Margaret Atwood wins 2016 PEN Pinter prize
by Alison Flood (αναδημοσίευση από την εφημερίδα THE GUARDIAN)
Canadian author says she is
humbled to accept reward and is praised by judges for championing environmental
and human rights causes
Margaret
Atwood has said that she is humbled to win an award from PEN
celebrating her political activism, describing herself as “a stand-in for the
thousands of people around the world who speak and act against [human rights]
abuses”.
The PEN Pinter prize was set up seven years ago in
memory of the Nobel prize-winning playwright Harold Pinter, and is given to a writer of outstanding literary
merit who, in the words of Pinter himself on winning the Nobel, casts an “unflinching,
unswerving” gaze upon the world and shows a “fierce intellectual determination
... to define the real truth of our lives and our societies”.
The Booker prize-winning Canadian author was picked by
a judging panel chaired by Maureen Freely, who said: “In a profession dominated
by careerists who are content to tend to their own gardens, Margaret Atwood is
the shining exception.
“She does not just stand up for her principles: in
novel after novel, she has put them to the test. What she does as a campaigner
has only served to deepen her work as a writer of fiction. She is an inspiration to us all,” said Freely.
Atwood, who was praised by judges as an “exemplary public intellectual”
and “consistent supporter of political causes” whose “work championing
environmental concerns comes well within the scope of human rights”, said she
knew Harold Pinter personally, and that she was humbled to win a prize in his
name.
Antonia Fraser said her late husband ‘admired Margaret Atwood in three
ways: as a writer, a campaigner and a person’. Photograph: Murdo Macleod for
the Guardian
Atwood, who was praised by judges as an “exemplary
public intellectual” and “consistent supporter of political causes” whose “work
championing environmental concerns comes well within the scope of human
rights”, said she knew Harold Pinter personally, and that she was humbled to
win a prize in his name.
“I knew Harold Pinter and worked with him – he wrote the scenario for
the film version of The Handmaid’s Tale, back in 1989 – and his burning sense
of injustice at human rights abuses and the repression of artists was
impressive even then,” said Atwood. “Any winner of such an award is a stand-in
for the thousands of people around the world who speak and act against such
abuses. I am honoured to be this year’s stand-in.
Pinter’s widow, the writer Antonia Fraser, said that
her late husband “admired Margaret Atwood in three ways: as a writer, a
campaigner and a person”, and that “he would be especially delighted by her
generous response to this award”. Fraser joined Freely on the judging panel for
the award, alongside fellow judges Vicky Featherstone, Zia Haider Rahman and
Peter Stothard.
Atwood will now choose a co-winner of the prize, the
2016 International Writer of Courage, who will be revealed at an event at the
British Library in October. The winner, said PEN, would be an international
writer “who is active in defence of freedom of expression, often at great risk
to their own safety and liberty”, with previous recipients including Gomorrah
author Roberto Saviano, Mexican journalist Lydia Cacho and the imprisoned Saudi blogger Raif Badawi.
Atwood will tour the UK in October and November for
her latest book Hag-Seed, a re-telling of Shakespeare’s The Tempest. The
nine-date tour will include a talk at the RSC Royal Shakespeare Theatre in
Stratford upon Avon.
Εδώ, από τη συνέντευξη που μου παραχώρησε η Μάργκαρετ Άτγουντ
για το diastixo.gr, προσκεκλημένη των Εκδόσεων Ψυχογιός στην Αθήνα
(Σεπτέμβριος 2014). Φωτό: Αμέρισσα Μπάστα
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