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It's a tradition. The Peace Prize of the German Book Trade is awarded on the last day of the Frankfurt Book Fair, the world's largest book fair. The Peace Prize winner in this anniversary year is Salman Rushdie. An author who stands for the power of literature like few others, but also for the anger of its critics. Books stand for the free word - a freedom that is constantly under threat around the world.
The documentary embarks on a wild journey through time. It is about the new beginning after the Second World War, literature as a democracy booster, the coexistence of spirit and business, successes and scandals. It deals with the astonishing role of emigrants after 1945, the protests of the 1960s, bestseller marketing and colonial misconduct, calls for murder and boycotts, East and West, host countries that inspire and others that terrify. Publishing often feels like war, said Salman Rushdie a few years ago during an appearance at the book fair. And yet one should not retreat an inch.
Book Fair Director Juergen Boos talks about his everyday life, publishers such as Michael Krüger, Antoine Gallimard and Felicitas von Lovenberg have their say, as does Danish bestselling author Jussi Adler Olsen and many more. Is the book dead or do stories live on forever? What is digitalization doing to literature? The book is more than a commodity. Every reader experiences this for themselves, but at the trade fair they experience it together. It is a documentary film about the history of the most exciting, exhausting and important week of the book year.
