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Stockholm (dpa) - British playwright Harold Pinter, this year's Nobel literature laureate, who has battled cancer in recent years has been admitted to hospital, the Nobel Foundation said Monday.
Pinter, 75, has pre-recorded his Nobel lecture at a London television studio for December 7 festivities in Stockholm, where it will be shown on a big screen.
Doctors had earlier advised Pinter to cancel his planned visit to Stockholm to give the traditional Nobel lecture.
Pinter's publisher Stephen Page, head of Faber & Faber, is now planned to accept the award worth 10 million kronor (1.3 million dollars), medal and diploma on Pinter's behalf on December 10.
A political and human-rights activist and vocal critic of U.S. foreign policy, Pinter was expected to voice criticism of U.S. President George W. Bush in his award lecture.
Last year's literature laureate, Austrian dramatist Elfriede Jelinek, had also missed out on the award ceremony and did not travel to Stockholm to deliver her lecture in person.
Other literature prize winners who missed their award ceremony include 1973 winner Patrick White, Alexander Solzhenitsyn who won in 1970, and Ernest Hemingway in 1954.
Pinter made his debut as a playwright in 1957 with "The Room". Another early play was "The Birthday Party" (1957). His breakthrough came with "The Caretaker" in 1959, followed by "The Homecoming" in 1964.
He has also written screenplays for film and television.
December 10 marks the anniversary of Swedish industrialist Alfred Nobel's death. Nobel, who invented dynamite, created the prizes, which are also awarded in medicine, physics, chemistry, peace and economics.
The Nobel Foundation manages the assets made available through Nobel's will.
Copyright 2005 dpa Deutsche Presse-Agentur GmbH
