VIENNA, Oct 7: Nobel literature laureate Elfriede Jelinek said on Thursday that she would not be able to travel to Stockholm to receive her prize because she suffers from what she called a "social phobia."

The Austrian writer said in a telephone interview from her home in Vienna that she had been suffering "for a long time" from a "social phobia, an illness known to doctors and which is the reason why I cannot go to Stockholm to receive the prize".

"I feel empty," she noted. But she said she was able to write. She said that for years she had been unable to "tolerate being in large groups" although "I can go into small rooms". -AFP