The Nobel Prize in Literature 2019 awarded to Peter Handke

»Who says that the world’s already been discovered?«

Suhrkamp Verlag is extremely pleased to see the 2019 Nobel Prize for Literature go to Peter Handke »for an influential work that with linguistic ingenuity has explored the periphery and the specificity of human experience.« Early on in his career, Peter Handke summarized his work as follows: Who says that the world’s already been discovered? And so, in 1966, the search for what lies hidden behind everyday life began: not gems or sensations, but the tracking down of a completely different world, one with its own laws. Such a self-imposed undertaking demands the highest attention to even the most remote detail, and, as his journals that have been published since the seventies prove, uninterruptedly, every day. This also makes it necessary to constantly set off on adventures, just around the corner as well as around the globe. And this way of writing demands an independent, radically modern poetics: attention is focused on marginal and, at the same time, great narrative forms. Those who, like Peter Handke, have made it their principle to use a literary process only once become inventors of ever new world models, create an oeuvre which has never before been seen in its rich diversity, each book a surprise, and the whole, taken together, the sum of an experience of the world of which only Peter Handke is capable. Anyone who is this familiar with the entire literary tradition can rightly be regarded as a traditional and at the same time revolutionary figure of world literature.

Peter Handke has written more than 70 works since 1965, including prose, poetry, pieces for theatre, autobiographical studies, essays, and journals – gathered together by Suhrkamp Verlag last year in a large collected works edition.

All of his books are available in German as well as in many of the 70 languages into which he has been translated.

»Discovering the world with Peter Handke: this is what his work and literature make possible. I would like to invite all readers to the great voyage of discovery that one can take with Peter Handke's writing. For who says that the world’s already been discovered?«—Jonathan Landgrebe, Publisher, Suhrkamp Verlag

For more information please visit the author's Foreign Rights Website or contact the respective Rights Manager.