2012年11月8日 星期四

頒獎典禮致詞(二)德國法蘭克福市市長費德曼 ( Peter Feldmann, Lord Mayor of the City of Frankfurt) 致詞

Translation by The Hagedorn Group.(德國書業協會提供)

Today, we are awarding the Peace Prize of the German Book Trade to Liao Yiwu. It is a great pleasure and a tremendous honour to welcome you on behalf of the city of Frankfurt am Main.

I cannot imagine a more favourable choice to receive this year’s Prize. And I am especially pleased and grateful that Liao Yiwu is able to join us today to accept this honour in person and as a free man. Dear Liao Yiwu, the fact that you are being honoured with the Peace Prize of the German Book Trade is impressive proof that words can indeed change the world.

Word can work magic. Words can create harmony. Words can also document and castigate injustices. Words can change things! The words in your exceptional work do not belong to those individuals who seek to use them for their own purposes; they belong first and foremost to you, the author.

Friedrich Schiller famously argued that art is the daughter of freedom. And in this sense, you have gifted us your art. We celebrate you today not as a political figure, but as an outstanding artist for whom I wish one thing above all: readers. Lots of them. In EVERY country in the word.

Ladies and gentlemen,

the peace prize of the German Book Trade, which is handed out each year on the final day of the Frankfurt Book Fair, is a great symbol of freedom and human dignity. Each October , the eyes of the global literary world turn to our city. The annual award ceremony in Frankfurt am Main is a celebration of both democracy and culture. Indeed, the award is ideally suited to a city saturated in art and culture. Frankfurt considers it a joy and a responsibility - not an obligation or a burden - to cultivate its cultural legacy and support contemporary art. The award is also fitting for a city imbued with the spirit of democracy.

We Frankfurters are very proud that the Peace Prize is handed out here, especially at the Church of St. Paul, which is known as the cradle of German democracy. Only a few days ago, we marked the annual Day of German Unity, a celebration of a goal that the Frankfurt Parliament - the first freely elected parliament for all of Germany - was unable to achieve in the 19th century: freedom and democracy for the citizens of our country.

Frankfurt is the city in which the written word and its medium- i.e. books and, more recently, CDs, mp3s and apps - enjoy the highest possible esteem. Frankfurt is the city of Goethe and Theodor Adorno. Frankfurt is home to the nation’s foremost guardian of books: the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek (German National Library ). Also at home here are those two well-known seismographs of the economic and technical development of books: the German Publishers and Booksellers Association and the Frankfurt Book Fair.

Each year, the Frankfurt Book Fair walks a fine line between culture and commerce, between mind and money. And the last few days have shown us once again quite clearly how productive this friction can be. Despite the various crisis scenarios facing the industry, there is very good reason to pay tribute to the freedom of words here today.

As Mayor of Frankfurt, I am very proud to be able to call attention to the fact that the German book industry is highly aware of its responsibility as an important cultural medium and that today it demonstrates this commitment impressively by awarding the Peace Prize of the German Book Trade to Liao Yiwu.

Ladies and gentlemen, I look forward to seeing you again in Frankfurt in October. Thank you very much.

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