Art, Truth and Politics The Nobel Lecture

Art, Truth and Politics

The Nobel Lecture

Harold Pinter

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 Art, Truth and Politics The Nobel Lecture

Contents

Presentation Speech 5
Per Wästberg

Art, Truth and Politics 9

The Nobel Lecture

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Art, Truth and Politics The Nobel Lecture

Presentation Speech
Per Wästberg

Your Majesties, Your Royal Highnesses, Esteemed Nobel

Laureates, Ladies and Gentlemen,
Harold Pinter is the renewer of English drama in the 20th
century. “Pinteresque” is an adjective listed in the Oxford
Dictionary. Like Kafka, Proust and Graham Greene he has charted
a territory, a Pinterland with a distinct topography.
With his twenty-nine plays and about a hundred that he has
directed or acted in, he has made the theatre his own domain. His
figures barricade themselves in unpredictable dialogues. Between
the lines of unresolved threats, it roils and stings. What we hear are
signals for everything we do not hear.
The abyss under chat, the unwillingness to communicate other
than superficially, the need to rule and mislead, the suffocating
sensation of accidents bubbling under the quotidian, the nervous
perception that a dangerous story has been censored – all this
vibrates through Pinter’s drama.
His characters are at the mercy of each other on the periphery
of life. They are also prisoners in the limbo of class divisions, set
phrases and solidified habits. Their identities, backgrounds and
histories are vague, and different versions exist depending on who
is remembering. They seldom listen to each other but it is precisely
their mental deafness that makes us listen. Not a word passes
unnoticed, nor can we relax a single minute. Atmospheric pressure
fluctuates as secrets unroll and shift the distribution of power.
Memories – invented, manipulated or real – flow as a hot
undercurrent through Pinter’s plays. We model the past to respond
to the demands of the present and to form our future.
As closed rooms open to an international community, Pinter
redefines romantic love as a more resilient love that includes
friendship and the exigency to promote justice through action.
In Mountain Language, love takes the form of an unconditional

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 Art, Truth and Politics The Nobel Lecture

generosity missing in his earlier works. To survive, we must do crushes, what is tacit forebodes catastrophe. Pinter, the tailor’s son,
good deeds and stand up for the enslaved in this age of terror and scissors language, allowing the action to originate from the voices
spiralling violence. and rhythms of the characters. Thus, there is no given plot. We do
It is usually said that Pinter’s political commitment came late. not ask: “What will happen next”? Rather, “What is happening”?
But Pinter himself describes even his first period – The Dumb The words are instruments of power. Words are repeated until
Waiter, The Birthday Party, The Hothouse – as political. In these they resemble truth. In a time of over-information, Pinter frees
“comedies of menace”, language is a weapon of aggression, words from describing reality and makes them reality itself, at
evasion and torture. The early works can be seen as metaphors for times poetic, more often oppressive. At the end, it is only through
authoritarian intervention on several levels: the power of the state, language that we can erase our destiny and recreate it.
the power of the family, the power of religion – all undermining
the individual’s critical questions. Pinter uncovers the reasons for Dear Harold Pinter,
wanting to destroy the identity of others and the fear disguised as In its choice of a Nobel Laureate the Swedish Academy
violence against those who stand outside the party, club or nation. recognises only the creative power of a single individual regardless
Pinter’s work has neither winners nor losers. In the power game of nation, sex and literary genre. This needs emphasising. However
between characters, we seldom know who has the upper hand; they British you may appear in the eyes of many, your international and
change places, growing and sinking through lines that seldom seem inter-human impact in the field of drama has been uniquely strong
deliberate. The characters have sides invisible to the eye, exposed and inspiring for half a century. If someone thinks your prize is late
in the ultraviolet rays of ambiguity. They grope forward between in coming, we may reply that at any given moment somewhere
invisible walls and stratify into different levels of reality. In in the world your plays are reinterpreted by new generations of
defending themselves against intrusion, they blockade themselves directors and actors.
in spaces mined like alien terrain. In your works, seductively accessible and frighteningly
Pinter has perforated conventionally realistic drama with mysterious, the curtain rises on dense life-landscapes and
taciturnity’s mystery, and has equipped his overblown figures harrowing confinement. In poetic images, you illuminate an
with so many outlets that we can live with the characters and see existence where fantasy and the nightmare of reality clash.
them age and decay as we do. The solid and impenetrable figures In the absence of this year’s Nobel Laureate in Literature,
of public life disintegrate in disastrous incoherence. They send I request his publisher Mr. Stephen Page to come forward and
messages that never seem to arrive, yet we leave the theatre less receive Mr. Pinter’s Prize from the hands of His Majesty the King.
righteous than on entering.
For systematists, the world exists to put in order. For Harold Presentation Speech by Writer Per Wästberg, Member of the
Pinter it is for dissembling, through which the good and the Swedish Academy, Chairman of its Nobel Committee, December
humane find a way to seep out through the bureaucratic cage of 10, 2005.
ingrained reflexes. In a ruthless analysis of the totalitarian, he
illuminates the pain of the individual.
Throwaway lines sting, little words corrode, what is half-said

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 Art, Truth and Politics The Nobel Lecture

go on for hour after hour, on and on and on, the same pattern
repeated over and over again, on and on, hour after hour.
Harold Pinter – Nobel Lecture
Art, Truth & Politics
Ashes to Ashes, on the other hand, seems to me to be taking
place under water. A drowning woman, her hand reaching up
In 1958 I wrote the following:
through the waves, dropping down out of sight, reaching for
'There are no hard distinctions between what is real and what is
others, but finding nobody there, either above or under the water,
unreal, nor between what is true and what is false. A thing is not
finding only shadows, reflections, floating; the woman a lost figure
necessarily either true or false; it can be both true and false.'
in a drowning landscape, a woman unable to escape the doom that
I believe that these assertions still make sense and do still apply
seemed to belong only to others.
to the exploration of reality through art. So as a writer I stand by
But as they died, she must die too.
them but as a citizen I cannot. As a citizen I must ask: What is
Political language, as used by politicians, does not venture
true? What is false?
into any of this territory since the majority of politicians, on the
Truth in drama is forever elusive. You never quite find it but
evidence available to us, are interested not in truth but in power
the search for it is compulsive. The search is clearly what drives
and in the maintenance of that power. To maintain that power
the endeavour. The search is your task. More often than not
it is essential that people remain in ignorance, that they live in
you stumble upon the truth in the dark, colliding with it or just
ignorance of the truth, even the truth of their own lives. What
glimpsing an image or a shape which seems to correspond to the
surrounds us therefore is a vast tapestry of lies, upon which we
truth, often without realising that you have done so. But the real
feed.
truth is that there never is any such thing as one truth to be found
As every single person here knows, the justification for the
in dramatic art. There are many. These truths challenge each other,
invasion of Iraq was that Saddam Hussein possessed a highly
recoil from each other, reflect each other, ignore each other, tease
dangerous body of weapons of mass destruction, some of which
each other, are blind to each other. Sometimes you feel you have
could be fired in 45 minutes, bringing about appalling devastation.
the truth of a moment in your hand, then it slips through your
We were assured that was true. It was not true. We were told that
fingers and is lost.
Iraq had a relationship with Al Quaeda and shared responsibility
I have often been asked how my plays come about. I cannot say.
for the atrocity in New York of September 11th 2001. We were
Nor can I ever sum up my plays, except to say that this is what
assured that this was true. It was not true. We were told that Iraq
happened. That is what they said. That is what they did.
threatened the security of the world. We were assured it was true. It
Most of the plays are engendered by a line, a word or an image.
was not true.
The given word is often shortly followed by the image. I shall give
The truth is something entirely different. The truth is to do with
two examples of two lines which came right out of the blue into
how the United States understands its role in the world and how it
my head, followed by an image, followed by me.
chooses to embody it.
The plays are The Homecoming and Old Times. The first line of
But before I come back to the present I would like to look at the
The Homecoming is 'What have you done with the scissors?' The
recent past, by which I mean United States foreign policy since the
first line of Old Times is 'Dark.'
end of the Second World War. I believe it is obligatory upon us to
In each case I had no further information.

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 Art, Truth and Politics The Nobel Lecture

In the first case someone was obviously looking for a pair of sense he is not welcomed by the characters. The characters resist
scissors and was demanding their whereabouts of someone else he him, they are not easy to live with, they are impossible to define.
suspected had probably stolen them. But I somehow knew that the You certainly can't dictate to them. To a certain extent you play a
person addressed didn't give a damn about the scissors or about the never-ending game with them, cat and mouse, blind man's buff,
questioner either, for that matter. hide and seek. But finally you find that you have people of flesh
'Dark' I took to be a description of someone's hair, the hair of and blood on your hands, people with will and an individual
a woman, and was the answer to a question. In each case I found sensibility of their own, made out of component parts you are
myself compelled to pursue the matter. This happened visually, a unable to change, manipulate or distort.
very slow fade, through shadow into light. So language in art remains a highly ambiguous transaction, a
I always start a play by calling the characters A, B and C. quicksand, a trampoline, a frozen pool which might give way under
In the play that became The Homecoming I saw a man enter a you, the author, at any time.
stark room and ask his question of a younger man sitting on an But as I have said, the search for the truth can never stop. It
ugly sofa reading a racing paper. I somehow suspected that A was a cannot be adjourned, it cannot be postponed. It has to be faced,
father and that B was his son, but I had no proof. This was however right there, on the spot.
confirmed a short time later when B (later to become Lenny) says Political theatre presents an entirely different set of problems.
to A (later to become Max), 'Dad, do you mind if I change the Sermonising has to be avoided at all cost. Objectivity is essential.
subject? I want to ask you something. The dinner we had before, The characters must be allowed to breathe their own air. The
what was the name of it? What do you call it? Why don't you buy author cannot confine and constrict them to satisfy his own taste
a dog? You're a dog cook. Honest. You think you're cooking for a or disposition or prejudice. He must be prepared to approach
lot of dogs.' So since B calls A 'Dad' it seemed to me reasonable to them from a variety of angles, from a full and uninhibited range
assume that they were father and son. A was also clearly the cook of perspectives, take them by surprise, perhaps, occasionally, but
and his cooking did not seem to be held in high regard. Did this nevertheless give them the freedom to go which way they will.
mean that there was no mother? I didn't know. But, as I told myself This does not always work. And political satire, of course, adheres
at the time, our beginnings never know our ends. to none of these precepts, in fact does precisely the opposite, which
'Dark.' A large window. Evening sky. A man, A (later to become is its proper function.
Deeley), and a woman, B (later to become Kate), sitting with In my play The Birthday Party I think I allow a whole range
drinks. 'Fat or thin?' the man asks. Who are they talking about? But of options to operate in a dense forest of possibility before finally
I then see, standing at the window, a woman, C (later to become focussing on an act of subjugation.
Anna), in another condition of light, her back to them, her hair Mountain Language pretends to no such range of operation. It
dark. remains brutal, short and ugly. But the soldiers in the play do get
It's a strange moment, the moment of creating characters who some fun out of it. One sometimes forgets that torturers become
up to that moment have had no existence. What follows is fitful, easily bored. They need a bit of a laugh to keep their spirits up.
uncertain, even hallucinatory, although sometimes it can be an This has been confirmed of course by the events at Abu Ghraib in
unstoppable avalanche. The author's position is an odd one. In a Baghdad. Mountain Language lasts only 20 minutes, but it could

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estimated that over 200,000 people had been victims of successive subject this period to at least some kind of even limited scrutiny,
military dictatorships. which is all that time will allow here.
Six of the most distinguished Jesuits in the world were viciously Everyone knows what happened in the Soviet Union and
murdered at the Central American University in San Salvador in throughout Eastern Europe during the post-war period: the
1989 by a battalion of the Alcatl regiment trained at Fort Benning, systematic brutality, the widespread atrocities, the ruthless
Georgia, USA. That extremely brave man Archbishop Romero suppression of independent thought. All this has been fully
was assassinated while saying mass. It is estimated that 75,000 documented and verified.
people died. Why were they killed? They were killed because But my contention here is that the US crimes in the same period
they believed a better life was possible and should be achieved. have only been superficially recorded, let alone documented, let
That belief immediately qualified them as communists. They died alone acknowledged, let alone recognised as crimes at all. I believe
because they dared to question the status quo, the endless plateau this must be addressed and that the truth has considerable bearing
of poverty, disease, degradation and oppression, which had been on where the world stands now. Although constrained, to a certain
their birthright. extent, by the existence of the Soviet Union, the United States'
The United States finally brought down the Sandinista actions throughout the world made it clear that it had concluded it
government. It took some years and considerable resistance had carte blanche to do what it liked.
but relentless economic persecution and 30,000 dead finally Direct invasion of a sovereign state has never in fact been
undermined the spirit of the Nicaraguan people. They were America's favoured method. In the main, it has preferred what
exhausted and poverty stricken once again. The casinos moved it has described as 'low intensity conflict'. Low intensity conflict
back into the country. Free health and free education were over. Big means that thousands of people die but slower than if you dropped
business returned with a vengeance. 'Democracy' had prevailed. a bomb on them in one fell swoop. It means that you infect the
But this 'policy' was by no means restricted to Central America. heart of the country, that you establish a malignant growth and
It was conducted throughout the world. It was never-ending. And it watch the gangrene bloom. When the populace has been subdued
is as if it never happened. – or beaten to death – the same thing – and your own friends, the
The United States supported and in many cases engendered military and the great corporations, sit comfortably in power, you
every right wing military dictatorship in the world after the end go before the camera and say that democracy has prevailed. This
of the Second World War. I refer to Indonesia, Greece, Uruguay, was a commonplace in US foreign policy in the years to which I
Brazil, Paraguay, Haiti, Turkey, the Philippines, Guatemala, El refer.
Salvador, and, of course, Chile. The horror the United States The tragedy of Nicaragua was a highly significant case. I choose
inflicted upon Chile in 1973 can never be purged and can never be to offer it here as a potent example of America's view of its role in
forgiven. the world, both then and now.
Hundreds of thousands of deaths took place throughout I was present at a meeting at the US embassy in London in the
these countries. Did they take place? And are they in all cases late 1980s.
attributable to US foreign policy? The answer is yes they did take The United States Congress was about to decide whether to give
place and they are attributable to American foreign policy. But you more money to the Contras in their campaign against the state of

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 Art, Truth and Politics The Nobel Lecture

Nicaragua. I was a member of a delegation speaking on behalf of Sandinistas, overthrew this regime in 1979, a breathtaking popular
Nicaragua but the most important member of this delegation was revolution.
a Father John Metcalf. The leader of the US body was Raymond The Sandinistas weren't perfect. They possessed their fair share
Seitz (then number two to the ambassador, later ambassador of arrogance and their political philosophy contained a number
himself). Father Metcalf said: 'Sir, I am in charge of a parish in of contradictory elements. But they were intelligent, rational and
the north of Nicaragua. My parishioners built a school, a health civilised. They set out to establish a stable, decent, pluralistic
centre, a cultural centre. We have lived in peace. A few months society. The death penalty was abolished. Hundreds of thousands
ago a Contra force attacked the parish. They destroyed everything: of poverty-stricken peasants were brought back from the dead.
the school, the health centre, the cultural centre. They raped nurses Over 100,000 families were given title to land. Two thousand
and teachers, slaughtered doctors, in the most brutal manner. They schools were built. A quite remarkable literacy campaign reduced
behaved like savages. Please demand that the US government illiteracy in the country to less than one seventh. Free education
withdraw its support from this shocking terrorist activity.' was established and a free health service. Infant mortality was
Raymond Seitz had a very good reputation as a rational, reduced by a third. Polio was eradicated.
responsible and highly sophisticated man. He was greatly respected The United States denounced these achievements as Marxist/
in diplomatic circles. He listened, paused and then spoke with Leninist subversion. In the view of the US government, a
some gravity. 'Father,' he said, 'let me tell you something. In war, dangerous example was being set. If Nicaragua was allowed to
innocent people always suffer.' There was a frozen silence. We establish basic norms of social and economic justice, if it was
stared at him. He did not flinch. allowed to raise the standards of health care and education and
Innocent people, indeed, always suffer. achieve social unity and national self respect, neighbouring
Finally somebody said: 'But in this case “innocent people” were countries would ask the same questions and do the same things.
the victims of a gruesome atrocity subsidised by your government, There was of course at the time fierce resistance to the status quo
one among many. If Congress allows the Contras more money in El Salvador.
further atrocities of this kind will take place. Is this not the case? Is I spoke earlier about 'a tapestry of lies' which surrounds us.
your government not therefore guilty of supporting acts of murder President Reagan commonly described Nicaragua as a 'totalitarian
and destruction upon the citizens of a sovereign state?' dungeon'. This was taken generally by the media, and certainly
Seitz was imperturbable. 'I don't agree that the facts as presented by the British government, as accurate and fair comment. But
support your assertions,' he said. there was in fact no record of death squads under the Sandinista
As we were leaving the Embassy a US aide told me that he government. There was no record of torture. There was no
enjoyed my plays. I did not reply. record of systematic or official military brutality. No priests were
I should remind you that at the time President Reagan made the ever murdered in Nicaragua. There were in fact three priests in
following statement: 'The Contras are the moral equivalent of our the government, two Jesuits and a Maryknoll missionary. The
Founding Fathers.' totalitarian dungeons were actually next door, in El Salvador
The United States supported the brutal Somoza dictatorship in and Guatemala. The United States had brought down the
Nicaragua for over 40 years. The Nicaraguan people, led by the democratically elected government of Guatemala in 1954 and it is

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 Art, Truth and Politics The Nobel Lecture

kinds of graves. wouldn't know it.

It never happened. Nothing ever happened. Even while it
Here is an extract from a poem by Pablo Neruda, 'I'm Explaining was happening it wasn't happening. It didn't matter. It was of no
a Few Things': interest. The crimes of the United States have been systematic,
constant, vicious, remorseless, but very few people have actually
And one morning all that was burning, talked about them. You have to hand it to America. It has
one morning the bonfires exercised a quite clinical manipulation of power worldwide while
leapt out of the earth masquerading as a force for universal good. It's a brilliant, even
devouring human beings witty, highly successful act of hypnosis.
and from then on fire, I put to you that the United States is without doubt the greatest
gunpowder from then on, show on the road. Brutal, indifferent, scornful and ruthless it may
and from then on blood. be but it is also very clever. As a salesman it is out on its own and
Bandits with planes and Moors, its most saleable commodity is self love. It's a winner. Listen to
bandits with finger-rings and duchesses, all American presidents on television say the words, 'the American
bandits with black friars spattering blessings people', as in the sentence, 'I say to the American people it is time
came through the sky to kill children to pray and to defend the rights of the American people and I ask
and the blood of children ran through the streets the American people to trust their president in the action he is
without fuss, like children's blood. about to take on behalf of the American people.'
Jackals that the jackals would despise It's a scintillating stratagem. Language is actually employed to
stones that the dry thistle would bite on and spit out, keep thought at bay. The words 'the American people' provide a
vipers that the vipers would abominate. truly voluptuous cushion of reassurance. You don't need to think.
Face to face with you I have seen the blood Just lie back on the cushion. The cushion may be suffocating your
of Spain tower like a tide intelligence and your critical faculties but it's very comfortable.
to drown you in one wave This does not apply of course to the 40 million people living below
of pride and knives. the poverty line and the 2 million men and women imprisoned in
Treacherous the vast gulag of prisons, which extends across the US.
generals: The United States no longer bothers about low intensity conflict.
see my dead house, It no longer sees any point in being reticent or even devious. It puts
look at broken Spain: its cards on the table without fear or favour. It quite simply doesn't
from every house burning metal flows give a damn about the United Nations, international law or critical
instead of flowers dissent, which it regards as impotent and irrelevant. It also has its
from every socket of Spain own bleating little lamb tagging behind it on a lead, the pathetic
Spain emerges and supine Great Britain.
and from every dead child a rifle with eyes What has happened to our moral sensibility? Did we ever have

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any? What do these words mean? Do they refer to a term very innumerable acts of random murder, misery, degradation and death
rarely employed these days – conscience? A conscience to do not to the Iraqi people and call it 'bringing freedom and democracy to
only with our own acts but to do with our shared responsibility the Middle East'.
in the acts of others? Is all this dead? Look at Guantanamo Bay. How many people do you have to kill before you qualify to be
Hundreds of people detained without charge for over three years, described as a mass murderer and a war criminal? One hundred
with no legal representation or due process, technically detained thousand? More than enough, I would have thought. Therefore it
forever. This totally illegitimate structure is maintained in defiance is just that Bush and Blair be arraigned before the International
of the Geneva Convention. It is not only tolerated but hardly Criminal Court of Justice. But Bush has been clever. He has not
thought about by what's called the 'international community'. This ratified the International Criminal Court of Justice. Therefore if
criminal outrage is being committed by a country, which declares any American soldier or for that matter politician finds himself
itself to be 'the leader of the free world'. Do we think about the in the dock Bush has warned that he will send in the marines.
inhabitants of Guantanamo Bay? What does the media say about But Tony Blair has ratified the Court and is therefore available
them? They pop up occasionally – a small item on page six. They for prosecution. We can let the Court have his address if they're
have been consigned to a no man's land from which indeed they interested. It is Number 10, Downing Street, London.
may never return. At present many are on hunger strike, being Death in this context is irrelevant. Both Bush and Blair place
force-fed, including British residents. No niceties in these force- death well away on the back burner. At least 100,000 Iraqis were
feeding procedures. No sedative or anaesthetic. Just a tube stuck killed by American bombs and missiles before the Iraq insurgency
up your nose and into your throat. You vomit blood. This is torture. began. These people are of no moment. Their deaths don't exist.
What has the British Foreign Secretary said about this? Nothing. They are blank. They are not even recorded as being dead. 'We
What has the British Prime Minister said about this? Nothing. Why don't do body counts,' said the American general Tommy Franks.
not? Because the United States has said: to criticise our conduct in Early in the invasion there was a photograph published on the
Guantanamo Bay constitutes an unfriendly act. You're either with front page of British newspapers of Tony Blair kissing the cheek
us or against us. So Blair shuts up. of a little Iraqi boy. 'A grateful child,' said the caption. A few
The invasion of Iraq was a bandit act, an act of blatant state days later there was a story and photograph, on an inside page, of
terrorism, demonstrating absolute contempt for the concept of another four-year-old boy with no arms. His family had been blown
international law. The invasion was an arbitrary military action up by a missile. He was the only survivor. 'When do I get my arms
inspired by a series of lies upon lies and gross manipulation of the back?' he asked. The story was dropped. Well, Tony Blair wasn't
media and therefore of the public; an act intended to consolidate holding him in his arms, nor the body of any other mutilated child,
American military and economic control of the Middle East nor the body of any bloody corpse. Blood is dirty. It dirties your
masquerading – as a last resort – all other justifications having shirt and tie when you're making a sincere speech on television.
failed to justify themselves – as liberation. A formidable assertion The 2,000 American dead are an embarrassment. They are
of military force responsible for the death and mutilation of transported to their graves in the dark. Funerals are unobtrusive,
thousands and thousands of innocent people. out of harm's way. The mutilated rot in their beds, some for the rest
We have brought torture, cluster bombs, depleted uranium, of their lives. So the dead and the mutilated both rot, in different

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If such a determination is not embodied in our political vision and from every crime bullets are born
we have no hope of restoring what is so nearly lost to us – the which will one day find
dignity of man. the bull's eye of your hearts.
And you will ask: why doesn't his poetry
speak of dreams and leaves
and the great volcanoes of his native land.
Come and see the blood in the streets.
Come and see
the blood in the streets.
Come and see the blood
in the streets!*

Let me make it quite clear that in quoting from Neruda's poem I am

in no way comparing Republican Spain to Saddam Hussein's Iraq. I
quote Neruda because nowhere in contemporary poetry have I read
such a powerful visceral description of the bombing of civilians.
I have said earlier that the United States is now totally frank
about putting its cards on the table. That is the case. Its official
declared policy is now defined as 'full spectrum dominance'. That is
not my term, it is theirs. 'Full spectrum dominance' means control
of land, sea, air and space and all attendant resources.
The United States now occupies 702 military installations
throughout the world in 132 countries, with the honourable
exception of Sweden, of course. We don't quite know how they got
there but they are there all right.
The United States possesses 8,000 active and operational
nuclear warheads. Two thousand are on hair trigger alert, ready
© The Nobel Foundation 2005.
to be launched with 15 minutes warning. It is developing new
systems of nuclear force, known as bunker busters. The British,
ever cooperative, are intending to replace their own nuclear
* Extract from "I'm Explaining a Few Things" translated by Nathaniel Tarn, from
missile, Trident. Who, I wonder, are they aiming at? Osama bin
Pablo Neruda: Selected Poems, published by Jonathan Cape, London 1970. Used by
Laden? You? Me? Joe Dokes? China? Paris? Who knows? What
permission of The Random House Group Limited.
we do know is that this infantile insanity – the possession and

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threatened use of nuclear weapons – is at the heart of present now quote a poem of my own called 'Death'.
American political philosophy. We must remind ourselves that the
United States is on a permanent military footing and shows no sign Where was the dead body found?
of relaxing it. Who found the dead body?
Many thousands, if not millions, of people in the United States Was the dead body dead when found?
itself are demonstrably sickened, shamed and angered by their How was the dead body found?
government's actions, but as things stand they are not a coherent Who was the dead body?
political force – yet. But the anxiety, uncertainty and fear which we Who was the father or daughter or brother
can see growing daily in the United States is unlikely to diminish. Or uncle or sister or mother or son
I know that President Bush has many extremely competent Of the dead and abandoned body?
speech writers but I would like to volunteer for the job myself. Was the body dead when abandoned?
I propose the following short address which he can make on Was the body abandoned?
television to the nation. I see him grave, hair carefully combed, By whom had it been abandoned?
serious, winning, sincere, often beguiling, sometimes employing a Was the dead body naked or dressed for a journey?
wry smile, curiously attractive, a man's man. What made you declare the dead body dead?
'God is good. God is great. God is good. My God is good. Did you declare the dead body dead?
Bin Laden's God is bad. His is a bad God. Saddam's God was How well did you know the dead body?
bad, except he didn't have one. He was a barbarian. We are How did you know the dead body was dead?
not barbarians. We don't chop people's heads off. We believe Did you wash the dead body
in freedom. So does God. I am not a barbarian. I am the Did you close both its eyes
democratically elected leader of a freedom-loving democracy. We Did you bury the body
are a compassionate society. We give compassionate electrocution Did you leave it abandoned
and compassionate lethal injection. We are a great nation. I am not Did you kiss the dead body
a dictator. He is. I am not a barbarian. He is. And he is. They all
are. I possess moral authority. You see this fist? This is my moral When we look into a mirror we think the image that confronts us
authority. And don't you forget it.' is accurate. But move a millimetre and the image changes. We
A writer's life is a highly vulnerable, almost naked activity. We are actually looking at a never-ending range of reflections. But
don't have to weep about that. The writer makes his choice and is sometimes a writer has to smash the mirror – for it is on the other
stuck with it. But it is true to say that you are open to all the winds, side of that mirror that the truth stares at us.
some of them icy indeed. You are out on your own, out on a limb. I believe that despite the enormous odds which exist,
You find no shelter, no protection – unless you lie – in which case unflinching, unswerving, fierce intellectual determination, as
of course you have constructed your own protection and, it could citizens, to define the real truth of our lives and our societies
be argued, become a politician. is a crucial obligation which devolves upon us all. It is in fact
I have referred to death quite a few times this evening. I shall mandatory.

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 Art, Truth and Politics The Nobel Lecture

Further presentations and lectures by Nobel Prize

recipients, including a video of
Biography
Harold Pinter’s Art, Truth and Politics
Harold Pinter was born on 10 October 1930 in the London
lecture can be found on the website
borough of Hackney, son of a Jewish dressmaker. Growing
www.nobelprize.org
up, Pinter was met with the expressions of anti-Semitism, and
has indicated its importance for his becoming a dramatist. At
Further information about Route books the outbreak of the Second World War, he was evacuated from
and byteback publications, including details London at the age of nine, returning when twelve. He has said
of the annual subscription programme that the experience of wartime bombing has never lost its hold
can be found on the website on him. Back in London, he attended Hackney Grammar School
www.route-online.com where he played Macbeth and Romeo among other characters in
productions directed by Joseph Brearley. This prompted him to
choose a career in acting. In 1948 he was accepted at the Royal
Academy of Dramatic Art. In 1950, he published his first poems. In
1951 he was accepted at the Central School of Speech and Drama.
That same year, he won a place in Anew McMaster’s famous Irish
repertory company, renowned for its performances of Shakespeare.
Pinter toured again between 1954 and 1957, using the stage name
of David Baron. Between 1956 and 1980 he was married to actor
Vivien Merchant. In 1980 he married the author and historian Lady
Antonia Fraser.
Pinter made his playwriting debut in 1957 with The Room,
presented in Bristol. Other early plays were The Birthday Party
(1957), at first a fiasco of legendary dimensions but later one
of his most performed plays, and The Dumb Waiter (1957).
His conclusive breakthrough came with The Caretaker (1959),
followed by The Homecoming (1964) and other plays.
Harold Pinter is generally seen as the foremost representative
of British drama in the second half of the 20th century. That he
occupies a position as a modern classic is illustrated by his name
entering the language as an adjective used to describe a particular
atmosphere and environment in drama: “Pinteresque”.
Pinter restored theatre to its basic elements: an enclosed space
and unpredictable dialogue, where people are at the mercy of

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 Art, Truth and Politics The Nobel Lecture

each other and pretence crumbles. With a minimum of plot,

drama emerges from the power struggle and hide-and-seek of
interlocution. Pinter’s drama was first perceived as a variation
of absurd theatre, but has later more aptly been characterised
as “comedy of menace”, a genre where the writer allows us to
eavesdrop on the play of domination and submission hidden in
the most mundane of conversations. In a typical Pinter play, we
meet people defending themselves against intrusion or their own
impulses by entrenching themselves in a reduced and controlled
existence. Another principal theme is the volatility and elusiveness
of the past.
It is said of Harold Pinter that following an initial period of
psychological realism he proceeded to a second, more lyrical phase
with plays such as Landscape (1967) and Silence (1968) and finally
to a third, political phase with One for the Road (1984), Mountain
Language (1988), The New World Order (1991) and other plays.
But this division into periods seems oversimplified and ignores
some of his strongest writing, such as No Man’s Land (1974)
and Ashes to Ashes (1996). In fact, the continuity in his work is
remarkable, and his political themes can be seen as a development
of the early Pinter’s analysing of threat and injustice.
Since 1973, Pinter has won recognition as a fighter for human
rights, alongside his writing. He has often taken stands seen as
controversial. Pinter has also written radio plays and screenplays
for film and television. Among his best-known screenplays are
those for The Servant (1963), The Accident (1967), The Go-
Between (1971) and The French Lieutenant’s Woman (1981, based
on the John Fowles novel). Pinter has also made a pioneering
contribution as a director.

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