Tony Horwitz and Geraldine Brooks Click here to enlarge

Pulitzer Prize Winners Take Frankfurt on an Exciting Journey from Fact to Fiction in Historical Literature
July 7, 2009. Deputy Principal Officer Doria Rosen and Library Director Thomas Schweier welcomed the “dream team of the historical novel” (Frankfurter Rundschau) Geraldine Brooks and her husband Tony Horwitz as well as some sixty interested attendees to the Bibliothekszentrum Frankfurt-Sachsenhausen on July 7th.  Geraldine Brooks introduced her latest historical fiction novel “People of the Book”, which tells the story of the Sarajevo Haggadah, one of the oldest surviving Jewish illuminated texts.  Tony Horwitz read from his newest book, “A Voyage Long and Strange: On the Trail of Vikings, Conquistadors, Lost Colonists, and Other Adventurers in Early America.”  After their readings, the writers engaged the enthusiastic audience in a lively discussion on “History in Literature: Fact and Fiction” and shared experiences from their time as journalists, when they covered crisis regions all over the world for newspapers and magazines like the Wall Street Journal and the New Yorker.

Geraldine Brooks is renowned worldwide for her Pulitzer Prize-winning novel “March” and wrote many other internationally bestsellers, some of them translated into more than twenty languages.  “People of the Book” won the Australian Publishers Association's Literary Fiction Book of the Year Award.  Tony Horwitz got hooked on traveling and travel writing while hitchhiking across the world.  He has transformed this love of travel into a career, becoming a Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter and celebrated travel writer.  He won an Overseas Press Club award for his coverage of the first Gulf War. 

In her introductory remarks, Deputy Principal Officer Doria Rosen conveyed the thanks and appreciation of former Ambassador William R. Timken Jr. and Consul General Jo Ellen Powell to the Stadtbücherei Frankfurt and its Director Dr. Sabine Homilius, who received the “Ambassador’s Certificate of Appreciation to the Stadtbücherei Frankfurt for tireless efforts over many years of furthering German-American relations.”  As the consulate’s first America(at)yourLibrary partner, the Stadtbücherei Frankfurt has hosted and co-organized many programs featuring the full spectrum of American culture ranging from readings over exhibitions and theatre performances to HipHop events with freestyle rap and beatboxing.