Harold Pinter wins Nobel Prize for the sounds of silence

British and poet Harold Pinter, who juxtaposed the brutal and the banal in such plays as The Room and The Birthday Party and made an art form out of spare language and unbearable silence, won the 2005 Nobel Prize in literature yesterday.

The Swedish Academy said he was an author "who in his plays uncovers the precipice under everyday prattle and forces entry into oppression's closed rooms."

Academy secretary Horace Engdahl said Pinter was typically terse in his reaction when he was telephoned about the award.

"He did not say many words, in fact he was very happy," Engdahl said.

In its citation, the academy said Pinter -- whose works also include The Dumb Waiter and The Caretaker -- was a writer who returned theater to its bare-bones form.

"Pinter restored theater to its basic elements: an enclosed space and unpredictable dialogue where people are at the mercy of each other and pretense crumbles," the academy said.

The son of a Jewish dressmaker, Pinter was born in London. Pinter has said his encounters with anti-Semitism in his youth influenced him in becoming a dramatist. The wartime bombing of London also affected him deeply, the academy said.