Publishing price for Anton G. Leitner from Weßling

Created: 06/28/2022, 06:49 am

All winners of the German Publishing Prize on stage - including Anton G. Leitner from Weßling.

© Christian A Werner

Things are looking up for Anton G. Leitner from Wessling.

He recently received the German Publishing Prize 2022 and co-founded the new association PEN-Berlin.

Weßling

– First a double-sided pulmonary embolism, then a heart attack and finally financial losses due to the pandemic: The publisher and editor Anton G. Leitner has had a hard time.

Recently, however, the good news in Leitner's Wesslinger publishing house "The Poem" has been dominating again - including the German Publishing Prize 2022 awarded a few days ago in Leipzig, his membership in PEN-Berlin and "the request from one of the most renowned cabaret stages in our country".

He says that his health is also on the right track, thank God.

Congratulations in Leipzig: Minister of State for Culture Claudia Roth with Anton G. Leitner.

© C.Werner/BKM

“There are many reasons to be grateful right now,” says Leitner.

In the history of the publishing house, the publisher of the annual magazine "Das Poem" has mastered financial problems, hacker attacks and "warnings bordering on the absurd".

Reason enough for him to describe himself as a "marathon man among German-language poetry publishers".

"Giving up was never an option," he says.

And the perseverance of the Munich tower writer seems to be paying off - in the literal sense of the word, because Minister of State for Culture Claudia Roth has just presented him with the German Publishing Prize, which is endowed with 24,000 euros.

"That was one of the most exciting and beautiful days of my 30 years as a publisher and editor," said Leitner happily to Starnberger Merkur.

Leitner wants to be active at PEN Berlin

The editor and publicist has always taken "critical debate" and "democratic discourse" seriously - and will actively cultivate it as one of 367 members of PEN-Berlin, which he recently co-founded.

Deniz Yücel is the main initiator of the top-class association, which campaigns for free speech and persecuted writers all over the world.

After a scandal at the general meeting of the PEN Center Germany in May, the journalist and writer resigned under protest shortly after his election as president and is now positioning himself in the new PEN Berlin alongside Eva Menasse as a combative spokesman for equality and human rights.

They are committed there with fresh vigor and great vehemence "for freedom of expression and an open discourse," says Leitner,

"I've always stood up for persecuted poets," he says.

For example, in 2017, when he organized an international poetry demonstration on Munich's Marienplatz and campaigned for the release of Peter Steudtner, who was imprisoned in Turkey.

This had consequences: "After that, our website was exposed to a dangerous hacker attack," Leitner recalls.

Repelling this attack, which threatened his economic existence, cost him a lot of money and a lot of nerves.

But he doesn't let that intimidate him either: "I would do it again."

Weßlinger is to curate poetry suitable for the stage

The past has shown that one can also stand up for internationally persecuted colleagues from the village of Weßling, he says combatively.

With posts on his blog or on Facebook, where he supports, among other things, a first action of his PEN Berlin: to prevent the extradition of Julian Assange, the whistleblower and Wikileaks founder, to the USA.

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The good news from Wessling's poem publishing company finally crowns the request from one of the most renowned cabaret stages in Germany.

Could he imagine curating a reading series for her with poetry suitable for the stage, which would be named after his magazine.

He's very happy about that, he says and asks for your understanding that he hasn't yet named the stage.

And he's grateful.

That his wife Felizitas has been supporting him for over 30 years without ifs or buts on his "lifelong journey through the great world of poetry".

He is grateful for the many private sponsors of his work as well as for the support of the district of Upper Bavaria for several years.

And he is grateful for his parents, who always stood by him morally and financially.

And sad,