During the Festival Neue Literatur in New York City last month, Robert Weil, executive editor at Norton, received the 2015 Friedrich Ulfers Prize, honoring a person "who has championed the advancement of German-language literature in the United States." His acceptance speech, which can be read here, is a remarkable commentary on a family's lifelong passion for reading and knowledge and culture, standing in contrast to a Nazi regime many of them had to flee in order to survive.
Weil said, in part, "Like my insatiably curious mother, I have been fascinated by that which I cannot explain, so I have devoted a good part of my career to bringing some clarity, at least for me, to that 12-year-gap, that caesura, which in the end becomes a study of far more than a mere dozen years. And as a result of this historical curiosity, I have embraced, as an editor, dozens of works of history and literature, which all seem to relate, in one way or another, to Germany's momentous history and vibrant literature and music."