Opening Ceremonies

On Wednesday evening I attended the opening ceremonies of this year's Leipzig book fair. The official title of the event was "CELEBRATION to mark the Opening of the Leipzig Book Fair and Award Ceremony of the LEIPZIG BOOK AWARD for European Understanding" - and correspondingly, the event was a true smorgasbord. The Gewandhaus Orchestra provided the bookends in the form of Mozart's symphony No. 40 in G Minor, followed by a series of speeches by politicians and functionaries. Most of the politicians spent some of their time offering suggestions on how to deal with populism, fake news, and whether freedom of speech meant we should tolerate far-right publishers at the fair.
The second half was all about Åsne Seierstad, who received the award for European unterdstanding. Seierstad is a Norwegen journalist and writer best known for traveling to war zones and writing books like The Bookseller of Kabul, but the reason she received the award last night was One of Us, her examination of an event that shook Norwegian society: the massacre of 77 people by Anders Breivik. Seierstad's speech was a moving appeal to the power of words. Mozart's third and fourth movement wrapped up the ceremony, but of course there was a buffet and plenty of hobnobbing as well.

I managed to slip away to a reading going on next door at the Moritzbastei. The reading event formerly known as Lange Literaturnacht Leipzig - only on Thursday evening - has been reborn as L3, having expanded to offer readings on Wednesday as well. There I was able to hear some of my favorite authors, including the Leipzig-based writers Isabelle Lehn, Sascha Macht, Kerstin Preiwuß and Rebecca Salentin. I would write more, but I need to hurry off to the fairgrounds and do some interpreting. Tomorrow I will be able to tell you if I was right about who would win the big literary prize.