Jasenko Selimovic (L) : "It's totally bizarre"
Liberal politician and writer Jasenko Selimovic (L) is out on Twitter early on, criticizing the academy's choices. “It is shameful that the Swedish Academy gives him the award. This is a man who in his books reduces war crimes, "Jasenko Selimovic told the Culture News on October 10 and continues:" It is completely bizarre that the Academy goes this way. Of course, writers have the right to write exactly what they want, but you don't have to reward people who write stupid things with a price. " Critical views also flow in from other parts of the world.

Srebrenica's mothers : "The price hurt me"
The organization Srebrenica's mothers, who represent the relatives of the victims of the genocide in Srebrenica, wrote a letter to the Swedish Academy on Friday, October 11 demanding that the prize be withdrawn. “I don't think the Nobel Prize anymore has any value, except materially. There is no message of humanity in it. The award hurt me as a mother who lost 22 members of my family, "Munira Subašić, president of Srebrenica's mothers, told Culture News.

US PEN: "We deeply regret the decision of the Nobel Committee"
US PEN writes that they "are stunned" after the message, in an open letter to the Swedish Academy on October 11 . PEN states that the organization does not "take the habit of commenting on other institutions' literature prize", but considers it compulsory as the organization believes that Handke used his place in public to "tell a historical truth".

Pristinabor: Protests outside the Swedish embassy
In Kosovo's capital Pristina, protesters protest outside the Swedish embassy on October 14 . According to Sweden's Radio Culture News, the protesters demand that the Swedish Academy withdraw Peter Handke's prize. Kosovo's Academy of Science and Art also makes similar demands in a letter to the Swedish Academy.

Edi Rama : "Another scandal that will damage the reputation of the price"
Albania's Prime Minister Ed Rama criticizes the Swedish Academy: “The Nobel Prize will not make Handke a great writer. By choosing the Austrian author, the Academy has only continued to reduce the value of the prize and has waded into yet another scandal that will damage the price's reputation for decades to come, "Edi Rama writes in a text on the Politico website on October 15 . Furthermore, Edi Rama believes that it is problematic to separate Handke's books from the author's political views, since politics, according to Rama, permeate Handke's work.

Johannes Anyuru: "Does the Academy feel no shame for the dead?"
In connection with the announcement of the 2019 Nobel Prize, the Nobel Committee's Anders Olsson said that the award to Handke is a literary prize, not a political prize. In the Gothenburg Post on October 15, the author Johannes Anyuru questions the division into works and person. "The academy is becoming increasingly irrelevant every time they prove incapable of treating a global, writing public as constituted by equals and instead sees it as a mob that needs to be disciplined," he writes.

Peter Handke: "Let me be at peace"
On October 16, the protagonist will speak for himself. “I stand in front of my garden gate and there are 50 journalists who all ask the same questions. Not from anyone did I hear that they said they read anything about me. There was only one question: How does the world react? Reactions, reactions reactions. I am a writer, like Tolstoy, Homeros, Cervantes, so let me be at peace and do not ask such questions, said Handke, to the Austrian local radio ORF Carinthia. Handke should also have said that he will never answer questions from journalists again.

Mats Malm: "Not intended to reward a warrior"
In Dagens Nyheter, the Academy's permanent secretary, Mats Malm, writes with member Eric M Runesson on October 17 about the criticism directed at both the Academy and the author himself: "The Swedish Academy has obviously not intended to reward a war criminal and denier of war crimes or genocide". In conclusion, Mats Malm emphasizes that Peter Handke "has definitely made provocative, inappropriate and unclear statements on political issues" - but the Academy does not see any of what he has written as an attack on neither the respect for all people's equal value nor civil society.

Kjell Magnusson: "Handke asks perfectly legitimate questions"
“Nobel laureate Peter Handke's critics do not seem to have read what he has really written about the war in the Balkans, which he essentially describes quite correctly. He also asks legitimate questions ”. That's what genocide scientist Kjell Magnusson writes in Today's News on October 17 . Magnusson is an associate professor of sociology and author of the book “Genocide as a Metaphor. The image of the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina ”.

Rebecka Kärde: "The task has been to assess Handke's authorship as a whole"
"When we give the award to Handke, we argue that the task of literature is other than to confirm and reproduce what society's central view believes is morally right." That's how the Nobel Committee's Rebecka Kärde writes in Today's News on October 18 .

Swedish Academy: "He is a great writer"
On October 18, the Culture News will interview both the former and the current permanent secretaries. “Peter Handke has an authorship of about 80 titles and we have not been able to find anything in these works that violates the basic values ​​that we must follow. He is a great writer and should be judged as such, "says Anders Olsson, now chairman of the Nobel Committee. "Then there is a very large framework of freedom of speech and a person may have made provocative statements, but that does not affect the assessment of the literary work," says Mats Malm.

Svante Weyler: "Peter Handke's contempt for the truth"
On October 21, publisher Svante Weyler replies in Today's news to Rebecka Kärde's article: “Do I read Handke too critically? Yes, no more critical than Rebecka Kärde and the Nobel Committee. It is our conclusions that differ. Her conclusion: 'An indiscriminate, relativizing angle of a genocide? Maybe it.' I don't know what could be worse than the relativization of a genocide ”.