The Heine Prize, one last time

That excellent newsdigest service, signandsight, has compiled a most useful overview of the press’ reactions on the Peter Handke affair re the Heine Prize. I’ve brought it up several times on this blog already, but this is the final installement. You can read the English-language summary with pointers to the original German and other language sources highlighted, here. Signandsight starts the article by explaining what the Heine prize is:

The Heinrich Heine Prize of the City of Düsseldorf (not to be confused with the Heinrich Heine Prize of the GDR, which was awarded every year from 1950 – 1990), is given out every two years and includes 50,000 euros in prize money. It is awarded to personalities whose literary works promote human rights and social and political progress, and foster understanding and solidarity between peoples. In late May, Austrian author Peter Handke was informed he had been selected as winner of this year’s prize. A controversy then flared up over Handke’s public support for Slobodan Milosevic, and shortly thereafter the prize was revoked. We’ve compiled below a series of voices from the German-language press.

The list of Heine prize recipients, according to the Wikipedia is as follows:

Recipients

• 1972 Carl Zuckmayer
• 1975 Pierre Bertaux
• 1978 Sebastian Haffner
• 1981 Walter Jens
• 1983 Carl Friedrich von Weizsäcker
• 1985 Günter Kunert
• 1987 Marion Gräfin Dönhoff
• 1989 Max Frisch
• 1991 Richard von Weizsäcker
• 1993 Wolf Biermann
• 1996 Władysław Bartoszewski
• 1998 Hans Magnus Enzensberger
• 2000 Winfried G. Sebald
• 2002 Elfriede Jelinek
• 2004 Robert Gernhardt
• 2006 Peter Handke, nominated but declined