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Peter Handke is mainly known for his literary works but he has always had a strong affiliation with the movies that is evident in his academic writings about the cinema, in his own films, and in his longtime amicable collaboration with director Wim Wenders; and not least in the filmic way he narrates and edits his texts.
Born 1942 in Griffen, Austria, Handke grew up partly in Carinthia, partly in Berlin. He attended a Catholic boarding school where he started to write his first literary texts. In 1961, he started to study law in Graz and joined the "Forum Stadtpark" of "Grazer Gruppe". When publishing house Suhrkamp Verlag accepted his manuscript of "Die Hornissen" ("The Hornets"), Handke abandoned his studies and started to write full time. After a spectacular performance with Gruppe 47 in Princeton, Handke wrote the provocative play "Publikumsbeschimpfung" ("Offending the Audience"). He then wrote further plays such as "Kaspar", prose texts ("Begrüßung des Aufsichtsrats" - "Welcoming the Supervisor"), and poetry ("Die Innenwelt der Außenwelt" - "The Innerworld of the Outerworld") until the end of the 1960s. In 1969, Handke became a co-founder of the publishing house "Verlag der Autoren" in Frankfurt.
At the end of the 1960s, Handke started to work with Wim Wenders, who adapted Handke"s story "Die Angst des Tormanns beim Elfmeter" ("The Goalkeeper"s Fear of the Penalty") in 1971. In the same year, Handke directed the TV movie "Chronik der laufenden Ereignisse" for WDR. With "Wunschloses Unglück" that was made into a film by Wolfgang Glück in 1974, Handke turned more towards a traditional narrative style. In 1977, Handke directed the film version of his story "Die linkshändige Frau" ("The Left-Handed Woman"). He again collaborated with Wim Wenders on the screen play for Wenders" film "Der Himmel über Berlin" ("Wings of Desire", 1986/87) and directed his last film, "Die Abwesenheit" ("The Absence"), in 1992. From the mid-1990s on, Handke has mainly written about the Balkan War and has caused controversy with his statements about Serbia"s role in this war, most recently at Slobodan Milosevic"s funeral service .