July 2003 - Nr. 7
Writer Susan Sontag Receives German Peace Prize
TWIG - Novelist and essayist Susan Sontag was awarded the German book trade’s prestigious Peace Prize Tuesday (June 17) for her role as an "intellectual ambassador’’ between the United States and Europe as well as for her human rights activism. The 70-year-old, New York-based writer is to receive the US$17,700 prize on October 12 during this year’s Frankfurt Book Fair.
"In a world of falsified images and mutilated truth, she has stood up for the dignity of free thinking,’’ the prize jury’s citation said. "Through her work, which has never lost sight of European heritage, she has become the most prominent intellectual ambassador between the two continents."
Sontag, whose works have been translated into more than 30 languages, is popular in Germany. She spent time in nearby Sarajevo during the Serb siege of the city in the 1990s and has campaigned on behalf of jailed and persecuted authors.
Last year’s prize went to Nigerian-born writer Chinua Achebe. Past winners include Peruvian author Mario Vargas Llosa and former Czech president and dissident Vaclav Havel.
