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Article: Literature, democracy, and peace: the 1997 peace prize of the German Book Trade: acceptance speech. (Yashar Kemal)(Transcript)
- Article from:
- World Literature Today
- Article date:
- January 1, 1998
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 1998 University of Oklahoma. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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[The 1997 Peace Prize of the German Book Trade was awarded to Yashar Kemal of Turkey, honoring the seventy-four-year-old Kurdish writer as "an advocate of human rights who has selflessly stood up for the poor, the exploited, and those persecuted for political or ethnic reasons." Kemal, the fiftieth recipient of this prestigious German cultural prize which has been awarded in conjunction with the annual Frankfurt Book Fair since 1950, received the DM 25, 000 award in solemn nationally televised ceremonies at Frankfurt's Paulskirche on 19 October.
Yashar Kemal was born in 1923 in a village on the cotton-growing plains of Chukurova. He received his basic education in ...