Comments | selenak: Peace Prize for Boualem Sansal and end of this year's Book Fair

selenak

Peace Prize for Boualem Sansal and end of this year's Book Fair

Oct 17, 2011 09:52

This year's Peace Prize of the German Book Trade, the high point and end of the Book Fair, went to Algerian author Boualem Sansal, and the speeches I heard yesterday fulfilled one of their key functions: they impressed and made me eager to read his books. The mayor of Frankfurt, Petra Roth, who always gives one of the introduction speeches and ( Read more... )

boualem sansal, peace prize of the german book trade, frankfurt book fair

Comments 6

amenirdis October 17 2011, 09:27:38 UTC

En route, people talked about the speech. "Completely Utopian and unrealistic towards the end", said one. "Yes, but we say that, living in safety. Who but someone actually living in hell has the right to be Utopian instead of cynical?" returned another.

You always manage to cut straight to the heart of the matter. Thank you.

selenak October 17 2011, 20:13:39 UTC

You're so very welcome!

raffaella October 17 2011, 11:21:08 UTC

He came up with striking imagery, as comparing the long bloody liberation war against France from 1954 to 1962 with a matrjochka doll containing encapsuled future wars, more and more, each sowing the seeds for the next).

It's a striking image, yes, and very accurate too. You could even go as far as the 1945 Setif massacres committed by the French army to repress some bloody riots, because they birthed the independence war; most historians consider them a general rehearsal of the 1954 operations (and the end of any hope of securing a peaceful independence.) What he says isn't just true of Algeria, of course, and it's a perfect image for the situation of several African countries.

I very much liked Sansal's latest book, Rue Darwin. He's a wonderful writer.

selenak October 17 2011, 20:14:44 UTC

The latest one hasn't been translated into German yet, but all the previous ones have. I'll be back in Munich tomorrow and will start hunting for them.

trobadora October 17 2011, 17:45:02 UTC

"Completely Utopian and unrealistic towards the end", said one. "Yes, but we say that, living in safety. Who but someone actually living in hell has the right to be Utopian instead of cynical?" returned another.

What an amazing quote. Thank you for sharing it!

selenak October 17 2011, 20:15:29 UTC

All the speeches will be available on October 31st, I'm told, but of course that conversation won't be in them. Glad to share!