Theater Giant Harold Pinter Dead at 78

Playwright lives on in his plays, already considered modern classics

(NEWSER) - He didn’t always like the plays of Harold Pinter, who died yesterday at 78, but Guardian theater critic Michael Billington says he’s sure they “will endure wind and weather, because he understood the insecurity of human life.” Billington, also Pinter’s biographer, remembers the “poet’s ear for language” and the way he “brilliantly skewered” political lies. But above all, Pinter “had a great talent for friendship and a remarkable sense of loyalty.” More»

Peruvian's name wasn't even being mentioned

(NEWSER) - The Swedish Academy today skipped right over writers rumored to have a lock, and handed the 2010 Nobel Prize in Literature to dark horse Mario Vargas Llosa. In awarding him the prize, the academy cited the Peruvian writer's "cartography of structures of power and his trenchant images of the individual's resistance, revolt, and defeat." Vargas Llosa's name was nowhere to be heard among Nobel watchers, though the AP reports that many expected the committee, knocked in recent years as too euro-centric, to look further abroad in making its selection. More»

Was first Portuguese-language winner of Nobel Literature prize

(AP) - Jose Saramago, the author of Blindness who became the first Portuguese-language winner of the Nobel Literature prize, has died at 87, his publisher said today, adding that the author's health had worsened after a recent illness. Saramago was an outspoken man who antagonized many, and saw his popularity at home dampened by his unflinching support for Communism, blunt manner, and sometimes difficult prose style More»

(NEWSER) - John Forsythe, a versatile actor who gained lasting fame as Blake Carrington on the pioneering prime-time soap Dynasty and as the voice of the mysterious Charlie on Charlie's Angels, died yesterday in California. He was 92. Best known at the time as the affable star of Bachelor Father, Forsythe played a villainous judge in the 1979 Al Pacino vehicle And Justice for All, demonstrating he had the chops to channel the scheming Blake Carrington. More»

(NEWSER) - With Herta Mueller joining the ranks of Nobel laureates today, it seems like a good time to look back at some of the other literary giants that have been honored since the turn of the century. For a full list of all the winners since 1960, check the AP source. View photos at left. More»