Acclaimed British playwright has earned one more award to add to his mantle. The writer has been picked as the winner of the 2013 PEN/Pinter prize for his career and support of human rights.

The award began in 2009 and is named in honor of the late Nobel Prize-winner Harold Pinter. A winner is a British resident and a writer whose work shows a “fierce intellectual determination … to define the real truth of our lives and our societies,” as Pinter said in his 2005 Nobel speech.

As The Guardian notes, Stoppard, who was born in Czechoslovakia, has been a world-renowned writer since his first play, 1966’s Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, became an instant hit. Hits that followed include Jumpers, Travesties, The Real Thing and Arcadia. He has had more recent success with 2006’s Rock'n'Roll and his epic The Cast of Utopia.

Stoppard is also well-known in Hollywood, having won an Oscar for co-writing the 1997 Best Picture winner Shakespeare in Love. He also worked with Terry Gilliam on his cult sci-fi film Brazil.

Gillian Slovo, who lead the judge’s panel, said in a statement that Stoppard’s work shows “courage and truthfulness, a determination to tell things as they are,” which Pinter admired, notes The AP.

Stoppard gets to chose a co-winner, an international writer that he thinks shares his qualities. He will announce his pick on Oct. 7 at the British Library when he picks up the award.

image: Wikimedia Commons