Vienna (AFP)

A tireless walker in search of language, the Austrian Peter Handke, who receives the Nobel Prize for Literature 2019 on Tuesday, is a prolific writer fighting against conventions, at the price of violent controversies that overshadow his work.

The Nobel of literature? "It should finally be removed, it is a false canonization" that "brings nothing to the reader," said one day the 77-year-old writer, elegant figure, silver hair thrown back and piercing eyes behind thin glasses .

In the world of publishing, many are those who thought that the price would escape forever, despite a world-renowned work, because of its commitment during the war in the former Yugoslavia.

Born in the Slovenian minority of Austria by his mother, of German origin by his father, the writer born December 6, 1942 in Carinthia (south) appears as one of the few Western intellectuals favorable to Belgrade.

In the autumn of 1995, a few months after the Srebrenica massacre, he went to Serbia and reported his impressions of travel in stories that silenced the suffering of the victims.

In 1999, he protested against the NATO strikes on Belgrade, evoking a "new Auschwitz". And seven years later, he provoked an uproar by attending the funeral of former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic, accused of crimes against humanity and genocide.

- "Intenable" -

Mediately, this controversy occult for many years the work of Peter Handke. The Nobel does not seem to have changed the writer: since the announcement of the award, he has been annoyed or even angry with the journalists who have asked him, in vain, explanations or contrition.

For one of the best specialists of his work, his compatriot Klaus Kastberger, the Austrian is a "head of mule", customary "intolerable positions", interweaving "literature, politics and personal life".

Many artists, first and foremost her compatriot Elfriede Jelinek (2004 Nobel Prize), have defended her in recent weeks, engaging in interposed forums, passionate jousts with other intellectuals deeming unworthy of such recognition.

Peter Handke is still one of the most read and played German-language authors in the world. He has written more than 80 works and has translated works by Emmanuel Bove, René Char and Francis Ponge into German.

"I have the dream and I have the strength to be universal", summarizes Handke at the reception in Germany three years ago of a prize of the European Literature.

He castigates "international literature", modeled on English, standardized on a structural and grammatical level, and journalism, which "colonizes literature as a cancer".

- Influence New Roman -

Deeply marked at 15 by reading in his Catholic internship of "Under the Sun of Satan" Georges Bernanos, influenced by the French Claude Simon and Alain Robbe-Grillet, he interrupts his law studies in Vienna and publishes his first novel, "Les Frelons", in 1966.

The same year, he made a sensation with his first play, "Outrage au public", where clashing insults to the audience, messages of disarray and radical criticism of the committed literature.

The 24-year-old author attacks the aesthetic principles of "Group 47", which dominates the German letters of the post-war period, and opposes a radical rejection to the pre-established use of the language. The theme will be at the center of his work.

Master of prose, he develops a sharp and intense style, saying "do not seek the thought but the sensation".

"The Anxiety of the goalkeeper at the time of the penalty", in 1970, then "The Mischievous Misfortune" (1972), overwhelming requiem dedicated to his mother, bring him notoriety.

Migration and loneliness are at the heart of his prolific work: about forty novels, essays and collections, about fifteen plays, but also screenplays, including the famous "Ailes du désir" for his friend Wim Wenders.

He is finishing a new play to be performed at the Salzburg Festival next summer. She will come back to the 2003 self-immolation of an idealistic student in Prague.

Peter Handke settled permanently in 1990 in the suburbs of Paris, in a house on the edge of the forest, where this perfectly French-speaking walker gleans inspiration.

© 2019 AFP