Joe Sacco (61), journalist and comic artist, receives this year’s Geschwister-Scholl-Prize 2021 for the book “We belong to the country”. The award, endowed with 10,000 euros, will be presented for the first time for a comic, as the Bavarian regional association of the German book trade association and the state capital Munich announced on Friday. Sacco is a pioneer. With his “comic journalism” he had become a new type of photo reporter and invented a literary genre. The award is due to be presented on November 29th.
Joe Sacco was born in Malta, grew up in Australia and the USA. He studied journalism at the University of Oregon and now lives in Portland. For 30 years, Sacco has been reporting as a drawing reporter from crisis and war zones, for example on the Middle East conflict and the Bosnian war, but also on the fate of African migrants in Malta and the poverty in rural India.
Sacco received the award, endowed with 10,000 euros, for his book “We belong to the country”.
(Photo: dpa / dpa)
In “We Belong to the Land” the journalist tells of the Dene people who live in poorly developed areas of the Northwest Territories of Canada. According to the announcement, the German title brings Denes’ worldview to a formula that represents the opposite of the property individualism with which the white Europeans colonized other continents and displaced the peoples living there. “Sacco is not suing,” said the jury’s statement. “It documents, lets the people and the country speak. The Dene discusses and argues about how they should deal with the dangers and opportunities that the integration of their homeland into the exploitation cycle of global capitalism creates. The consequences of environmental destruction and the Colonialism are two of the big issues of our time. “
In terms of the award, the book is suitable “to give the responsible awareness of the present important impulses”. With its decision, the jury also wanted to take into account the importance of drawn contemporary history in historical-political enlightenment and work with young people. The award has been given annually to a current book since 1980. So far, Joachim Gauck, Roberto Saviano and Anna Politkowskaja have received awards.