International Stefan Heym Prize of the City of Chemnitz 2020 awarded to Slavenka Drakulić and Richard Swartz

The International Stefan Heym Prize of the City of Chemnitz was awarded today, Sunday 10 October, to the Croatian writer Slavenka Drakulić and the Swedish author Richard Swartz. Prize winner Richard Swartz - also on behalf of his wife Slavenka Drakulić - accepted the prize in person from Lord Mayor Sven Schulze at Chemnitz Opera House in the presence of Saxony's Minister of Culture Barbara Klepsch.

Sven Schulze also honoured five projects with the International Stefan Heym Sponsorship Awards that evening. Like the literature prize, the sponsorship awards also have a total value of 20,000 euros.

Lord Mayor Sven Schulze: "Slavenka Drakulić and Richard Swartz are two publicists and writers who, like Stefan Heym, impress with their analytical acuity and deal with the major European issues in their works. The parallels between Stefan Heym and Slavenka Drakulić and Richard Swartz are astounding. Heym and Swartz find a place of refuge in Prague and know - each for their own time - how to report on social hardships and constraints. In their writings, Slavenka Drakulić and Heym deal with the motives and psyche of war criminals or soldiers of a regime. The lessons learnt from the equally astute observations of all three authors are more relevant than ever."

Barbara Klepsch: "Slavenka Drakulić and Richard Swartz are writers who, in their works, contribute to people developing an understanding for others through empathy and taking sides in their specific fates, overcoming foreignness and thus making the other their own.

Both are writers who, in their thinking and writing, feel responsible for the big picture and therefore for the individual and who, in their commonality and in their work, to a certain extent embody the new Europe. I warmly congratulate Slavenka Drakulić and Richard Swartz on winning the International Stefan Heym Prize of the City of Chemnitz."

The prizewinner Richard Swartz, who also signed the Golden Book of the City of Chemnitz at the award ceremony, said of Stefan Heym: "Everything in life is on loan, except time and your own name. Only these two belong to you. Stefan Heym struggled with my name for a long time without me taking it seriously. It was only much later that I realised how important it was to him."

Slavenka Drakulić joined the ceremony live via video and addressed the guests with a tribute to Stefan Heym: "I only recently read Stefan Heym's "The King David Report" again. This, perhaps Heym's most famous novel, is supposed to be a kind of metaphor for a totalitarian communist regime. Students of history, and with them all of us, could learn a thing or two from Heym's novel about the dangers and limitations of their profession, about what each kind of totalitarian rule expects and rewards, and what it does not. The imagination of authors like Heym or Orwell and Kapuscinski opens our eyes to the nature of power, because even in a democracy, politicians are not free from the tendency to dictate 'official history'."

Slavenka Drakulić and Richard Swartz are European voices in the best sense of the word, they deal with the big European questions, which are discussed using the example of individual fates. War and peace, democracy, dictatorship, war crimes and responsibility, equality and justice: as chroniclers, they are characterised by their astute literary observation of history and the present, which conveys incorruptible truths with equal parts brilliance and poetry.

By awarding the International Stefan Heym Prize 2020 to Slavenka Drakulić and Richard Swartz, the Board of Trustees is honouring two publicists and writers whose work serves to provide unsparing enlightenment, while at the same time giving the public the task of forming their own judgement. Their work consistently opposes collective forgetting and thus sends a clear signal in favour of intercultural understanding and reconciliation.

The winners of the sponsorship awards are:

Material for school - "Go your own way" by Gerald Richter and Marian Kretschmer

Gerald Richter and Marian Kretschmer use various interactive formats to familiarise pupils at Chemnitz schools with the life and work of Stefan Heym.

In the spirit of Heym, they want to encourage young people to find their own way and get involved. Holiday workshops are planned to design banners, posters, flyers, bookmarks and short videos. The project will receive 7500 euros in prize money.

Index of persons for Stefan Heym's "Obituary" by Dr Jürgen Nitsche

Dr Jürgen Nitsche uses Heym's autobiography as a starting point to open up the writer's immediate social environment in Chemnitz to all interested readers. The project receives 2500 euros in prize money.

Compositions to Heym's poems by Ludwig Streng

Ludwig Streng uses music to create a new approach to Stefan Heym's lesser-known poetry and its genesis. The compositions will be played and recorded. The project will receive 2500 euros in prize money.

Concert readings of Stefan Heym's "Obituary" by Liv Heym

Liv Heym, granddaughter of Stefan Heym, provides a musical accompaniment to Heym's "Obituary" and places particular emphasis on the social component of the venues for her concert readings: In addition to public stages, voluntary performances are planned in schools, care homes, museums and prisons. The project will receive 4000 euros in prize money.

Interviews with contemporary witnesses by filmmaker Beate Kunath:

Seven companions of Stefan Heym recall personal encounters in interviews with Beate Kunath, opening up their very own perspective on Heym's work. The interviews will be filmed. The project will receive 3500 euros in prize money.

The International Stefan Heym Prize of the City of Chemnitz

The International Stefan Heym Prize of the City of Chemnitz is awarded in memory of the life, work and achievements of Stefan Heym, the son and honorary citizen of the city. The International Stefan Heym Prize is intended to honour contemporary and courageous personalities who, like Stefan Heym, have made outstanding and lasting achievements as writers and publicists. The prize was first awarded to Amos Oz in 2008. Bora Ćosić received the award in 2011. On the occasion of Stefan Heym's 100th birthday, the prize was awarded to Christoph Hein in 2013. Joanna Bator was honoured with the prize in 2017.

The Board of Trustees, which decides on the awarding of the prize, includes the Lord Mayor of the City of Chemnitz, the P.E.N. Centre Germany, the Goethe-Institut, C. Bertelsmann Verlag, the International Society for Human Rights (IGFM) - German Section, the International Stefan Heym Society e. V., Professor Malinowski, holder of the Chair of Modern and Comparative Literature at Chemnitz University of Technology, and two councillors from the City of Chemnitz Cultural Committee. The patron of the board of trustees is Inge Heym, Stefan Heym's widow.

The International Stefan Heym Awards of the City of Chemnitz

The City of Chemnitz awards the International Stefan Heym Sponsorship Prizes for projects and initiatives that deal with the life, work and influence of Stefan Heym in a special way. The sponsorship prizes, totalling 20,000 euros, are awarded in addition to the International Stefan Heym Prize of the City of Chemnitz.

They are awarded in the form of pro rata prize money, in particular to projects and initiatives in the fields of science, art, culture and research or estate management, for journalistic and documentary work, scholarships or to support projects with schoolchildren or students.

The Board of Trustees for the International Stefan Heym Prize decides on the awarding of the prizes.