British playwright wins Nobel literature laurels
(AP)
Updated: 2005-10-13 20:40

Usually enclosed in one room, they organize their lives as a sort of grim game and their actions often contradict their words. Gradually, the layers are peeled back to reveal the characters' nakedness.

Academy Permanent Secretary Horace Engdahl said Pinter was overwhelmed when told he had won the prize.

"He did not say many words, in fact he was very happy," he said.

Last year's winner was Austrian feminist Elfriede Jelinek. Her selection drew such ire that a member of the academy publicly blasted his colleagues for picking her. Knut Ahnlund, 82, who has not played an active role in the academy since 1996, resigned Tuesday after he wrote in a signed newspaper article that picking Jelinek had caused "irreparable damage" to the award's reputation.

The academy, founded in 1786 by King Gustav III to advance the Swedish language and its literature, has handed out the literature prize since 1901. To date 102 men and women have received the prize, including France's Jean-Paul Sartre, who declined the 1964 prize.