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Author van Reybrouck
Photo: Marco Destefanis / IPA / picture alliance
The Belgian bestselling author David van Reybrouck will receive this year's Geschwister Scholl Prize for his non-fiction book »Revolusi - Indonesia and the Emergence of the Modern World« . In it, the writer conveys the liberation of Indonesia from colonial rule as a gripping global history of surprising topicality, the jury said on Thursday, explaining its decision. The award from the German Publishers and Booksellers Association in Bavaria and the City of Munich is endowed with 10,000 euros and is to be presented to the author on 28 November.
The jury praised van Reybrouck, who was born in Bruges in 1971, as a captivating storyteller and meticulous researcher. With his enlightening power and intellectual independence, he brought a long-suppressed chapter of colonial history to the attention of the European public. Just as he did for his 2012 book »Kongo«, he is also continuing his method of oral history with »Revolusi«, according to the press release. In old people's homes, remote villages and even in the mountainous regions of Nepal, he tracked down contemporary witnesses and had them tell their stories. This accounts for the unique wealth of perspectives and life experiences that characterize his books.
The prize is named after the siblings Hans and Sophie Scholl, who had resisted the National Socialist regime with friends in the White Rose. In 1943 they were murdered in Munich. In previous years, the Ukrainian author Andrei Kurkov, the former German President Joachim Gauck, the human rights activist Anna Politkovskaya, who was murdered in Moscow in 2006, and the writer Christa Wolf, among others, have been honored. The first prize winner in 1980 was the playwright Rolf Hochhuth.
hpi/dpa