Serbia has respected 2019 Nobel Literature Prize winner Peter Handke, who is known for his apologist perspectives over Serbia's nationalist policies and war crimes during the 1990s' wars in the Balkans
BELGRADE, Serbia -- Serbia on Sunday honored 2019 Nobel Literature Prize winner Peter Handke, who's known for his apologist perspectives over Serbia's nationalist policies and Serb war crimes during the 1990s wars in the Balkans.
The novelist and screenwriter obtained a state trophy from Serbia President Aleksandar Vucic, a former ultranationalist who now says he wants his country to join the European Union. On Friday, Handke also obtained honors from Bosnian Serbs.
"Thanks for everything you've done for Serbia," Vucic said.
The RTS television said Handke has been awarded for"special participation in representing Serbia and its citizens in the area of public and cultural activities and for personal persistence in uncompromising responsibility toward the truth."
Handke is loved by Serbs for assistance throughout the wars of the 1990s' along with the age of late strongman Slobodan Milosevic if Serbs were blamed for fomenting the conflict that killed over 100,000 people. Handke is considered persona non grata from the Bosnian capital, Sarajevo, and in Kosovo, a former Serbian state that declared independence in 2008.
Handke also has disputed the 1995 massacre of 8,000 Bosniak men and boys in the town of Srebrenica was genocide. That runs counter to many rulings by international courts, which were proclaimed that the carnage in the eastern Bosnian enclave a genocide.
The writer said in Belgrade that he was did not expect to get Serbia's state awards, the most official RTS television reported.
"I was not ready," he said.