HANIF KUREISHI WINS PINTER LITERARY PRIZE

The BBC reports that a novelist -- Hanif Kureishi -- has been awarded the prize that was set up in honor of a playwright -- Harold Pinter.  The award, worth one thousand pounds, is given to a British writer who casts an "unflinching, unswerving" gaze upon the world.

Pinter's widow, Lady Antonia Fraser, helped judge the prize, and commended the winner because he "courageously and irreverently speaks the truth about life in our multicultural world, beyond any platitudes of political correctness."

Mexican journalist Lydia Cacho will receive the international writer of courage prize, which is awarded to writers persecuted for their beliefs.