ART CRITIC: OPEN LETTER TO PUBLISHER PUNCH SULZBERGER OF THE NY TIMES REGARDING THEIR MISERABLE COVERAGE OF THE WORKS OF PETER HANDKE

Dear Mr. Sulzberger,

Perhaps the sheer surfeit of trivia in your
so parochial
pages
{gladly specify at nausea upon request)
no longer allows space for Non-Anglo Theater. Handke has been a kind of lightning rod since early on, thus if you're out of touch with him you're unlikely to be riding the ball of lightning anywhere else. True enough as your pages go when it comes to continental theater. Opera does score a few mention on occasion, you have better and more curious reviewers in that field!

The NY Times search function for "Peter Handke"
http://query.nytimes.com/search/sitesearch/?action=click&contentCollection&region=TopBar&WT.nav=searchWidget&module=SearchSubmit&pgtype=Homepage#/peter+handke/since1851/allresults/1/allauthors/newest/
reveals a single solitary mention (several), in connection with the Philip Glass opera based on Handke's SPUREN DER VERIRRTEN, not that your writers appear to know the original text, much less of course how it figures within the development of Handke's dramaturgy (a clue: since it is "wordless", like THE HOUR WE KNEW NOTHING OF EACH OTHER, which your then reviewer, back at a time when you at least did take note, failed to have a clue how it worked, it might nonetheless bear a connection to that play or possibly Handke's first play without words, the 1967 MY FOOT MY TUTOR.)

Here the main news of the past few years & links which so far you have failed to note, you are welcome to exploit these links to your delight.
The Ibsen Prize

http://handke-drama.blogspot.com/2014/03/handke-wins-ibsen-prize.html
WALK ABOUT THE VILLAGES / PAR LES VILLAGES AT AVIGNON
http://handke-drama.blogspot.com/2013/07/par-les-villages-avignon-handkes.html
I happen to be the translator of VILLAGES, published appr. 10 years ago by Ariadne Press, Handke's richest work. No mention of it in your pages!
- The Muehlheim Prize (the most important German drama prize) for STORM STILL
- a drama/ novel hybrid published by Seagull/ U. of Chicago Press a year or so ago yet unreviewed by any of your critics
- http://handke-drama.blogspot.com/2011/08/directors-view-of-forever-storm.html
  
  http://handke-drama.blogspot.com/2011/08/still-storm-introductory-thoughts-on.html
  
  http://handke-drama.blogspot.com/2012/06/forever-storm-and-handke-win-2012.html
  
  http://handke-drama.blogspot.com/2011/08/handke-immmer-noch-sturm-still-storm.html
  
  https://picasaweb.google.com/106505819654688893791/IMMERNOCHSTURMPHOTOSFOREVERSTORM
- Fellow Handke specialist Professor SCOTT ABBOTT AND I have a discussion going at Scott's
- http://thegoaliesanxiety.wordpress.com/2014/06/05/stormy-weather-peter-handkes-immer-noch-sturm/
- on the theme of "Language is the first casualty of War" in Handke's STILL STORM Our disagreement is a truly academic but not uninteresting one as to whether that Orwellian theme is then part of what drives the play’s "dramaturgy"!
- ANDD HERE THE LINK TO THE MAIN PORTAL AND TO A LIST OF HANDKE PLAYS IN ENGLISH
- http://handke-drama.blogspot.com/2010/05/index-page-for-this-and-all-other.html
  
  http://handke-drama.blogspot.com/2012/07/peter-handke-plays-in-english.html

Sincererly and with best wishes:

I am writing you to let you know that at the very least in the instance of the theater as well as the prose of the deservedly famous Austro-German-Slovenian author Peter Handke the NY Times coverage and reviewing continues to be monstrously deficient, as well as generally abysmal at your Book Review. Handke just won the greatest drama prize in the world, deservedly so,Â
http://www.internationalibsenaward.com/
not that a NY Times arts reader would know!
Two years ago his play FOREVER STORM won the most important German drama prize!
not that a NY Times arts reader would know!
With all the drivel that finds its way into your arts pages!
FOREVER STORM, a nove/drama hybrid, exists in English, published by Swallow, distributed by the University of Chicago Press
http://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/distributed/S/bo16880859.html

And here the links to its coverage at my http://handke-magazin.blogspot.com/2014/03/the-hub-navel-to-todos-handke.html

Ditto for the plays VOYAGE BY DUGOUT (PAJ Journal), and UNTIL THE DAY (Swallow/ U, of Chicago)
The reviews of Handke's two most major novels, MY YEAR IN THE NO-MAN'S BAY and CROSSING THE SIERRA DEL GREDOS, by respectively Lee Siegel and Neil Gordon, were contemptible and contemptibly incompetent,
Ample discussions of both at http://handke-discussion.blogspot.com/
Â and thus, overall, continued what has become a tradition
€‹,€‹in that respect, at your paper.
Thus my single-minded focus!