12:46

Peter Handke. Photograph: Georg Hochmuth/APA/AFP via Getty Images

The Austrian playwright and author is a more controversial decision than Tokarczuk. His selection come days after the Swedish Academy promised to move away from the “male-oriented” and “Eurocentric” past of the Nobel prize in literature. Handke doesn’t change either of those directions.

His bibliography contains novels, essays, note books, dramatic works and screenplays. He has lived in Paris since the 1990s, and is most famous for his play The Hour We Knew Nothing of Each Other (completely dialogue free), his screenwriting credit for Wim Wenders’ Wings of Desire and particularly the novel Die Wiederholung (Repetition).

Handke, who has Slovenic origins on the maternal side, famously gave a speech at the 2006 funeral of Serbian war criminal Slobodan Milošević, a decision that was criticised widely. His nomination for the Heinrich Heine prize that same year was eventually withdrawn due to his political views. His 2014 win of the International Ibsen award was also met by protests in Oslo.