It was during Friday that Svenska Dagbladet reported that Peter Handke, Nobel laureate in literature 2019, as late as 2014 did not want to call the massacre in Srebrenica a genocide. In addition, an interview from 2011 was re-actualized in the German newspaper Ketzerbriefe, where he questioned whether 8000 people were really killed in the resort.

In the 2011 interview, he also says that he does not "believe a word" on what the organization Sreberenica's mothers, who represent the survivors, say. "Had I been a mother, I would have grieved alone," he says, saying that Srebrenica's mothers are just a "cheap imitation" of the Argentine organization Madres de la Plaza de mayo.

Sorry about his choice of words

In an email to the Cultural News from the Swedish Academy's permanent secretary Mats Malm, Malm attaches a statement from Peter Handke. There Handke completely distances himself from the quotes in Ketzerbriefe.

“I did not proofread the call and did not approve it. It does not reflect my view. Nor can I imagine that I have said these sentences as they are formulated. For me, what I have written applies. I neither have nor want to add anything to it. In 2006, I wrote: As far as Srebrenica is concerned, it is the worst 'crime against humanity' committed in Europe since the war, "Handke writes and continues:

“I want to add: Of course, endless suffering has resulted from the genocide, which I have never denied. A suffering that cannot be wiped out by anything. I regret if what I said has conveyed something else. "

Since it was announced that Peter Handke will be awarded the 2019 Nobel Prize in literature, criticism has been directed at the Swedish Academy. American PEN and Srebrenica's mothers are two organizations that have protested against the Academy's choice of award winners and Pristinabor has demonstrated outside the Swedish embassy.