SOURCE: "Italy's Barbed Political Jester, Dario Fo, Wins Nobel Prize," in The New York Times, October 10, 1997, pp. A1, A10.

[In the following essay, Bohlen emphasizes the controversy created by the Nobel Committee's selection of Fo as the 1997 laureate in literature.]

Dario Fo, an iconoclastic Italian playwright-performer known for mixing wacky social farce with sharp political satire, was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature today, to the guarded amazement of Italy's literary establishment and the outright dismay of the Vatican.

In its announcement of the $1 million prize, the Swedish Academy likened the 71-year-old Mr. Fo to the "jesters of the Middle Ages" who relied on wit, irreverence and even slapstick humor to poke fun at authority while "upholding the dignity of the downtrodden."

Critics have praised Mr. Fo's rare abilities as both writer and performer. "Imagine a cross between Bertolt Brecht and Lenny Bruce, and you may begin to...