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Salman Rushdie receives prestigious German Peace Prize

October 22, 2023

The award jury said Rushdie was chosen for "his indomitable spirit, for his affirmation of life and for enriching our world with his love of storytelling."

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Salman Rushdie gestures while giving a speech
The British-Indian author will the German Peace Prize which is considered as one of the most important award in GermanyImage: Michael Schick/imago images

British-Indian writer Salman Rushdie was on Sunday presented with the Peace Prize of the German Book Trade in Frankfurt's historic St Paul's Church.

The German Peace Prize comes with a €25,000 ($27,300) payment and is one of the most prestigious awards in Germany. It was first awarded in 1950.

Praising Rushdie in a speech, his friend and fellow writer Daniel Kehlmann described the author as "possibly the most important defender of freedom of art and speech of our time"

Rushdie, who survived a stabbing attack last year, also pledged to continue defending the freedom of speech.

'Indomitable spirit'

Previously, the jury said that the celebrated writer deserved the award for "his indomitable spirit, for his affirmation of life and for enriching our world with his love of storytelling."

"In his novels and non-fiction, he melds narrative foresight with unfailing literary innovation, humour and wisdom," the jury said in a post on the prize's website.

Rushdie was announced as the winner of the prize in June but the award ceremony took place at the closing of the Frankfurt Book Fair on Sunday.

Rushdie wins Peace Prize of German Book Trade

"A remarkable list of people have it [German Peace Prize]. So I'm just very gratified to have my name added to that list,” he said during an interview with DW earlier this week.

By winning the award, Rushdie joins the list with Margaret Atwood, Orhan Pamuk, Susan Sontag, Amos Oz, Vaclav Havel among others.

Salman Rushdie's accolades and controversies

The globally acclaimed author shot to fame after his 1981 masterpiece 'Midnight's Children' for which he also received the Booker Prize.

However, his 1989 novel 'The Satanic Verses,' saw the late Iranian Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini impose a fatwa on Rushdie for blasphemy. The author has been facing regular death threats ever since. In 2022, he was stabbed multiple times at a public reading in the US, leaving him blind in one eye since then.

Rushdie has written more than 14 novels and his latest novel 'Victory City' which was published this year, is about the stabbing attack.

The novel deals with political intrigue and religious bigotry through the tale of the rise and fall of a feminist utopia and ends with the sentence: "Words are the winner."

mfi/dj (dpa, AFP)