Literature Nobel 2005 for Harold Pinter

The 2005 Nobel Prize for Literature has been awarded to Harold Pinter, the playwright, director, actor and political activist from UK. Here is the rediff article which informed me of this news. He also happens to be opposed to the West's military involvement in Iraq.("The crimes of the U.S. throughout the world have been systematic, constant, clinical, remorseless, and fully documented but nobody talks about them.")
I didn't know that he had also written the screenplay for films like The French Lieutenant's Woman. He has also played the role of a gangster in a Hollywood film and visited India as the member of a cricket team ("I tend to think that cricket is the greatest thing that God ever created on earth - certainly greater than sex, although sex isn't too bad either")

According to The Times (London) Pinter admits that politics may have played a role in his being awarded the Nobel. In post 9/11 2001 politics was supposed to have played a role in the award being given to Sir V.S. Naipaul. His plays were indeed hardhitting and laced with cynicism, anger and bitterness. I would never have predicted that he would one day win the Nobel. After the controversy regarding last year's award which was given to the Austrian novelist, playwright and poet Elfriede Jelinek we can expect another one this year. One can expect strong criticism from Asia and the Third World which may rightfully claim that they had better contenders for the world's top literary award. Nevertheless, Britain must be celebrating the award coming fairly soon as it does after V.S.Naipaul's 2001 award.
Some more links:
Click here for the official announcement from the Nobel Foundation. And here for Pinter's official site.The BBC newsitem announcing the good news for Britain. The article in the online edition of The Times and this is the link to the article in The Guardian (UK). Click here to read the article in The Telegraph. I came to know about the last three British links from aldaily.
Plenty of good reading.
p.s. Click here for some Harold Pinter quotes.