They've announced that Austrian playwright and author Peter Handke has been awarded this year's International Ibsen Award, which: "aims to honour an individual, institution or organisation that has brought a new artistic dimension to the world of drama or theatre"; previous winners include Peter Brook and Jon Fosse.
He certainly is a worthy winner -- like fellow Austrians Bernhard and Jelinek, he's world-class as both a prose-writer, and as a dramatist.
One of the things that's remarkable about the prize is that it is state-endowed -- the Norwegian government set this up and funded it. More remarkable is that they endowed it very, very well: "the winner receives 2.5 million Norwegian kroner" -- just shy of US$413,000 at yesterday's exchange rate .....
(Sure, the Norwegians are oil-rich enough to splurge on cultural give-aways like this -- still, that's a lot of money (and most of it has gone to foreigners like Handke). Not the kind of thing you're ever going to see in the US, that's for sure .....)
One of the things that's remarkable about the prize is that it is state-endowed -- the Norwegian government set this up and funded it. More remarkable is that they endowed it very, very well: "the winner receives 2.5 million Norwegian kroner" -- just shy of US$413,000 at yesterday's exchange rate .....
(Sure, the Norwegians are oil-rich enough to splurge on cultural give-aways like this -- still, that's a lot of money (and most of it has gone to foreigners like Handke). Not the kind of thing you're ever going to see in the US, that's for sure .....)