Historian and journalist Anne Applebaum has been named by the German Publishers and Booksellers Association as the winner of the German Book Trade Peace Prize for 2024.
“At a time when democratic values and achievements are increasingly being caricatured and attacked, her work embodies an eminent and indispensable contribution to the preservation of democracy and peace,” the award citation said of Applebaum.
The Polish-American journalist is a writer for US magazine, The Atlantic, and has written extensively about Central and Eastern Europe.
According to Appelbaum’s biography, she is considered an expert in Eastern European history and “warned early on of Vladimir Putin’s possible violent expansion policy.”
Appelbaum is the author of The Gulag (2003)”, “The Iron Curtain” (2012), “Red Hunger” (2019) and “The Lure of Authoritarianism” (2021), in which she delves into authoritarian power.
She has received several awards, including the Pulitzer Prize in 2004 and the Carl von Ossietzky Prize in 2024.
The award is presented annually at the end of the Frankfurt Book Fair and will be presented this year on October 20.
Last year, the award went to British-American author Salman Rushdie. Previous recipients include, among others, Margaret Atwood, Orhan Pamuk, Susan Sontag, Amos Oz, Vaclav Havel .
kb/lo (dpa, KNA)
