- In his Nobel Prize in Literature acceptance speech, playwright-screenwriter Harold Pinter fulminated against the Iraq War, the U.S. government, and warmongers George W. Bush and Tony Blair.
2005 Nobel Prize in Literature recipient Harold Pinter delivers fiery anti-Iraq War, anti-U.S. acceptance speech
“The crimes of the United States have been systematic, constant, vicious, remorseless, but very few people have actually talked about them,” asserted 75-year-old British playwright and screenwriter Harold Pinter during his fiery 2005 Nobel Prize in Literature acceptance speech on Dec. 7.
“You have to hand it to America. It has exercised a quite clinical manipulation of power worldwide while masquerading as a force for universal good. It’s a brilliant, even witty, highly successful act of hypnosis.
“I put to you that the United States is without doubt the greatest show on the road. Brutal, indifferent, scornful and ruthless it may be, but it is also very clever. As a salesman it is out on its own and its most saleable commodity is self love. It’s a winner.”
‘Blatant state terrorism’
After deriding the use of “the American People” as political bait, Harold Pinter went on to describe the U.S.-led Iraq War as “a bandit act, an act of blatant state terrorism, demonstrating absolute contempt for the concept of international law,” affirming that “at least 100,000 Iraqis were killed by American bombs and missiles before the Iraq insurgency began. These people are of no moment. Their deaths don’t exist. They are blank.”
The Nobel Prize in Literature honoree also called for U.S. President George W. Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair to be tried before the International Criminal Court.
“But Bush has been clever,” Pinter added. “He has not ratified the International Criminal Court of Justice. … But Tony Blair has ratified the Court and is therefore available for prosecution. We can let the Court have his address if they’re interested. It is Number 10, Downing Street, London.”
‘Stands seen as controversial’
The Swedish Academy’s press release states that since 1973 Harold Pinter “has won recognition as a fighter for human rights” and “has often taken stands seen as controversial.”
But the Nobel Prize-bestowing Academy apparently has a yen for “controversial” types.
The New York Times, for instance, affirmed that in recent years the Nobel Prize in Literature has been awarded to writers “with left-wing ideologies” – though, in all fairness, “writers with a(n equally controversial) liberal-humanistic worldview” would have been a far more accurate description of Pinter’s, Dario Fo’s, Günter Grass’, and José Saramago’s “ideologies.”
Smashing the mirror
Described on the Swedish Academy’s website as “the foremost representative of British drama in the second half of the 20th century,” Harold Pinter has been suffering from esophagus cancer, and was forbidden by his doctors to travel to Stockholm for the Nobel Prize ceremony. His speech was delivered through a video recording.
While accepting his prize, in addition to lambasting the U.S. government, the Iraq War, George W. Bush, and Tony Blair, Pinter also quoted Pablo Neruda’s poem “I’m Explaining a Few Things,” wrapping things up with the following admonishment:
“When we look into a mirror we think the image that confronts us is accurate. But move a millimetre and the image changes. We are actually looking at a never-ending range of reflections. But sometimes a writer has to smash the mirror – for it is on the other side of that mirror that the truth stares at us.
I believe that despite the enormous odds which exist, unflinching, unswerving, fierce intellectual determination, as citizens, to define the real truth of our lives and our societies is a crucial obligation which devolves upon us all. It is in fact mandatory. If such a determination is not embodied in our political vision we have no hope of restoring what is so nearly lost to us – the dignity of man.”
Plays and screenplays
Among Harold Pinter’s most notable plays are The Birthday Party (1957), The Caretaker (1959), and the semi-autobiographical Betrayal (1978).
Pinter’s best-known screenplays include those for Joseph Losey’s psychological drama The Servant (1963), starring Dirk Bogarde as the mysterious title character; Losey’s socially conscious period drama The Go-Between (1971), starring Alan Bates and Julie Christie; and Karel Reisz’s The French Lieutenant’s Woman (1981), starring Jeremy Irons and Meryl Streep as modern-day actors featured in a period movie and, in a parallel narrative, as the period movie characters themselves.
Also of note, Pinter himself adapted The Caretaker / The Guest (1963) and Betrayal (1983) for the screen, receiving an Oscar nomination for the latter. He had previously been shortlisted for The French Lieutenant’s Woman.
“Nobel Prize Winner Harold Pinter” notes/references
Full text of Harold Pinter’s speech.
Harold Pinter website.
Harold Pinter image: Still from a 1969 BBC interview.
“Nobel Winner Harold Pinter Delivers Fiery Anti-Iraq War Speech” last modified in April 2025.