- I am extremely happy, it is fantastic, I myself have highlighted Olga Tokarczuk several times. She is so imaginative and fearless, and deals with topics that affect us all. Olga Tokarczuk is terribly exciting to read and very involved in the world.
If you haven't read anything, where should you start?
- The runners or Control your plow over the dead legs or Games on many small drums.
And Peter Handke then?
- It was even more surprising. He has been around for so long, maybe he should have gotten it a long time ago, but as many have said, he is a great Central European writer. Although I was very shocked at his position during the Balkan War, but he is at the same time a gentle and very traditionally acclaimed writer - definitely a worthy Nobel laureate. Through this award, the Academy has shown its breadth.
Björn Wiman, Culture Manager, Today's News:- It's a bit Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde - a left-wing radical and regime-critical writer and one who is the opposite, so to speak, a right-wing political fool who spoke at Milošević's grave. It gets a little cluttered.
- But I think Olga Tokarczuk is a brilliant choice. Above all aesthetically, a great, modern writer who feels relevant in our time. Peter Handke is also a great writer, but not someone who has to receive the Nobel Prize in 2019. The Swedish Academy knows exactly what they have done, it is a strategically quite smart choice: That it is still a literary prize, and that you can reward people it will become a fucking life though.
Daniel Sandström, literary director at Albert Bonnier publishing house (both award winners are published by Bonnier, Tokarczuk previously published at Ariel publishing house):- If there is an authorship that has sailed up as one of the central, European and with a readership all over the world, it is Olga Tokarczuk. She is a contemporary writer who can write essayist, poet and great historical epic. Her versatility and accessibility make her feel like a modern writer. There are echoes of criticism, thoughts of nationalism and globalization.
- Had Handke not been as controversial as he became after the Yugoslav war had been awarded the Nobel Prize long ago. If Olga Tokarczuk is about today's Europe, then Handke belongs to the post-war generation. Especially in the novel he wrote about his mother, Stories of a life, where he captures the whole post-war trauma for Austria and Germany.