who needs a german book prize anyways?
Peter Handke can obviously do without - he asked that his book Die Morawische Nacht be taken off the list of nominees for the prestiguous German Book Prize: "So that the younger authors stand a chance." While that is very generous of him in that the 25.000 € prize money is definitely not going into his pocket, I feel it should be on the jury to decide who most deserves it. By backing out, Handke avoids comparison not only to the younger authors, but to Martin Walser, too. The line between generosity, pretentiousness and headiness seems very thin at times.
3 comments:
you couldn't possibly fathom what's going on here without being or having been in the belly of the beast. to wit: HANDKE WITHDREW
FROM THE GERMAN PUBLISHING PRIZE COMPETITION [SEE LINK BELOW] as far as I am concerned in a similar manner in which he withdrew his play UNTERTAGSBLUES from the Ruhrfestpiele competition in 2006 [and was never going to accept another prize but has accepted the Heine and Thomas Mann prizes since] because he neither wanted to win nor to lose with his weakest play; and this time, I think, he does not want to loose with one of his best books; and this way of handling the matter assures him and his wonderful book at least of some publicity; in common these two events have our great author's vulnerable vanity and management of career;
http://www.boersenblatt.net/254870/
dieser verzicht handke's erinnert mich an den moment als er die moeglichkeit den ruhrfestspiel preis vor einigen jahren mit seinem schlechtesten stueck - untertagsblues - zu gewinnen, ablehnte, verhinderte. in diesem fall, moechte er nicht mit einem einer seiner besten buechern verlieren! nominierung und ablehnung, so als ob man gewonnen haette, und ueberhaupt der beste aber zwar aelter, genuegt um die publizitaets machine angekurbelt zu lassen und die eitelheit unverletzt im fall dass man nicht gewinnen wird, wovon handke wohl nach dieser langen zeit nach der nominierung wind bekommen hatte....
HANDKE LINKS + BLOGS SCRIPTMANIA PROJECT MAIN SITE: http://www.handke.scriptmania.com and 12 sub-sites http://www.handkelectures.freeservers.com [the drama lecture] http://www.kultur.at/see/roloff.htm [dem handke auf die schliche/ prosa, a book of mine about Handke] http://www.artscritic.blogspot.com [some handke material, too, the Milosevic controversy summarized]
michael, thanks a lot for that very interesting comment!
Michael-
Any word on when we might see Die Morawische Nacht (i.e. Samara- by the way what does this alternate title refer to?) published in English translation?
And are there plans to translate Kali as well?
Thanks!
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