Peter Handke

Peter Handke (; born 6 December 1942) is an Austrian novelist, playwright, translator, poet, film director, and screenwriter. He was awarded the 2019 Nobel Prize in Literature "for an influential work that with linguistic ingenuity has explored the periphery and the specificity of human experience." Handke is considered to be one of the most influential and original German-language writers in the second half of the 20th century.

In the late 1960s, he earned his reputation as a member of the avant-garde with such plays as ''Offending the Audience'' (1966) in which actors analyze the nature of theatre and alternately insult the audience and praise its "performance", and ''Kaspar'' (1967). His novels, mostly ultraobjective, deadpan accounts of characters in extreme states of mind, include ''The Goalie's Anxiety at the Penalty Kick'' (1970) and '' The Left-Handed Woman'' (1976). Prompted by his mother's suicide in 1971, he reflected her life in the novella '' A 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. Handke was a member of the '' Grazer Gruppe'' (an association of authors) and the Grazer Autorenversammlung, and co-founded the Verlag der Autoren publishing house in Frankfurt. He collaborated with director Wim Wenders, leading to screenplays such as ''The Wrong Move'' and '' Wings of Desire''.

In 1973, he won the Georg Büchner Prize, the most important literary prize for German-language literature, but in 1999, as a sign of protest against the NATO bombing of Yugoslavia, Handke returned the prize money to the German Academy for Language and Literature.

Life

Early life and family

Handke was born in Griffen, then in the German Reich's province Gau Carinthia. His father, Erich Schönemann, was a bank clerk and German soldier whom Handke did not meet until adulthood. His mother Maria, a Carinthian Slovene, married Bruno Handke, a tram conductor and Wehrmacht soldier from Berlin, before Peter was born. The family lived in the Soviet-occupied Pankow 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 to alcoholism.

In 1954, Handke was sent to the Catholic ''Marianum'' boys' boarding school at Tanzenberg Castle in Sankt Veit an der Glan. There, he published his first writing in the school newspaper, ''Fackel''. In 1959, he moved to Klagenfurt, where he went to high school, and commenced law studies at the University of Graz in 1961.

Handke's mother took her own life in 1971, reflected in his novel ''Wunschloses Unglück'' (''A Sorrow Beyond Dreams'').

After leaving Graz, Handke lived in Düsseldorf, Berlin, Kronberg, Paris, the U.S. (1978 to 1979) and Salzburg (1979 to 1988). Since 1990, he has resided in Chaville near Paris. He is the subject of the documentary film '' Peter Handke: In the Woods, Might Be Late'' (2016), directed by .

Sebastian Hammelehle wrote that Handke's view of the Yugoslav Wars, which has provoked numerous controversies, was probably romanticized, but that it represented the view of a writer, not a war reporter. The American translator Scott Abbott, who traveled with Handke through Yugoslavia after which numerous essays were published, stated that Handke considered Yugoslavia as the "incredible, rich multicultural state that lacked the kind of nationalisms that he saw in Germany and Austria". Abbott added that Handke viewed the disintegration of country as the disappearance of utopia. Reviewing ''The 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". Volker Hage wrote that ''The 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. Tanjil Rashid noted that "Handke’s novels, plays and memoirs demonstrate the evil of banality".

After his play ''Voyage by Dugout'' was staged in 1999, Handke was condemned by other writers: Susan Sontag proclaimed Handke to be "finished" in New York. Salman Rushdie declared him as a candidate for "International Moron of the Year" due to his "idiocies", while Alain Finkielkraut said that he was an "ideological monster", and Slavoj Žižek stated that his "glorification of the Serbs is cynicism". When Handke was awarded the International Ibsen Award in 2014, it caused some calls for the jury to resign.Krever at juryen går av
''Klassekampen''

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." 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".

Handke’s literary fame was overshadowed in 2006 by his politics. The writer’s public support of Slobodan 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. Because of this the administrator of the theater Comédie-Française, Marcel Bozonnet, removed Handke's play "Voyage au pays sonore ou L'art de la question" from the forthcoming 2007 schedule. 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 by Emir Kusturica, Patrick Modiano (winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2014), Paul Nizon, Bulle Ogier, Luc Bondy and Handke’s compatriot Elfriede Jelinek (winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2004).
Handke was subsequently selected to receive that year’s Heinrich Heine Prize, though he refused it before it was to be revoked from him.

In 2013, Tomislav Nikolić, as the then 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 explanation, "I was not anyone's victim, the Serbian people is victim." This was said during the ceremony at which Handke received the ''Gold Medal of Merit of the Republic of Serbia''.

In 2014, Handke called for the Nobel Prize in Literature to be abolished and dubbed it a "circus".

In February 2020, Sima Avramović, the president of the commission for decorations of the Republic of Serbia, explained that Handke, for "special merits in representing Serbia and its citizens" as he "wholeheartedly defended the Serbian truth", is being decorated with the '' Order of the Star of Karadjordje''. The current President of Serbia, Aleksandar Vučić, presented recipients on the occasion of the Serbian Statehood Day.

Reactions to the Nobel Prize

Awards

* 1973: Georg Büchner Prize
* 1987: Vilenica International Literary Prize
* 2000:
* 2002: America Award
* 2002: Honorary Doctor, University of Klagenfurt
* 2003: Honorary Doctor, University of Salzburg
*2008: Thomas-Mann-Preis
*2009: Franz Kafka Prize
* 2012: Mülheimer Dramatikerpreis
* 2014: International Ibsen Award
* 2018: Nestroy Theatre Prize for Lifetime Achievement
* 2019: Nobel Prize in Literature
* 2020: Order of Karađorđe's Star
*2021: Order of the Republika Srpska

Works

Handke has written novels, plays, screenplays, essays and poems, often published by Suhrkamp. Many works were translated to English. His works are held by the German National Library, including:
* 1966 ' (''The Hornets''), novel
* 1966 '' Publikumsbeschimpfung und andere Sprechstücke'' (''Offending the Audience and Other Spoken Plays''), play, English version as ''Offending the Audience and Self-accusation''
* 1967 ''Kaspar'', play, English version also as ''Kaspar and Other Plays''
* 1970 '' Die Angst des Tormanns beim Elfmeter'' (''The Goalie's Anxiety at the Penalty Kick''), novel and screenplay of the 1972 film ''The Goalkeeper's Fear of the Penalty''
* 1972 '' Der kurze Brief zum langen Abschied'' (''Short Letter, Long Farewell''), novel
* 1972 ''Wunschloses Unglück'' (''A Sorrow Beyond Dreams: A Life Story''), semi-autobiographical story
* 1973 ', play
* 1975 '' Die Stunde der wahren Empfindung'' (''A Moment of True Feeling''), novel
* 1977 ''Die linkshändige Frau'' (''The Left-Handed Woman''), screenplay after his 1976 novel
* 1979 ''Langsame Heimkehr'' (''Slow Homecoming''), start of a tetralogy of stories, including ''Die Lehre der Sainte-Victoire'' (1980), ''Über die Dörfer'' and ' (1981)
* 1983 ' (''Across''), story
* 1986 '' Die Wiederholung'' (''Repetition''), novel
* 1987 ''Der Himmel über Berlin'' (''Wings of Desire''), screenplay with Wim Wenders
* 1990 '' Das Wintermärchen'', William Shakespeare, German translation by Peter Handke. Première Schaubühne Berlin (1990)
* 1992 '' Die Stunde, da wir nichts voneinander wußten'' (''The Hour We Knew Nothing of Each Other'')
* 1994 '' Mein Jahr in der Niemandsbucht. Ein Märchen aus den neuen Zeiten'' (''My Year in the No-Man's-Bay''), novel
* 2002 '' Der Bildverlust oder Durch die Sierra de Gredos'' (''Crossing the Sierra de Gredos''), novel
* 2008 '' Die morawische Nacht'' (''The Moravian Night'')
* 2010 '' Immer noch Sturm'' (''Storm Still''), a play about the Slovenian uprising against Hitler in 1945, ; first performance: Salzburg Festival 2011
* 2018 ''Peter Handke Bibliothek''. I. Prose, Poetry, Plays (Vol. 1–9), ; II. Essays (Vol. 10–11), ; III Diaries (Vol. 13–14),
* 2021 ''The Fruit Thief: or, One-Way Journey into the Interior''. (Ref. Amazon https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B092T97V7M/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_bibl_vppi_i2)

Further reading

*Abbott, Scott and Žarko Radaković (2013)
''Repetitions''.
Brooklyn/NYC: Punctum Books.
* Herwig, Malte (2010). ''Meister der Dämmerung. Peter Handke. Eine Biografie''. München: DVA (official biography in German).
*Höller, Hans (2007). ''Peter Handke.'' Reinbek bei Hamburg: Rowohlt.
* Sebald, W. G. (2013).
Across the Border: Peter Handke's Repetition
'. Amsterdam, Sofia: The Last Books.

References

External links

*

Peter Handke (geb. 1942) / Schriftsteller
Literaturarchiv der Österreichischen Nationalbibliothek

Peter Handke / Schriftsteller, Dramatiker, Romancier, Lyriker, Essayist, Übersetzer, Drehbuchautor, Regisseur, Zeichner, Nobelpreisträger / Geboren: 1942, Griffen
Deutsche Digitale Bibliothek


Library of the Free University of Berlin
List of works


(poem) Wim Wenders
*
* Karl-Erik Tallmo

''Svenska Dagbladet'', 23 September 1988
*

Sound recordings with Peter Handke
in the Online Archive of the Österreichische Mediathek (Literary readings, interviews and radio reports)

{{DEFAULTSORT:Handke, Peter

1942 births
Living people
People from Völkermarkt District
20th-century Austrian dramatists and playwrights
21st-century Austrian dramatists and playwrights
Austrian male dramatists and playwrights
People of Carinthian Slovene descent
Austrian people of Slovenian descent
Austrian people of German descent
Yugoslav people of German descent
Eastern Orthodox Christians from Austria
Members of the Serbian Orthodox Church
Anton Wildgans Prize winners
Schiller Memorial Prize winners
Georg Büchner Prize winners
20th-century Austrian novelists
21st-century Austrian novelists
German-language poets
Austrian male poets
20th-century Austrian poets
20th-century Austrian male writers
21st-century Austrian male writers
Austrian Nobel laureates
Nobel laureates in Literature
Eastern Orthodox writers
Members of the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts
Members of the Academy of Sciences and Arts of the Republika Srpska
Deniers of the Bosnian genocide