Posted on Thursday, June 08, 2006 (EST)
Peter Handke, the Austrian author accused of Serbian nationalist sympathies, has turned down a German literature prize before politicians could revoke it.

Handke said in a letter to the mayor of Duesseldorf, Joachim Erwin, that he would not accept the west German city's Heinrich Heine prize to save everybody involved further embarrassment.

"I am writing to you to spare you and the world from the upcoming sitting of the city council in which they will decide not to give me the prize," Handke said in the letter Thursday.

"Also to spare myself ... and above all to spare my work, which I do not want to become an endless target for the vulgar insults of party politicians."

He suggested that the council sitting be cancelled and its members sent into nature to breathe fresh air, "for example to have a picnic on the banks of the Rhine."

Handke was named winner of the prize last month but the Duesseldorf city council said last week that it would veto the jury's decision because of his eulogy for former Yugoslav president and alleged war criminal Slobodan Milosevic.

The writer in March attended Milosevic's funeral and lauded him as "a man who defended his people".

The speech also sparked a bitter row in France with the administrator of the Paris state theater Comedie Francaise, Marcel Bozonnet, cancelling the 2007 season of Handke's play "Voyage to the Sonorous Land or the Art of Asking".

Bozonnet's decision was condemned in art circles in France, where Handke lives, and further afield as censorship.

The critics included his German publishers, Suhrkamp, and his compatriot, Nobel literature laureate Elfriede Jelinek.

Handke said he was "disgusted" by the decision and defended himself as merely having sought to counter the dominant, one-sided "polemic" view of the break-up of the former Yugoslavia.

But when it was announced he should receive the Heinrich Heine prize, the same debate about whether an artist's work can be separated from his political views resurged in Germany.

Local politicians said honouring Handke was a slap in the face of those who suffered under Milosevic and vowed to deny him the prize, which was due to be awarded on December 13.

The winner is chosen by an independent panel, but must be confirmed by Duesseldorf authorities who donate the prize money of 50,000 euros (63,300 dollars).
I'd like to here everybody's thoughts on the matter. Personally, I find this to be unforgivable. Germany is a nation with a track record more shameful than any other when it comes to upholding peace and human rights. For them to criticize and castigate an innocent author for having both the wisdom to realize the truth about the Balkans and the testicular fortitude to voice it is utterly absurd. The Balkans conflict is by far the most misunderstood conflict in world history. The overwhelming majority of people know either nothing about it, or are wrong about everything they think they know. Handke is a rarity in that regard. So if politics were to be considered here, it should have only been done to his advantage. Still, I'm not surprised he turned it down to preserve the peace, because in that regard, he is like our dead hero, President Milosevich.