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British playwright wins Nobel literature laurels
(AP)
Updated: 2005-10-13 20:40
British playwright Harold Pinter, who juxtaposed the brutal and the banal in
such works as "The Caretaker" and "The Birthday Party" and made an art form out
of spare language and unbearable silence, won the 2005 Nobel Prize in literature
Thursday.
British playwright and poet Harold Pinter accepts the 50th
Anniversary Special Award to a Playwright during a theater award ceremony
at the National Theatre in London in this Dec. 13, 2004 file photo. Pinter
has won the 2005 Nobel Prize in literature. The Swedish Academy, awarding
the prize, said Thursday Oct. 13, 2005 he was an author 'who in his plays
uncovers the precipice under everyday prattle and forces entry into
oppression's closed rooms.' [AP] |
The Swedish Academy said the 75-year-old Pinter was an author "who in his
plays uncovers the precipice under everyday prattle and forces entry into
oppression's closed rooms." The chilling, understated style of his work even
inspired an adjective all his own: Pinteresque.
Starting with his breakthrough play, "The Caretaker," Pinter codified a style
in the 1950s and '60s of verbal evasion and violence, menace both spoken and
not. His influence has been felt throughout British literature, and across the
ocean in the work of American playwrights Sam Shepard and David Mamet.
"Pinter restored theater to its basic elements: an enclosed space and
unpredictable dialogue where people are at the mercy of each other and pretense
crumbles," the academy said.
His other works include "The Room" and "The Dumb Waiter."
One of the most influential British playwrights of his generation, Pinter in
recent years he has turned his acerbic eye on the United States and the war in
Iraq.
He has been an outspoken critic of British Prime Minister Tony Blair and
vehemently opposed Britain's involvement in the war. He told the BBC in an
interview in February that that he would continue writing poems but was taking a
break from plays.
"My energies are going in different directions, certainly into poetry," he
said.
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