Pinter wins Nobel 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.

Mr Pinter said he was “overwhelmed,” and then promptly announced he was giving up playwrighting.

“I have written 29 plays and I think that’s really enough,” said Pinter after a champagne celebration with his wife Lady Antonia Fraser at their London home.