's] willful intensity and knifelike clarity of evocation. He writes from an area beyond psychology, where feelings acquire the adamancy of randomly encountered, geologically analyzed pebbles."[23] TheFrankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung described him as "the darling of theWest German critics."[24]Hugo Hamilton stated that, since his debut, Handke "has tested, inspired and shocked audiences."[25]Joshua Cohen noted that Handke "commands one of the great German-languageprose styles of thepost-war period, a riverine rhetoric deep and swift and contrary of current," whileGabriel Josipovici described him, "despite reservations about some of his recent work," as one of the most significantGerman-language writers of the post-war era.[26][27]W. G. Sebald was inspired by Handke's intricate prose. In an essay onRepetition, he wrote about "a great and, as I have since learned, lasting impression" the book made on him. "I don’t know," he lauded, "if the forced relation between hard drudgery and airy magic, particularly significant for the literary art, has ever been more beautifully documented than in the pages ofRepetition."[28]Karl Ove Knausgård describedA Sorrow Beyond Dreams as one of the "most important books written in German in our time."[29] The book and its author were also praised in Knausgård'sMy Struggle.[30]
In 1996, Handke'stravelogueEine winterliche Reise zu den Flüssen Donau, Save, Morawa und Drina oder Gerechtigkeit für Serbien (published in English asA Journey to the Rivers: Justice for Serbia) created controversy, as Handke portrayedSerbia as being among the victims of theYugoslav Wars. In the same essay, Handke also criticised Western media for misrepresenting the causes and consequences of the war.[6]
Sebastian Hammelehle wrote that Handke's view of theYugoslav Wars, which has provoked numerous controversies, was probably romanticized, but that it represented the view of a writer, not awar reporter.[31] The American translator Scott Abbott, who travelled with Handke throughYugoslavia after which numerous essays were published, stated that Handke considered Yugoslavia as the "incredible, richmulticultural state that lacked the kind of nationalisms that he saw in Germany and Austria".[24] Abbott added that Handke viewed thedisintegration of country as the disappearance ofutopia.[24] ReviewingThe Moravian Night, Joshua Cohen stated that Handke's Yugoslavia was not a country, but a symbol of himself, a symbol of literature or the "European Novel".[26]Volker Hage wrote thatThe Moravian Night is "extremely cosmopolitan" and connected to the present, while also that the book represents the autobiographical summary of Handke's life as a writer.[32] Tanjil Rashid noted that "Handke’s novels, plays and memoirs demonstrate the evil of banality".[29]
After his playVoyage by Dugout was staged in 1999, Handke was condemned by other writers:Susan Sontag proclaimed Handke to be "finished" in New York.[33]Salman Rushdie declared him as a candidate for "International Moron of the Year" due to his "idiocies",[34][35][36] whileAlain Finkielkraut said that he was an "ideological monster",[37] andSlavoj Žižek stated that his "glorification of the Serbs is cynicism".[37] When Handke was awarded theInternational Ibsen Award in 2014, the Norwegian authorØyvind Berg called for the jury to resign.[38]
However, disputing such interpretations of his work as listed above as misinterpreted by the English press, Handke has described the Srebrenica massacre as an "infernal vengeance, eternal shame for the Bosnian Serbs responsible."[39] This concern about the imprecision and political nature of language, carries through Handke's view. In a 2006 interview, Handke commented on concerns about the stereotyped language of the media that "knew everything", endlessly recycling words like "the butcher of Belgrade".[40]
Handke’s literary fame was overshadowed in 2006 by his politics. The writer’s public support ofSlobodan Milošević, the former president of Yugoslavia who died that year while on trial for genocide and war crimes, caused controversy after Handke spoke at his funeral.[2] Because of this the administrator of the theatreComédie-Française,Marcel Bozonnet, removed Handke's play "Voyage au pays sonore ou L'art de la question" from the forthcoming 2007 schedule.[41] This event once again drew both supportive and critical voices.Renaud Donnedieu de Vabres, the French minister of culture, implicitly criticized Bozonnet's action in a letter addressed to him, and by deciding to invite Handke to the ministry. A petition against the censorship of his work was signed byEmir Kusturica,Patrick Modiano (winner of theNobel Prize for Literature in 2014),Paul Nizon,Bulle Ogier,Luc Bondy and Handke’s compatriotElfriede Jelinek (winner of theNobel Prize for Literature in 2004).[42] Handke was subsequently selected to receive that year’sHeinrich Heine Prize, though he refused it before it was to be revoked from him.[2]
In 2013,Tomislav Nikolić, as the President of Serbia, expressed gratitude saying that some people still remember those who suffered for Christianity, implying that Handke was a victim of scorn for his views, to which Handke replied with an explanation, "I was not anyone's victim, the Serbian people is victim." This was said during the ceremony at which Handke received theGold Medal of Merit of the Republic of Serbia.[43]
In 2019,The Intercept published a number of articles byPeter Maass criticizing Peter Handke'sNobel Prize in Literature reception. In another article by Intercept, Maass went to great lengths accusing Handke of being an "exponent of white nationalism". Subsequently in an interview conducted by Maass in December 2019, asking Handke whether the 1995Srebrenica massacre had happened, Handke responded: “I prefer waste paper, an anonymous letter with waste paper inside, to your empty and ignorant questions.” Maass also claims that two Nobel prize jurors were adhering to "conspiracy theories" with regard to American involvement in the Yugoslav conflicts, and that the jurors were "misinformed" about Handke's literary achievements. Peter Handke received countless mails that included threats, or unsanitary content. Germany'sEugen Ruge also protested against the scale of the criticism. In November, around 120 authors, literary scholars, translators and artists expressed their unease in an open letter. They felt that the criticism against Handke was no longer rational.[44][45][46]
In February 2020, Handke was decorated with theOrder of Karađorđe's Star for "special merits in representing Serbia and its citizens" as he "wholeheartedly defended the Serbian truth". The current President of SerbiaAleksandar Vučić presented recipients on the occasion of the Serbian Statehood Day.[47][48]
Handke has written novels, plays, screenplays, essays and poems, often published bySuhrkamp.[17] Many works were translated into English. His works are held by theGerman National Library, including:[64]
1979Langsame Heimkehr (Slow Homecoming), start of a tetralogy of stories, includingDie Lehre der Sainte-Victoire (1980),Über die Dörfer andKindergeschichte [de] (1981)
1966Publikumsbeschimpfung und andere Sprechstücke (Offending the Audience and Other Spoken Plays), play, English version asOffending the Audience and Self-accusation
1967Kaspar, play, English version also asKaspar and Other Plays
^Salman Rushdie (7 May 1999)."For services rendered – to the cause of folly".Balkan Witness. from The Toronto Globe and Mail. Retrieved17 May 2020.In the battle for the hotly contested title of International Moron of the Year, two heavyweight contenders stand out. One is the Austrian writer Peter Handke, who has astonished even his work's most fervent admirers by a series of impassioned apologias for the genocidal regime of Slobodan Milosevic, and who, during a recent visit to Belgrade, received the Order of The Serbian Knight for his propaganda services. Mr. Handke's previous idiocies include the suggestion that Sarajevo's Muslims regularly massacred themselves and then blamed the Serbs, and his denial of the genocide carried out by Serbs at Srebrenica. Now he likens the North Atlantic Treaty Organization's aerial bombardment to the alien invasion in the movie Mars Attacks! And then, foolishly mixing his metaphors, he compares the Serbs' sufferings to the Holocaust.
^abTraynor, Ian (21 April 1999)."Stand up if you support the Serbs".The Guardian. Retrieved18 November 2019.This writer, the Austrian, has his very personal style. The very worst crimes get mentioned rather sweetly. And so the reader completely forgets that we're dealing with crimes. The Austrian writer who visited my country found only very proud people there. They proudly put up with everything that happened to them, so much so that in their pride they didn't bother to ask why all this was happening to them.
