Wednesday, July 31, 2013
Tom Stoppard wins PEN/Pinter prize
The playwright Tom Stoppard has been awarded this year's PEN/Pinter Prize.
Stoppard has previously received awards for many of his plays, including Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead (1966) and Arcadia (1993) and has also written for radio, television and film. In 1997 he was honoured with a knighthood, and in 2000 was awarded the Order of Merit by the Queen. He recently wrote the BBC's adaptation of Ford Madox Ford's Parade's End.
The £2,000 prize is awarded annually to a British writer or writer resident in Britain of outstanding literary merit, who, in the words of Harold Pinter's Nobel Literature Prize speech, shows a "fierce intellectual determination... to define the real truth of our lives and our societies.''
Stoppard, who was born in Czechoslovakia and moved to England in 1946, honoured the British playwright who gives his name to the prize. ''Harold was one of the reasons I wanted to write plays," he said.
"I had the sense not to attempt a 'Pinter play', but in other respects, as the years went by, he became and remained a model for the kind of fearless integrity which PEN exists to defend among writers, and most of us had occasion to feel humbled by his example.''
Stoppard was a prominent supporter of Eastern European writers living behind the Iron Curtain. His prize will be split with an International Writer of Courage, selected by him in association with English PEN's Writers at Risk Committee. The co-winner will be announced at a public prize-giving event at the British Library on October 7.
This year's judges were Christopher Bland, Poet Laureate and 2012 winner Carol Ann Duffy, historian Antonia Fraser (Pinter's widow), playwright David Lan and president of English PEN and the chair of judges Gillian Slovo.
Slovo said: ''We are delighted to award this year's PEN/Pinter Prize to Tom Stoppard. The judges agreed unanimously that Tom's lifetime's work meets the challenging criteria set by Harold Pinter when he described those characteristics he most admired in a writer – characteristics which English PEN shares in its campaigning and charitable mission – those of courage and truthfulness, a determination to tell things as they are.''
Antonia Fraser welcomed the award: ''Not only did Harold much admire Tom's works but he also applauded his bold stance on public issues of all sorts. Altogether a most suitable choice.''
Source : http://telegraph.feedsportal.com/c/32726/f/568414/s/2f5bb3c3/sc/38/l/0L0Stelegraph0O0Cculture0Cbooks0C10A2114470CTom0EStoppard0Ewins0EPENPinter0Eprize0Bhtml/story01.htm
