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German politicians said Tuesday they would not allow an important literature prize to go to Austrian writer Peter Handke because of his Serbian nationalist sympathies.
The coalition heading the city council in Duesseldorf, western Germany, plans next week to vote down a decision to give Handke the Heinrich Heine prize, according to Greens member of the council, Karin Trepke.
Handke was named as the winner by a jury last week but the council, which gives the prize money of 50,000 euros (64,000 dollars), must approve their decision.
The move to honour Handke came just a month after France's foremost theater company decided not to stage one of his plays because of a eulogy he delivered for late Serbian strongman Slobodan Milosevic.
The renowned Austrian writer paid tribute to Milosevic, the former Yugoslav president and alleged war criminal who died earlier this year, as "a man who defended his people".
It has sparked a heated debate in Germany.
The leader of the Greens in the federal parliament, Fritz Kuhn, has said it was a "scandal" to give the prize to Handke and a slap in the face of those who suffered under Milosevic.
The Social Democrats, which is part of Germany's ruling coalition, have agreed.
The administrator of the Paris theater Comedie Francaise, Marcel Bozonnet, cancelled the 2007 season of the Handke play "Voyage to the Sonorous Land or the Art of Asking" in response to the author's eulogy.
Bozonnet's decision was condemned in art circles in France, where Handke lives, and farther afield, including by German publishing house Suhrkamp and one of Berlin's foremost theaters.
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AFPEntertainment-literature-Germany-Austria-Serbia-prize
AFP 301447 GMT 05 06
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