Günter Grass, the Nobel Prize-winning German author, has joined the programme of the 17th World Editors Forum, to be held in Hamburg, Germany, from 6 to 8 October next.
Grass will make a presentation about his memoir, Mein Jahrhundert (My Century), and engage in a question and answer session at the WEF conference, the annual global meeting for the world's editors-in-chief and other senior newsroom executives. Mr Grass, who won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1999, is known for his political engagement with issues such as the Nazi past, the arms race, environmentalism, racism, and the unification of Germany.
The World Editors Forum calls 2010 "The Tablet Year" and has dedicated much of its annual conference to how mobile distribution is changing the news business.
But the conference does not neglect traditional newspapers: the WEF has announced that Giovanni di Lorenzo, Editor-in-Chief of Die Zeit and one of Germany's best-known journalists, will present a keynote address on "Why I Believe in Print." Mr di Lorenzo argues that as long as editors are unable to sufficiently monetize digital content, they should work even harder to defend and diversify print.
For more information please see the press release and the conference website.
