Peter Handke refuses the Heine prize

Thomas Steinfeld takes bitter stock of the scandal involving the Heinrich Heine Prize, which was to go to Peter Handke and which he has now turned down. He reserves his harshest criticism for the politicians in Dusseldorf. "The last idea the city council had before Peter Hanke took matters into his own hands was the proposal that before the prize-giving ceremony the Heinrich-Heine University should hold a symposium at which the author's work could be discussed, and where he himself could defend it. This symposium would in effect have been a tribunal held at the author's expense… And what will happen now? The prize can't be awarded to someone else under the present circumstances. The jury has fallen apart. It's out of the question that next year's winner be named under the same conditions. And which author would be willing to subject him- or herself to the whims of such a city council?

» full article (external link, German)
More from the press review on the subject » Literature, » Cultural Policy, » Europe
All available articles from » Thomas Steinfeld

» To the complete press review of Friday, June 9, 2006