As always, I’m writing for anyone willing to take the time to read. But in this instance, I’m chiefly writing for those who haven’t read Peter Handke or who have read only a little of his work—readers who might have been inclined (after the Nobel Prize in Literature announcements last week) to give him a try, as I intend to do with Olga Tokarczuk, but who have been dissuaded by the flood of articles and “statements” denouncing Handke as a fascist and an apologist for genocide.
The statement issued by PEN America was typical: “We are dumbfounded by the selection of a writer who has used his public voice to undercut historical truth and offer public succor to perpetrators of genocide, like former Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic and Bosnia Serb leader Radovan Karadzic.”
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