Antofagasta, Chile

2000

Samuel Fischer
Guest of Honour 2000

Antonio Skármeta

In 2000, the writer Antonio Skármeta held the first Samuel Fischer Guest of Honour reading. Born in 1940 in Chile, Skármeta emigrated to West Berlin in 1973 after takover of the government of the Chilean military junta.

He returned to his home country in 1989 and was appointed Chilean ambassador in Berlin in 2000. Skármeta received several international prizes for his novels, narrations, audio dramas and scripts. One of his biggest successes, the novel Ardiente paciencia, was made into a film several times, the latest under the title Il postino. In 2014 Skármeta was awarded the Premio Nacional de Literatura de Chile – the prize had already in 1945 been awarded to his friend and Nobel Prize Laureate Pablo Neruda who inspired his writings.

Books

Wikipedia