Playwright wins Nobel literature prize

British playwright Harold Pinter, a master of sparse dialogue and menacing silences who has been an outspoken critic of the US-led war in Iraq, was the surprise winner of the Nobel literature prize yesterday.

The 75-year-old Londoner, son of a Jewish dressmaker, is one of Britain's best-known dramatists for plays like The Birthday Party and The Caretaker, whose mundane dialogue with sinister undercurrents gave rise to the adjective "Pinteresque".

An intimidating presence with bushy eyebrows and a rich voice, he was described by Swedish Academy head Horace Engdahl, who announced the prize, as "the towering figure" in English drama in the second half of the 20th century.

Mr Pinter told Reuters Television he was "overwhelmed" by the news: "I haven't had time to think about it but I am very, very moved. It was something I did not expect at all at any time."

Asked why he had won, Mr Pinter mused: "I wonder, I wonder."

Critics called him an unexpected but deserving choice for the 10 million crown ($1.28 million) prize - the second Nobel this month with an anti-US flavour, after the Peace Prize for the UN nuclear watchdog which is criticised by Washington.

An active human rights campaigner, Mr Pinter has likened US President George W. Bush's administration to the Nazis and called British Prime Minister Tony Blair a "mass murderer" for invading Iraq.

The world of theatre hailed the new Nobel laureate.

"It's wholly deserved and I am completely thrilled. As a writer he has been unswerving for 50 years," said Tom Stoppard, another of Britain's greatest post-war dramatists. Playwright Alan Ayckbourn called it "a most fitting award".