Why Peter Handke is a startlingly controversial Nobel prize winner

Peter Handke.
(Image credit: GEORG HOCHMUTH/Getty Images)

The Nobel Prize in Literature is no stranger to controversy, most recently prompting hand-wringing when it awarded Bob Dylan the literary world's highest honor back in 2016. On Thursday, though, with the announcement of the 2019 prize going to Austrian writer Peter Handke, the Swedish Academy is under fire once more.

Handke, 76, is a novelist and a playwright "regarded as one of the most important writers in German," in the words of The New York Times. Handke, who grew up near the Slovenian border, "is also one of the most prominent defenders of the late Serbian dictator Slobodan Milosevic," writes The American Scholar. Milosevic died in 2006 while on trial at The Hague for war crimes pertaining to the Bosnian genocide, including his role in the 1995 Srebrenica massacre of 8,000 Muslims. Handke, however, eulogized Milosevic after the dictator's death, and "before an overflow crowd of some 20,000 radical Serb nationalists."

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Jeva Lange

Jeva Lange was the executive editor at TheWeek.com. She formerly served as The Week's deputy editor and culture critic. She is also a contributor to Screen Slate, and her writing has appeared in The New York Daily News, The Awl, Vice, and Gothamist, among other publications. Jeva lives in New York City. Follow her on Twitter.