There are dangers inherent in getting companies to sponsor literary awards, just as there are in state-sponsored literature promotion. This time it's a firm that makes book-binding machines, which sponsors the Candide Prize.
A brief look at the prize's history shows it's been a tad turbulent. It started off as a writers' residency but then the town of Minden withdrew its funding. Then a local organisation was funded to award a plain old prize of €7500 from donations. In 2007 they got government funding, according to a rather gappy Wikipedia article at least, and doubled the prize money. And then in 2008 it was turned into a Franco-German award with French ministry funding and went to two different writers, but only for two years until 2010, when only one person got it and they switched to the sponsor. Their website kind of gives up the ghost after that announcement.
So this year they chose one winner again, at least as far as I can establish, and that was Peter Handke. And the prize money was to come from the book-binding machine makers. But no! It's not good for their image to be associated with Austrian writer Handke, because he's made a number of rather dodgy comments about Yugoslavia. They're particularly concerned, says the chairman of the jury Gerd Voswinkel on Deutschlandradio, about losing customers in the USA. No, don't laugh. All book-binders in the USA are perfectly up-to-date on Austrian writers' political positions and would, of course, cancel their orders if they found out about the whole thing. So the sponsor's not paying.
Of course it's not the first time. The mayor of Düsseldorf refused to award Handke the Heinrich-Heine Prize back in 2006, for the same reasons. Since then his biographer Malte Herwig has revealed that Handke actually visited the former commander of the Bosnian Serb armed forces Karadžić in Bosnia in 1996, shortly before the latter disappeared and spent twelve years disguised as a mystic, was then arrested and transferred to The Hague, where he is currently on trial for war crimes including the Srebrenica massacre. The two of them swapped books and Handke asked about the whereabouts of a number of Bosnian Muslims missing since said massacre. Karadžić said he would enquire but seems to have had other things on his mind; Handke never heard back from him. Which doesn't make giving the man money any easier, I can imagine. That and the old "holding speech at Milošević's funeral" incident.
It's a tricky one and I don't have any answers either. But in this case the contract stipulated that the award jury has a free hand to choose the prizewinner, and so Handke gets to keep the certificate but won't bag any cash. Voswinkel says they're now looking for a wealthy patron to keep the award afloat in future.
Showing posts with label peter handke. Show all posts
Showing posts with label peter handke. Show all posts
Thursday, 22 September 2011
Friday, 12 August 2011
Jan Peter Bremer: Der amerikanische Investor
Peter Handke wrote a book in 1987, which I read with some puzzlement at university: Nachmittag eines Schriftstellers. I think it must have been my introduction to the notion of the German book in which nothing whatsoever happens. As far as I recall, a writer goes on a walk and thinks about some things, including writing. Then he goes home again. It may be a tad pompous.
Jan Peter Bremer's book Der amerikanische Investor also describes a writer's afternoon, and there's also a walk involved, albeit a rather short and chaotic one with a disobedient dog. Again, most of the action takes place in the writer's head, but this time he hasn't achieved his day's creative quota in the manner of Handke's exemplary writer - he can't actually manage to put any words down on paper.
Because Bremer, not content with bearing a striking resemblance to aged British comedian Ken Dodd, has written a fine piece of anti-Handke here. Instead of considering aesthetics and other literary matters (or at least until towards the end of the book), his anti-heroic writer is occupied with worries about his home and family. Their apartment building in Berlin has been bought up by the American investor of the title. Who has started renovating it, causing subsidence in the writer's flat. So he decides that instead of agonising over that opening sentence he wanted to write for his book today, he'll write a letter to the American investor. But how to start...?
As the day goes on we make the acquaintance of the writer's dog, his wife, his son and daughter, and various neighbours including the building's previous janitor and an up-and-coming young writer with a thirst for beer. All in a kind of slip-sliding third-person monologue that doubles back on itself so often you might get dizzy. Because although he's suffering from severe writer's block, this guy has no lack of imagination. So there's the moment of panic in which he imagines his daughter's been run over by a car but his capable son sorts out the coffin so as not to bother him, or the idea of his hard-working wife getting an aid job in Africa and the family moving to a mud-hut where he'll tell the local children stories and mop their feverish brows. Or the many scenes in which the American investor is jetting around the world in his private plane, talking down to his manservant and passing judgement on the writer. In fact, for a German book in which nothing whatsoever happens, a hell of a lot happens in this book.
What's most marvellous about it is Bremer's self-deprecating humour. His writer could be a photofit of himself - lives in Kreuzberg, wife and two kids, rather silly children's book about a dog - but is utterly self-absorbed and unreflective. All his wonderful excuses for not getting anything done, all his fantastically clichéd ideas about the people around him - the nearly 100-year-old lady next door, little Ali in his son's class, and above all the American investor - show him in such a bad light that I spent much of my time laughing out loud and folding down pages. And with only about 150 of them (pages, that is), there isn't time for it to get tedious. In fact with all the emotional ups and downs the poor writer goes through in the course of his day, it's pretty much the opposite.
I don't have a great deal more to say, except that you really ought to read this short novel if you enjoy humourous writing. Being a German book, it does of course have a serious and timely point to make, about property speculators and the Berlin housing market. But it does so with such a lack of pomp that Jan Peter Bremer pretty much walked away with the Alfred Döblin Prize for it (see my report here). I'm impressed.
Jan Peter Bremer's book Der amerikanische Investor also describes a writer's afternoon, and there's also a walk involved, albeit a rather short and chaotic one with a disobedient dog. Again, most of the action takes place in the writer's head, but this time he hasn't achieved his day's creative quota in the manner of Handke's exemplary writer - he can't actually manage to put any words down on paper.
Because Bremer, not content with bearing a striking resemblance to aged British comedian Ken Dodd, has written a fine piece of anti-Handke here. Instead of considering aesthetics and other literary matters (or at least until towards the end of the book), his anti-heroic writer is occupied with worries about his home and family. Their apartment building in Berlin has been bought up by the American investor of the title. Who has started renovating it, causing subsidence in the writer's flat. So he decides that instead of agonising over that opening sentence he wanted to write for his book today, he'll write a letter to the American investor. But how to start...?
As the day goes on we make the acquaintance of the writer's dog, his wife, his son and daughter, and various neighbours including the building's previous janitor and an up-and-coming young writer with a thirst for beer. All in a kind of slip-sliding third-person monologue that doubles back on itself so often you might get dizzy. Because although he's suffering from severe writer's block, this guy has no lack of imagination. So there's the moment of panic in which he imagines his daughter's been run over by a car but his capable son sorts out the coffin so as not to bother him, or the idea of his hard-working wife getting an aid job in Africa and the family moving to a mud-hut where he'll tell the local children stories and mop their feverish brows. Or the many scenes in which the American investor is jetting around the world in his private plane, talking down to his manservant and passing judgement on the writer. In fact, for a German book in which nothing whatsoever happens, a hell of a lot happens in this book.
What's most marvellous about it is Bremer's self-deprecating humour. His writer could be a photofit of himself - lives in Kreuzberg, wife and two kids, rather silly children's book about a dog - but is utterly self-absorbed and unreflective. All his wonderful excuses for not getting anything done, all his fantastically clichéd ideas about the people around him - the nearly 100-year-old lady next door, little Ali in his son's class, and above all the American investor - show him in such a bad light that I spent much of my time laughing out loud and folding down pages. And with only about 150 of them (pages, that is), there isn't time for it to get tedious. In fact with all the emotional ups and downs the poor writer goes through in the course of his day, it's pretty much the opposite.
I don't have a great deal more to say, except that you really ought to read this short novel if you enjoy humourous writing. Being a German book, it does of course have a serious and timely point to make, about property speculators and the Berlin housing market. But it does so with such a lack of pomp that Jan Peter Bremer pretty much walked away with the Alfred Döblin Prize for it (see my report here). I'm impressed.
Thursday, 4 September 2008
Handke - an Independent Reader?
The Literary Saloon points out references in an Independent article to several authors who have deliberately evaded nomination for the Booker Prize, namely Patrick White, John Fowles and John LeCarré.
And now Peter Handke has had his book removed from the German Book Prize longlist (German press release). Which makes you wonder what promted his decision... He says, "I am pleased that die Morawische Nacht has been nominated for the book prize. However, I would like to step down in favour of the other nominees, particularly the younger authors, with all due respect for the honourable judges."
Handke is a bit of a colourful character to begin with. He stirred up the literary establishment by slagging off the fat cats of Gruppe 47 in 1966. (Note in that Wikipedia link that this was essentially a men's literary group, not that that was what bothered Handke.) He later calmed down somewhat, and his Linkshändige Frau and Nachmittag eines Schriftstellers were both on my university reading lists - not good choices for impatient undergraduates, though. He wrote the screenplay for that old favourite Wings of Desire. Then suddenly, just when you thought he was resting on his laurels, he took an unpopular stance on the war in Yugoslavia - pro-Serbian. Critics accused him of relativising war crimes, whereas he said he was criticising the media's unilateral coverage. He visited Slobodan Milosevic in prison in the Hague, but declined to speak as a witness in his defence. In 2006 he spoke at his funeral, raising wails of criticism.
He was then chosen for the Heinrich Heine literature prize awarded by the city of Dusseldorf. Which was a feast for local politicians, who said they would refuse to grant him the €50,000 prize money. It may not have helped matters that all this happened during the silly season. I'm not quite sure any more whether Handke was leaned on or whether he declined the award of his own accord. Whatever, a group of actors at the Berliner Ensemble (Brecht's former theatre) started a campaign on his behalf and raised €50,000 - which Handke again declined, preferring to donate it to the Serbian-populated village of Velika Hoča in Kosovo.
So a man now used to turning down awards. Not that it will do him much damage - I note that the rights to die Morawische Nacht have already been sold to the USA, Serbia, Finland, Italy and France.
And now Peter Handke has had his book removed from the German Book Prize longlist (German press release). Which makes you wonder what promted his decision... He says, "I am pleased that die Morawische Nacht has been nominated for the book prize. However, I would like to step down in favour of the other nominees, particularly the younger authors, with all due respect for the honourable judges."
Handke is a bit of a colourful character to begin with. He stirred up the literary establishment by slagging off the fat cats of Gruppe 47 in 1966. (Note in that Wikipedia link that this was essentially a men's literary group, not that that was what bothered Handke.) He later calmed down somewhat, and his Linkshändige Frau and Nachmittag eines Schriftstellers were both on my university reading lists - not good choices for impatient undergraduates, though. He wrote the screenplay for that old favourite Wings of Desire. Then suddenly, just when you thought he was resting on his laurels, he took an unpopular stance on the war in Yugoslavia - pro-Serbian. Critics accused him of relativising war crimes, whereas he said he was criticising the media's unilateral coverage. He visited Slobodan Milosevic in prison in the Hague, but declined to speak as a witness in his defence. In 2006 he spoke at his funeral, raising wails of criticism.
He was then chosen for the Heinrich Heine literature prize awarded by the city of Dusseldorf. Which was a feast for local politicians, who said they would refuse to grant him the €50,000 prize money. It may not have helped matters that all this happened during the silly season. I'm not quite sure any more whether Handke was leaned on or whether he declined the award of his own accord. Whatever, a group of actors at the Berliner Ensemble (Brecht's former theatre) started a campaign on his behalf and raised €50,000 - which Handke again declined, preferring to donate it to the Serbian-populated village of Velika Hoča in Kosovo.
So a man now used to turning down awards. Not that it will do him much damage - I note that the rights to die Morawische Nacht have already been sold to the USA, Serbia, Finland, Italy and France.
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