Daniel Kehlmann. Image: Börsenverein des Deutschen Buchhandels, Heike Steinweg
By Porter Anderson, Editor-in-Chief | @Porter_Anderson
Rushdie Speaks September 13 in a First Amendment Summit
When the Peace Prize of the German Book Trade is presented to Salman Rushdie on Frankfurt Sunday, October 22, in the framework of Frankfurter Buchmesse, the speech honoring Rushdie is to be given by Daniel Kehlmann, the German-Austrian author, screenwriter, essayist, and critic.
The program, set for 11 am. CEST that day, is set again this year in Frankfurt’s Paulskirche and broadcast on German television by SDF. The award carries a purse of €25,000 (US$27,020).
Kehlmann, born in Munich and raised in Vienna, today lives in Berlin and New York.
Among his early novels, Beerholms Vorstellung (1997), Mahlers Zeit (1999),and Me and Kaminski (2003) established his reputation. His fourth novel, Measuring the World (2005), is reported to have been translated into at least 40 languages and is considered among contemporary German literature’s most successful works.
More of his fictional works are Fame (2009), F. A Novel (2013) and Tyll (2017), which was shortlisted for the 2020 International Booker Prize. His awards attention includes accolades from the Candide Preis, the WELT-Literaturpreis, the Per Olov Enquist Prize, the Kleist Prize, the Thomas Mann Prize, the Friedrich Hölderlin Prize, the Frank Schirrmacher Prize, the Schubart-Literaturpreis and the Anton Wildgans Prize.
In Germany, he’s also known for his essays and columns, read in Die Zeit, Der Spiegel, The Guardian, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Süddeutsche Zeitung, Literaturen and Volltext.
Salman Rushdie
Kehlmann has lectured at Johannes Gutenberg University in Mainz; the University of Applied Sciences Wiesbaden; and Göttingen University, as well as at Johann Wolfgang Goethe University in Frankfurt am Main in 2014. In 2010, he joined Jonathan Franzen and Adam Haslett for the Tübingen Poetics Lectureship. He has also been a guest professor in the German department at New York University.
Kehlmann is a member of the Mainz Academy of Sciences and Literature; the Freie Akademie der Künste in Hamburg; and the German Academy for Language and Literature. He is a founding member of PEN Berlin.
The fact that the award is slated to go to Rushdie was announced in June by the Börsenverein des Deutschen Buchhandels, Germany’s publishers and booksellers association.
In the United States, Rushdie—continuing his recovery from the August 12 event last year when he was attacked and severely wounded onstage at the Chautauqua Institution in upstate New York—is to speak on September 13 at Philadelphia’s National Constitution Center, when he’ll give the keynote address at the first National First Amendment Summit.
The board of the Peace Prize of the German Book Trade comprises Klaus Brinkbäumer, Raphael Gross PhD, Moritz Helmstaedter PhD, Nadja Kneissler PhD, Ethel Matala de Mazza PhD, Bascha Mika, Mithu Sanyal PhD, Christiane Schulz-Rother, and Karin Schmidt-Friderichs.
More from Publishing Perspectives on Salman Rushdie is here, more on the freedom of expression and freedom to publish is here, more on book and publishing awards in the international industry is here, more on the Peace Prize of the German Book Trade is here, and more on the German market is here.