2012 AZ Medien Culture Prize awarded to Pedro Lenz
On Wednesday evening, author Pedro Lenz was awarded the AZ Medien 2012 Culture Prize. The award, which comes with a prize of 25,000 francs, was presented for the 14th time this year.
Peter Wanner, Chairman of the Board of Directors and publisher of AZ Medien, presented the award at a ceremony in the Schützi cultural center in Olten in the presence of personalities from the worlds of culture, business and politics. Words of greeting were delivered by Solothurn's Landammann Peter Gomm. The award honors Pedro Lenz as a word artist who brings dialect to new life in his books and in his stage performances, according to a statement issued by AZ Medien on Thursday. Lenz rhythmizes and condenses our household dialect, said jury president Sabine Altorfer, until a piece of literature emerges from it.
Publisher Peter Wanner praised not only the connoisseur of human nature, sensitive observer and linguistic artist, but also the soccer columnist: "Pedro Lenz, I feel with all my pores, is an incredible soccer fan. His passion is at least as much for football as for language. And he combines the two beautifully." In his laudatory speech, Balts Nill, multi-instrumentalist and Germanist, described Pedro Lenz as a "traveler in poetry." "If I had to put Pedro Lenz's art into a formula, I would say: astonishment distance times craft. He has not stopped wondering about what comes to his ears."
