Pinter nabs it
So Pinter won the Nobel prize for literature after all. Personally I’m quite happy about that as I think his work is interesting and politically we’re up the same street. In the UK his opposition to the Iraq war has been more than just the usual vague celebrity expressions of regret - his criticism of the Blair government has been searing and incisive.
However, as the first commenter on the BBC article linked above points out (oddly I know this commenter in a somewhat round-about way), it is something of a pity that once again the recipient is a writer in the English language. On the other hand, perhaps it is not such a bad thing that it did not go to Korean poet Ko Un, who as Oranckay pointed out yesterday, has been running a rather vigorous and slightly unseemly campaign for the prize. There was a rumour that both he and novelist Hwang Sôg-yông had been nominated for the prize this year and this was causing some problems for the committee. It was also causing quite a bit of excitement among Korean publishers, who are busy gearing up for this year’s Frankfurt Book Fair, where Korea is the special ‘guest of honour’ country.
Anyway… congratulations to Harold Pinter.
Democracy
There’s no escape.
The big pricks are out.
They’ll fuck everything in sight.
Watch your back.Harold Pinter Februrary 2003
Have I missed something, or is that poem not homophobic and thus perhaps not the most seemly way of expressing a political disagreement?
Comment by Andrés — October 21, 2005 @ 6:49 am
It’s certainly not seemly and he is clearly going for shock value. As to whether it’s homophobic, I suppose that’s a matter of interpretation. I have to say that while I thought it was deliberately offensive, I didn’t think it was that particular kind of offensive until you drew my attention to the possibility.
Comment by kotaji — October 21, 2005 @ 8:35 am