“Florian Illies paints with words. His books are collages of contemporary history – entertaining, humorous, critical and never boring,” says Markus Söder about Florian Illies. The writer is to receive the Prime Minister’s honorary award as part of the Bavarian Book Prize this year.
Söder is accordingly full of praise: “The bestseller ‘Generation Golf’ is an ironic, affectionate homage to and about his generation. I also recognized some of our youth in it. With ‘1913’ Florian Illies achieved global success. He is an excellent observer , historian and journalist. His stories are authentic journeys through time: they captivate the reader and don’t let go”.
Florian Illies, born in 1971, was, among other things, head of the features section Frankfurter Allgemeine Sunday newspaper and the Timehe was the publisher of the Rowohlt publishing house, headed the Grisebach auction house and founded the art magazine monopoly. Today he is co-editor of the Time, curator and freelance writer. His most recent work, “Love in Times of Hate” was published two years ago; “Magic of Silence” has been announced for this autumn, a history of Caspar David Friedrich’s paintings.
The Bavarian Book Prize will take place for the tenth time on November 7th in the Allerheiligen-Hofkirche in the Munich Residenz; It is organized by the Bavarian State Association of the German Book Trade Association with the support of the Bavarian State Chancellery.