April 2003 - Nr. 4
Goethe Medal Goes to Writers from Prague and Paris
TWIG - Two literary figures with complex ties to Germany, Prague writer Lenka Reinerova and Spanish-born filmmaker and author Jorge Semprun, have been awarded the Goethe Medal of Weimar. In presenting the distinction on Saturday (March 22), Jutta Limbach, president of the Goethe Institute Inter Nationes, thanked the two for helping to ensure "that we Germans have been able to build a relationship of understanding and mutual respect with our neighbors."
The Goethe Medal, presented each year on the anniversary of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe’s death, honors those who have helped further intercultural exchange and promote the German language abroad. The effort to open the dialogue between cultures should be encouraged even more against the backdrop of war in Iraq, said Kerstin Müller of the German Foreign Office during the award ceremony. "Now is the time to build bridges," she said.
Reinerova, one of the few living German-language writers in the Czech capital, was selected for her significant contributions to cultural and religious tolerance, the jury noted. Jorge Semprun was chosen for his tireless efforts to promote understanding and reconciliation in Europe, and for his emphasis on the development of a European identity.
Born in Prague in 1916, Reinerova was forced to flee the Nazi regime in 1939, settling in France and then in Mexico. After World War II she returned to Prague, where she was imprisoned for 15 months during the Stalinist purges. Her experiences during that time are recorded in her memoir Alle Farben der Sonne und der Nacht (All Colors of the Sun and the Night), published this year.
Jorge Semprun is a native of Madrid and served as the culture minister of Spain from 1988 to 1991. In 1941, while a student at the University of Sorbonne in Paris, he joined the communist resistance movement. Two years later he was arrested by the Gestapo and deported to the Buchenwald concentration camp, just outside of Weimar. Semprun lives in Paris and has been writing since the 1960s. Among his best-known works is his autobiographical novel The Long Voyage.
