NOBEL / Harold Pinter in his own words

"They said you've a call from the Nobel committee. I said, why?"

"I heard the news of the prize at 20 to 12 this morning, only 20 minutes before the official announcement. It had never occurred to me that I was a contender. They called me and said you're going to receive a call from the chairman of the Nobel committee and I think I said 'why?'. The chairman said 'You've won the Nobel Prize for Literature.' I was speechless and remained so for another couple of minutes. But I was very moved by this even though I hadn't really taken it in. Why they've given me this prize I don't know.

"I hadn't seen the citation then. But I suspected that they must have taken my political activities into consideration since my political engagement is very much part of my work. It's interwoven into many of my plays. But I will find out more when I go to Stockholm in December. I'm told I am required to make a 45-minute speech which is the longest speech I will ever have made. Of course, I intend to say whatever it is I think. I may well address the state of the world. I'll be interested myself to find out how I'm going to articulate the whole thing.

"I've been through the most extraordinary five days. I went to Dublin for the festival of my work last Thursday. I had the most wonderful weekend. The Gate theatre did me proud. I was very stirred and affected by the whole damn thing. And then I went to get my plane on Monday and it was raining. I've been through various health problems so I was walking with a stick. I put my stick out of the car and the stick slipped and I went with it and hit my head on a very hard piece of pavement. There was blood all over the place and a trench in my forehead. I was in hospital for four hours and I had nine stitches. One moment I was enjoying life greatly. The next moment I thought I was going to die. I recovered but it's been an extraordinary up-and-downer. And then the Nobel news came through this morning. I was told today that one of the Sky channels said this morning that 'Harold Pinter is dead'. Then they changed their mind and said, 'No, he's won the Nobel prize.' So I've risen from the dead.

"The invasion has already started. All my friends have been communicating all day long. On the other hand some journalists have behaved appallingly. They've been ringing on the door insisting on entrance. They don't like it if you don't respond like a chimpanzee. But I'm not a chimpanzee and I don't intend ever to be a fucking chimpanzee. Not that I've anything against chimpanzees.

"But when I think back to past winners of the Nobel prize I feel I'm in remarkable company. I never thought this would happen to me - in fact this morning when I picked up my Guardian I wondered idly whether Orhan Pamuk had won the prize. He's a remarkable writer and I scanned the pages to see if he had won, not realising they hadn't announced it yet. I don't know what the criteria are and I'm very curious to find out when I go to Stockholm.

"When I travel to Europe I find generally that my plays are given a fuller rein. My plays are done here but not all that many people like them. And, when it comes to my later plays, I often feel I'm surrounded by emptiness. Apart from Duncan Weldon who did The Birthday Party, and the Donmar who recently did Old Times, I feel I am surrounded by a bit of a silence. But I have an ongoing relationship with the Royal Court with whom next year I'm going to perform Krapp's Last Tape, all things being equal.

"In health terms I'm on the mend. I'm on heavy medication for a very mysterious skin condition that is extremely rare and has chosen me out of millions to come to rest in my mouth. And it has been extremely unpleasant for the last three months. I also feel a bit weak because of the fall I had in Dublin which should have killed me, but I seem to possess a tougher fibre than I had imagined.

"When it comes to my work and life I suppose the personal and the political are connected. But only up to a point. When my wife, Antonia, is pouring my cranberry juice in the morning I don't regard that as a political act. Nor I am thinking politically at the time, though I do have the Guardian to my left hand and the cranberry juice to my right. But Antonia's act of passing the cranberry juice to me is an act of married love. I should say that, without her, I couldn't have coped over the last few years. I'm a very lucky man in every respect.