Twenty years before Peter Handke would become a Nobel laureate, he won another title. Seven years after Rushdie’s scorching condemnation, in 2006, he would also attend war criminal Milošević’s funeral. This is Sweden today: an apologist of war crimes gets a Nobel prize while the country fully participated in the character assassination of the true hero of our times, Julian Assange. Even at the time, I found him cruel and totally self-absorbed in his naivety.”Handke’s politics have long been derided by former friends and authors. Some were pleased by Handke’s win, however: Serbian media lined up to praise the decision, calling Handke a “great friend”, while Austrian president Alexander Van der Bellen called Handke’s voice “unfussy and unique … We have a lot to thank Peter Handke for.

Source: The Guardian October 10, 2019 16:30 UTC