Nobel Prize for Literature goes to a controversial Austrian writer.
Nobel literature prize
Vienna's Die Presse says Austria's Elfriede Jelinek is a deserving winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature.
While Nobel prize winners often tend to be merely "average" because of the compromises involved in the choice, the paper says, Ms Jelinek measures up to the greats in world literature.
But it notes that her critics regard her as "incorrigible" and "obstinate" in ideological terms.
"If your focus is sufficiently narrow," the paper concedes, "it is relatively easy to reproach Elfriede Jelinek over these negative characteristics."
But her mastery of language and of self-irony make it impossible to argue against the award, it concludes.
Also in Vienna, Der Standard questions the idea that Ms Jelinek's award represents a triumph for Austria.
The paper notes that the writer does not wish the award to have any significance for Austria, because of what she described as her "complete distance" from the government.
It points out that for decades the country's economic and political elite have kept their distance from the writer, too.
"So why should a woman whom people would have loved to banish stand up for Austria?" it asks.
The jury gave the award to a woman who does not mince her words, except to spit them out in your face
Tribune de Geneve
The paper describes Elfriede Jelinek as "probably the most difficult writer in the German language world" whose treatment of the situation of women marks her out from other authors.
In Germany, the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung calls the award "a big surprise", noting that the writer sees continuing undercurrents of fascism in Austria society.
"It is therefore unsurprising that Elfriede Jelinek's books are highly controversial," the paper observes, "and that, in particular in her own country, the author is less celebrated than insulted."
The paper's says the Nobel committee made "a good choice" because it would have been hard to find a more radical or challenging author.
The French daily Liberation feels that with their choice of Elfriede Jelinek the Nobel jurors "have redressed the balance of an award which is very masculine, surprisingly for a literary circle so careful to be politically correct".
According to the Swiss Tribune De Geneve , the Nobel jury "passed over other more comfortable authors, and gave the award to a woman who does not mince her words, except to spit them out in your face".
