Prominent British playwright Harold Pinter, winner of this year’s Nobel prize for literature, has been taken to a London hospital, his agent said on Monday.
”He hasn’t been very well for a while. He is back in hospital,” said the agent, Judy Daish.
Pinter’s doctors have already forbidden the 75-year-old from travelling to Stockholm this week to attend a Nobel prize ceremony and banquet because of ill health.
But Daish said her client had been strong enough on Sunday to record the traditional laureate’s lecture, which is due to be screened at the Swedish Academy on December 7.
”He has recorded his Nobel lecture yesterday [Sunday] in a studio, so in order for him to have done that presumably he must be stronger than he has been,” she said.
The agent was unable to say when Pinter — considered Britain’s greatest living playwright — was taken to hospital or what was wrong with him.
She also declined to give the name of the hospital, simply confirming that it was in London.
Pinter, who was diagnosed with oesophageal cancer in December 2002, was born in Hackney, East London, the son of a Jewish dressmaker.
He made his playwriting debut in 1957, with The Room, which was followed by one of his masterpieces The Birthday Party. His conclusive breakthrough came with The Caretaker in 1959, followed by The Homecoming in 1964.
Just last month the Nobel foundation said the playwright was too ill to attend the prize ceremony and gala banquet in Stockholm on December 10.
The playwright’s publisher, Stephen Page, is to accept the 10-million kronor ($1,3-million) prize money, a diploma and a medal on Pinter’s behalf at the ceremony. – Sapa-AFP