Claudio Magris awarded the 2009 Peace Prize of the German Book Trade

Copyright: Ulf Andersen

Peace Prize of the German Book Trade 2009 to Claudio Magris The Italian writer Claudio Magris was awarded the Peace Prize of the German Book Trade. Around 1.000 invited guests attended the ceremony in Frankfurt's Paulskirche, among them former Federal German President Richard von Weizsäcker and Wolf Lepenies, the Peace Prize laureate in 2006. The laudation was given by historian Karl Schlögel.

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In his acceptance speech, Claudio Magris spoke of the hidden faces of war." Any border that we look upon not as a passageway, but as a wall – as a bulwark against the barbarians – creates a latent potential for war", said Magris. If it was the frontier of a wall in his youth, aimed at keeping out the East, that other Europe, today there were other borders that threatened peace. "Sometimes, they are invisible borders found within our own cities. They are between us and the newcomers from all over the world, the people we hardly notice," in Magris' words. Every country had its East that it wanted to fend off. "Even today, this border has not been lifted. Instead, it has only been shifted to shut out yet another, more eastern East", said the Peace Prize laureate. Living without war was an illusion in Europe.

Claudio Magris warned of a new populism in Europe which represented a danger to democracy and peace." The new populism – which, today, is found in varying degrees throughout all of Europe – creates democracies without democracy", according to Magris. "This populism is a vaguely defined phenomenon that has affected all levels of society. It is one that abandons many things, including steadfast basic values, all sense of justice and injustice, and every connection between the well-being of the individual and that of society as a whole. Although such a sense of justice is not sufficient in itself, it is nevertheless a necessary precondition if we want to at least hope to foster justice and, thereby, peace."

Before that, Karl Schlögel in his laudation had focused on Claudio Magris as the explorer of the "other Europe". He pointed out that Claudio Magris had always been on the border, and that the border is productive as long as one is willing to be involved with the other side. Schlögel emphasised: "Now that Europe is being put back together again, those virtues of civiltá mitteleuropea are especially essential: tolerating paradoxes, thinking with the other side. If these can be connected with the magic of the Gulf, the city of Trieste’s rigorous lines, the austere beauty of Istria and the elegance of the white castle of Miramar, so much the better. Europe could do with some beauty and optimism after the 20th century. It is for this gift that we thank Claudio Magris and honour him."

"Peace is not simply a matter of course. It is neither a gift of nature, nor mere utopia", said Gottfried Honnefelder, president of the Börsenverein des Deutschen Buchhandels – German Publishers & Booksellers Assocation – in his welcoming address. "Where it prevails, it comes about from within ourselves as the outcome of our culture." And if there were a medium which was decisive in achieving a successful culture of cultural encounter, then it was language and literature. "Nothing is as important on the path to peace as the skill of getting cultures to speak for one another – as temporary and fragile as a first step may always be", in the words of Honnefelder. As a dedicated interpreter and linguistically gifted interpeter of cultures, Claudio Magris was someone who truly mastered this skill.

The Börsenverein des Deutschen Buchhandels has been awarding the Peace Prize of the German Book Trade at the close of the Frankfurt Book Fair since 1950. Prize laureates have included Albert Schweitzer, Theodor Heuss, Astrid Lindgren, Václav Havel, Siegfried Lenz, Susan Sontag, Orhan Pamuk and last year's recipient, Anselm Kiefer. The award is endowed with 25,000 euros in prize money.

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