From The Guardian:
In an almost entirely unexpected move, the Swedish Academy have this lunchtime announced their decision to award this year’s Nobel prize for Literature to the British playwright, author and recent poet, Harold Pinter and not, as was widely anticipated, to Turkish author Orhan Pamuk or the Syrian poet Adonis.
The Academy, which has handed out the prize since 1901, described Pinter, whose works include The Birthday Party, The Dumb Waiter and his breakthrough The Caretaker, as someone who restored the art form of theatre. In its citation, the Academy said Pinter was “generally seen as the foremost representative of British drama in the second half of the 20th century,” and declared him to be an author “who in his plays uncovers the precipice under everyday prattle and forces entry into oppression’s closed rooms.”