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Andrei Kurkov: »a high degree of intellectual independence«
Photo: Ulrich Perrey / picture alliance / dpa
The Ukrainian writer Andrei Kurkow will receive the 2022 Geschwister Scholl Prize for his work »Diary of an Invasion«. Kurkow's book should be read both as a haunting chronicle and as a critical reflection of a political and civilizational catastrophe, the jury stated in its justification .
The prize is awarded by the Bavarian State Association of the German Book Trade Association together with the City of Munich.
The award is to be given annually to a book that demonstrates intellectual independence and is capable of promoting civil liberty, moral, intellectual and aesthetic courage.
Kurkov had already written a previous version of his diary in 2014 when Russia annexed the Crimean peninsula.
In his books, Kurkow demonstrates "a high degree of intellectual independence and a sense of moral responsibility in the struggle for a life of freedom and self-determination, in keeping with the legacy of the Scholl siblings," he said in justification of the selection.
The siblings Hans and Sophie Scholl organized student resistance in Munich during the National Socialist dictatorship in Germany and were sentenced to death and murdered for it in 1943.
isb/dpa