Two out of eight debut authors withdraw from the Harbor Front literary festival

Two nominated debutants dropped out of the Hamburg Harbor Front literature festival on the grounds that the logistics company Kuehne Nagel, which sponsors the festival, had not adequately addressed its role during the National Socialist era. After the author Sven Pfizenmaier, the author Franziska Gänsler has now also waived her nomination for the Klaus Michael Kühne Prize, which is endowed with 10,000 euros, as the literature festival announced on its website.

Pfizenmaier had withdrawn his participation in the debutante salon with reference to the alleged failure to come to terms with the Nazi past of the Kuehne Nagel company. He was nominated for the novel Outside People Celebrate, and he is now followed by Przemek Zybowski with The Pink Wedding Book.

Pfizenmaier's withdrawal and the reaction to it kept her very busy, writes Gänsler in her statement, which was also published on the festival's website. "I think it would have needed a public discourse that made it clear that his criticism was taken seriously and that it shows that the foundation's aim is to promote exactly that - critical literary voices." However, that does not seem to be the case.

Hoping for the prize therefore seems like looking the other way, which she cannot reconcile with herself and her writing. Gänsler, who lives in Vienna, was nominated with her debut novel "Ewig Sommer". Benjamin Heisenberg has now been nominated for his debut novel “Lukusch”.

The festival is sponsored by the city, other foundations and also by the Kuehne Foundation, which was founded by logistics entrepreneur Klaus-Michael Kuehne and his family. As part of the literature festival, the Klaus Michael Kühne Prize is awarded to debut authors. 49 manuscripts were submitted, and a jury of cultural journalists selected eight titles.

The Harbor Front Literature Festival regrets the cancellations and understands the motives, the organizer wrote on its website. "We also see a need for discussion in this matter," it said. Nevertheless, the debutant salon should take place as planned. "But above all, our task now is to run the festival and in particular the debutante salon in order to offer authors the forum they deserve."

The Kuehne Foundation made it clear that its funding has no connection to a time "that is far in the past and when completely different conditions prevailed". She announced this when asked on Thursday. "To construct any connections here would be considered a deliberate detriment to our purely philanthropic support of the Harbor Front Literary Festival."

The Kuehne Nagel company also pointed out that it was committed to its history and had publicly expressed its regret about events in the Third Reich on several occasions. "Many things only became known to the company through communications from third parties, since the company archives of the Kuehne Nagel offices in Bremen and Hamburg were completely destroyed during the Second World War," the company said. However, the time should be documented within the company.

The 14th Harbor Front Literature Festival started on Thursday, will officially open on Friday in the small hall of the Elbphilharmonie and will last until October 22nd. It invites you to a total of 68 events. Stars of the international literary scene such as the US authors Jennifer Egan, Richard Ford and Hernan Diaz are coming. Nobel Prize for Literature Abdulrazak Gurnah will read from his new novel Nachleben on October 17th at Thalia on Gaussstrasse.