Pierre Werner
19th Prime Minister of Luxembourg 21st Prime Minister of Luxembourg
In office 2 March 1959 – 15 June 1974 16 July 1979 – 20 July 1984
Monarch	Charlotte Jean
Preceded by	(1) Pierre Frieden (2) Gaston Thorn
Succeeded by	(1) Gaston Thorn (2) Jacques Santer
Personal details
Born	1913-12-29 Saint-André-lez-Lille, France
Died	2002-06-24 Luxembourg City
Nationality	Luxembourgian
Political party	Christian Social People's Party
Religion	Roman Catholic

Pierre Werner (29 December 1913 - 24 June 2002) was a Luxembourg politician. Pierre Werner was born in Saint-André-lez-Lille, Nord, France to parents from Luxembourg. During the Nazi occupation of Luxembourg (1940–45) Werner, working as a banker, gave clandestine support to the resistance against the occupation forces. After World War 2 he became the Controller of the banking system in his country. He attended the Bretton Woods conference which set up the International Monetary Fund (IMF). Werner entered the Luxembourg government as Finance Minister in 1953, and was 19th and 21st Prime Minister from 1959 to 1974 and from 1979 to 1984. He also served as Minister for Culture.

As Prime minister, Werner, a Christian Democrat, undertook the diversification of the national economy, hard hit by a major Europe-wide crisis in the steel industry, by attracting new industrial investments, as well as financial services to the Grand Duchy. He placed Luxembourg on the map of global satellite communications. He is remembered for having used “tripartite” social mediation (industry, labour and government) to overcome the severe steel crisis which lasted from 1979 to 1984. He placed the process of European integration at the centre of the policy of his country. With friends such as Joseph Bech, Jean Monnet and Robert Schuman, Werner was a determined advocate of European integration. During his terms in office, he negotiated the relocation of several European institutions to Luxembourg.

Werner was instrumental in solving the "empty chair" crisis provoked in 1965 by President Charles de Gaulle who, dissatisfied with the orientations of European integration at that time, had decided France would suspend its participation in meetings with other Member States; Werner persuaded France to resume its seat, thus re-enabling the decision-making process. In 1970, Werner was given the mandate by the heads of State or government to draft, with a group of experts, a blueprint for an economic and monetary union within the EEC. The “Werner Plan” was later revived and extended by Jacques Delors. Its principles were enshrined in the Treaty of Maastricht, paving the way for the single European currency, i.e. the euro.

The Pierre Werner Institute was created in Luxembourg in 2003 at the behest of the Foreign Ministers of France, Germany and Luxembourg (at the time, respectively Dominique de Villepin, Joschka Fischer and Lydie Polfer), Erna Hennicot-Schoepges, then Minister for Culture, universities and research in Luxembourg, having fostered the project. IPW organizes seminars and conferences aimed at promoting better understanding among the 3 founding countries, but also more widely throughout Europe.

Werner, a sponsor of culture and especially music, actively promoted the restoration of Luxembourg's heritage (e.g. Vianden Castle). A keen fan of cricket since living in London, the United Kingdom, in 1930, Werner was Honorary President of the Optimists Cricket Club, which he promoted during, between, and after his premierships.^[1] In his honour, Luxembourg's main cricket ground, the Pierre Werner Cricket Ground in Walferdange, is named after him.

Pierre Werner died on 24 June 2002, in Luxembourg City.

Notes and references[link]

External links[link]

• Bates, Stephen (2002-06-28). "Pierre Werner: the man who dreamed up the euro". The Guardian. http://www.guardian.co.uk/euro/story/0,11306,745398,00.html. Retrieved 2006-07-15. 

v t e Prime Ministers of Luxembourg Gaspard-Théodore-Ignace de la Fontaine • Jean-Jacques Willmar • Charles-Mathias Simons • Baron de Tornaco • Emmanuel Servais • Baron de Blochausen • Édouard Thilges • Paul Eyschen • Mathias Mongenast • Hubert Loutsch • Victor Thorn • Léon Kauffman • Émile Reuter • Pierre Prüm • Joseph Bech • Pierre Dupong • Joseph Bech • Pierre Frieden • Pierre Werner • Gaston Thorn • Pierre Werner • Jacques Santer • Jean-Claude Juncker

v t e Presidents of the European Council President-in-Office (1975–2009) Liam Cosgrave · Aldo Moro · Gaston Thorn · Joop den Uyl · James Callaghan · Leo Tindemans · Anker Jørgensen · Helmut Schmidt · Valéry Giscard d'Estaing · Jack Lynch · Francesco Cossiga · Charles Haughey · Pierre Werner · Dries van Agt · Margaret Thatcher · Wilfried Martens · Anker Jørgensen · Poul Schlüter · Helmut Kohl · Andreas Papandreou · François Mitterrand · Garret FitzGerald · Bettino Craxi · Jacques Santer · Ruud Lubbers · Margaret Thatcher · Wilfried Martens · Poul Schlüter · Helmut Kohl · Andreas Papandreou · Felipe González · François Mitterrand · Charles Haughey · Giulio Andreotti · Jacques Santer · Ruud Lubbers · Poul Schlüter · Aníbal Cavaco Silva · John Major · Poul Nyrup Rasmussen · Jean-Luc Dehaene · Andreas Papandreou · Helmut Kohl · Jacques Chirac · Felipe González · Lamberto Dini · Romano Prodi · John Bruton · Wim Kok · Jean-Claude Juncker · Tony Blair · Viktor Klima · Gerhard Schröder · Paavo Lipponen · António Guterres · Jacques Chirac · Göran Persson · Guy Verhofstadt · José María Aznar López · Anders Fogh Rasmussen · Costas Simitis · Silvio Berlusconi · Bertie Ahern · Jan Peter Balkenende · Jean-Claude Juncker · Tony Blair · Wolfgang Schüssel · Matti Vanhanen · Angela Merkel · José Sócrates · Janez Janša · Nicolas Sarkozy · Mirek Topolánek · Jan Fischer · Fredrik Reinfeldt Permanent President (since 2009) Herman Van Rompuy

Alberto Manguel

Alberto Manguel (born 1948 in Buenos Aires) is an Argentine-born writer, translator, and editor. He is the author of numerous non-fiction books such as The Dictionary of Imaginary Places (co-written with Gianni Guadalupi in 1980), A History of Reading (1996), The Library at Night (2007) and Homer's Iliad and Odyssey: A Biography (2008); and novels such as News From a Foreign Country Came (1991). Though almost all of Manguel's books were written in English, two of his novels (El regreso and Todos los hombres son mentirosos) were written in Spanish and have not yet been published in English. Manguel has also written film criticism such as Bride of Frankenstein (1997) and collections of essays such as Into the Looking Glass Wood (1998).

For over twenty years, Manguel has edited a number of literary anthologies on a variety of themes or genres ranging from erotica and gay stories to fantastic literature and mysteries.

Career[link]

Manguel grew up in Israel, where his father was the Argentine ambassador. Later, in Buenos Aires, when Manguel was still a teenager, he met the writer Jorge Luis Borges, a customer of the Pygmalion Anglo-German bookshop in Buenos Aires where Manguel worked after school. As Borges was almost blind, he would ask others to read out loud for him, and Manguel became one of Borges' readers, several times a week from 1964 to 1968.

In Buenos Aires, Manguel attended the Colegio Nacional de Buenos Aires from 1961 to 1966; among his teachers were notable Argentinian intellectuals such as the historian Alberto Salas, the Cervantes scholar Isaias Lerner and the literary critic Enrique Pezzoni. Manguel did one year (1967) at the Universidad de Buenos Aires, Filosofía y Letras, but he abandoned his studies and started working at the recently founded Editorial Galerna of Guillermo Schavelzon (who thirty-five years later, now established in Barcelona, was to become Manguel's literary agent). In 1969 Manguel travelled to Europe and worked as a reader for various publishing companies: Denoél, Gallimard and Les Lettres Nouvelles in Paris, and Calder & Boyars in London.

1970s[link]

In 1971, Manguel, living then in Paris and London, was awarded the Premio La Nación (Buenos Aires) for a collection of short stories. The prize was shared with the writer Bernardo Schiavetta. In 1972 Manguel returned to Buenos Aires and worked for a year as a reporter for the newspaper La Nación. In 1974, he was offered employment as foreign editor at the Franco Maria Ricci publishing company in Milan. Here he met Gianni Guadalupi and later, at Guadalupi's suggestion, wrote with him The Dictionary of Imaginary Places. The book is a travel guide to fantasy lands, islands, cities, and other locations from world literature, including Ruritania, Shangri-La, Xanadu, Atlantis, L. Frank Baum's Oz, Lewis Carroll's Wonderland, Thomas More's Utopia, Edwin Abbott's Flatland, C. S. Lewis' Narnia, and the realms of Jonathan Swift and J.R.R. Tolkien. In 1976, Manguel moved to Tahiti, where he worked as editor for Les Editions du Pacifique until 1977. He then worked for the same company in Paris for one year. In 1978 Manguel settled in Milford, Surrey (England) and set up the short-lived Ram Publishing Company. In 1979, Manguel returned to Tahiti to work again for Les Editions du Pacifique, this time until 1982.

1980s-1990s[link]

In 1982 Manguel moved to Toronto, Canada and lived there (with a brief European period) until 2000. He has been a Canadian citizen ever since. Here Manguel contributed regularly to The Globe and Mail (Toronto), The Times Literary Supplement (London), The Village Voice (New York), The Washington Post, The Sydney Morning Herald, The Australian Review of Books, The New York Times and the Svenska Dagbladet (Stockholm), and reviewed books and plays for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. Manguel's early impression of Canada was that it was "...like one of those places whose existence we assume because of a name on a sign above a platform, glimpsed at as our train stops and then rushes on." (from Passages: Welcome Home to Canada (2002), with preface by Rudyard Griffiths).^[1] As well, though, Manguel noted that "When I arrived in Canada, for the first time I felt I was living in a place where I could participate actively as a writer in the running of the state."^[2]

In 1983, he selected the stories for what is perhaps his best-known anthology Black Water: The Book of Fantastic Literature. His first novel, "News From a Foreign Country Came", won the McKitterick Prize in 1992.

He was appointed as the Distinguished Visiting Writer in the Markin-Flanagan Distinguished Writers Program at the University of Calgary from 1997 to 1999. Manguel was the Opening Lecturer at the "Exile & Migration" Congress, Boston University, in June 1999, and the Times Literary Supplement lecturer in 1997.

2000s[link]

In 2000, Manguel moved to the Poitou-Charentes region of France, where he and his partner have purchased and renovated a medieval presbytery. Among the renovations is an oak-panelled library to house Manguel's 30,000 books.

Manguel held the Cátedra Cortázar at the Universidad de Guadalajara, Mexico, in 2007 and the S. Fischer Chair at the Freie Universität Berlin, in 2003. In 2007, he received an honorary doctorate from the University of Liège.

Manguel delivered the 2007 Massey Lectures which were later published as The City of Words and in the same year delivered the Northrop Frye-Antonine Maillet Lecture in Moncton, New Brunswick. He was the Pratt Lecturer at Memorial University of Newfoundland, in 2003.

In 2008, the Pompidou Center in Paris honoured Alberto Manguel as part of its 30th Anniversary Celebrations, by inviting him to set up a 3-month long program of lectures, film and round tables.

He writes a regular column for Geist magazine.

Works[link]

• The Dictionary of Imaginary Places (1980) ISBN 0-02-546400-0
• Black Water: The Book of Fantastic Literature (1983, anthology) ISBN 0-517-55269-8
  • Black Water 2: More Tales of the Fantastic (1990, anthology) ISBN 0-88619-124-6
• Dark Arrows: Chronicles of Revenge (1985, anthology) ISBN 0-14-007712-X
• Other Fires: Short Fiction by Latin American Women (1986, anthology) ISBN 0-88619-065-7
• Evening Games: Chronicles of Parents and Children (1986, anthology) ISBN 0-14-007713-8
• Chronicles of Marriage (1988, anthology) ISBN 0-14-009928-X
• The Oxford Book of Canadian Ghost Stories (1990, anthology) ISBN 0-19-540761-X
• Soho Square III (1990, anthology) ISBN 0-7475-0716-3
• Seasons (1990, anthology) ISBN 978-0-385-25265-2
• White Fire - further fantastic literature (1990, anthology) ISBN 0-330-31380-0
• News From a Foreign Country Came (1991, novel) ISBN 0-517-58343-7
• Canadian Mystery Stories (1991, anthology) ISBN 0-19-540820-9
• The Gates of Paradise: The Anthology of Erotic Short Literature (1993, anthology) ISBN 0-921912-47-1
  • The Second Gates of Paradise: The Anthology of Erotic Short Literature (1994, anthology) ISBN 0-921912-77-3
• Meanwhile, In Another Part of the Forest: Gay Stories from Alice Munro to Yukio Mishima (1994, anthology) ISBN 0-394-28012-1
• A History of Reading (1996, non-fiction) ISBN 0-394-28032-6
• Lost Words (1996, anthology), ISBN 978-0-904286-56-4
• Bride of Frankenstein (1997, film criticism) ISBN 0-85170-608-8
• Into the Looking Glass Wood (1998, essays) ISBN 0-676-97135-0
• By the Light of the Glow-worm Lamp: Three Centuries of Reflections on Nature (1998, anthology) ISBN 0-306-45991-4
• Mothers & Daughters (1998, anthology) ISBN 1-55192-127-8
• Fathers & Sons (1998, anthology) ISBN 1-55192-129-4
• The Ark in the Garden: Fables for Our Times (1998, anthology) ISBN 1-55199-030-X
• A Visit to the Dream Bookseller / Ein Besuch beim Traumbuchhändler (1998, non-fiction)
• God's Spies: Stories in Defiance of Oppression (1999, anthology) ISBN 1-55199-040-7
• Reading Pictures: A History of Love and Hate (2000, art criticism) ISBN 0-676-97132-6
• Kipling: A Brief Biography for Young Adults (2000), ISBN 1-896209-48-3
• Comment Pinocchio apprit à lire (How Pinocchio Learned to Read, 2000, non-fiction) ISBN 2-88888-102-0
• Stevenson under the Palm Trees (2003, novel) ISBN 0-88762-138-4
• A Reading Diary (2004, non-fiction) ISBN 0-676-97590-9
• With Borges (2004, biography), ISBN 0-88762-146-5
• El regreso (A Return, 2005, novel) ISBN 950-04-2653-6
• The Penguin Book of Christmas Stories (2005, anthology) ISBN 0-670-06449-1
• Un amant très vétilleux (The Overdiscriminating Lover, 2005, novel) ISBN 978-2-7427-5438-0
• The Library at Night (2006, non-fiction) ISBN 0-676-97588-7
• Nuevo elogio de la locura (At the Mad Hatter’s Table, 2006, non-fiction) ISBN 978-950-04-2762-3
• Magic Land of Toys (2006, non-fiction) ISBN 978-0-86565-176-0
• The Penguin Book of Summer Stories (2007, anthology) ISBN 978-0-14-305629-4
• The City of Words (CBC Massey Lecture) (2007, non-fiction) ISBN 0-88784-763-3
• Homer's The Iliad and The Odyssey: A Biography (2007, history and criticism) ISBN 978-0-8021-4382-2
• Todos los hombres son mentirosos (All Men Are Liars, 2008, novel) ISBN 978-84-9867-340-1
• A Reader on Reading Yale University Press, 2010 ISBN 978-0-300-15982-0

Awards[link]

• Medalla al Mérito (Buenos Aires, 2007)
• Milovan Vidakovic Literary Award (Novi Sad, Serbia, 2007)
• Premio Grinzane Cavour, essay for Diario di un lettore (Italy, 2007)
• Prix Roger Caillois (France, 2004)
• Fellow of the S. Fischer Stiftung (Germany, 2004–2005)
• Officier de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres (France, 2004)
• Fellow of the Simon Guggenheim Foundation (USA, 2004)
• Prix Poitou-Charentes for Chez Borges (France, 2004)
• Premio Germán Sánchez Ruipérez for best literary criticism (Spain, 2002)
• Prix France Culture (Etranger), for Dans la forêt du miroir (France, 2001)
• Prix Médicis Essai, for Une Histoire de la lecture (France, 1998)
• Chevalier de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres (France, 1996)
• Harbourfront Award for Contribution to the Arts (Canada, 1992)
• Canadian Writers' Association Award, fiction (Canada, 1992)
• McKitterick First Novel Award (UK, 1992)
• Lewis Gallantière Translation Prize (honourable mention), American Translators Association (USA, 1986)
• German Critics Award for Von Atlantis bis Utopia, German translation of The Dictionary of Imaginary Places (Germany, 1981)
• Literary Award La Nación for short stories (Buenos Aires, 1971)

Reviews[link]

• Boyd Tonkin, The Spirit of the Shelves (The Independent, London, April 25, 2008)
• Italo Calvino, The Book of Sand (Article on The Dictionary of Imaginary Places)
• Georges Steiner, reviews of History of Reading and Into the Looking-Glass Wood (New Yorker Magazine)
• P.D. James, review of History of Reading (Sunday Times)
• Jeanette Winterson, review of Reading Pictures (Times Literary Supplement)
• Peter Conrad, review of The Library at Night
• Peter Ackroyd, review of The Library at Night
• Hector Bianciotti, Une Passion en toutes lettres (Gallimard, 2001) (Essay on Manguel)
• Peter Kemp, The Oxford Book of Literary Quotations (Oxford University Press, 1997)

References[link]

External links[link]

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Alberto Manguel

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Manguel's "A History of Reading"

• www.alberto.manguel.com: Official Website
• [1]:NYTIMES article by Alberto Manguel on his personal library
• Alberto Manguel at Geist.com
• Alberto Manguel interviewed about his new book "A Reader on Reading".
• Alberto Manguel Papers, Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library

György (George) Konrád

György (George) Konrád (born April 2, 1933) is a Hungarian novelist and essayist, known as an advocate of individual freedom.

Life[link]

Konrad was born in Berettyóújfalu, near Debrecen into an affluent Jewish family. He graduated in 1951 from the Madách Secondary School in Budapest, entered the Lenin Institute and eventually studied literature, sociology and psychology at the Eötvös Loránd University. In 1956 he participated in the Hungarian Uprising against the Soviet occupation, but did not kill anybody, although he had a gun. In fact, in light of his later attitude towards 56-veterans his honesty about his alleged democratic values been questioned.

Career from the 1970s[link]

Due to oppositional activities he was warned by the public prosecutor and was later fired from his work. In 1977 he received a DAAD- scholarship ^[1] which enabled him to stay in West Berlin along with Iván Szelényi. After writing The Intellectual on the Road to Class Power with Szelényi,^[2] he hid the manuscript at his brother in law Ernő Sándor.^[3] Konrád was arrested in 10/22 1974. After this incident communist leading party ideologist György Aczél personally asked Konrád not to emigrate. In a letter to Aczél, Konrád made a few terms for his staying.^[4] This letter was also published in the Hungarian daily newspaper Magyar Nemzet and was also used as evidence in the Konrád vs Lovas slander trial, where Konrád sought retribution on the publicist István Lovas who have presented Konráds doubtful past in 2003. During this trial the Supreme Court of Budapest stated:

"Based on the verification procedure and the evidences it can be stated that the accuser after his arrest in October 1974 announced that the wanted manuscripts can be found at his brother-in-law's apartment. He then showed up on his apartment together with the representatives of the authority and the accuser asked Ernő Sándor to give the writings to the police. It can be assumed that the name of the person hiding the wanted manuscripts was given up by Konrád. This behavior is called in the everyday life denounce. This is further supported by the accusers own words given in an interview in 168 óra (Hungarian newspaper), where he said: "I’ve done a moral mistake".

During his dissident years he stayed a lot in Western Europe and in USA (among others in New York City, San Francisco and Paris). In 1987 and 1988 he taught world literature in Colorado Collage in Colorado Springs. His oppositional status was criticized several times. None of Konráds books were banned and he could travel to west more often than non political Hungarians. László Kolozsvári Papp had these memories in 1998 in the newspaper “Kortárs” about the dissident years of Konrád and his friends:

“…these boys in the 80s were great oppositionals in that sense, that with a passport issued by comrade Aczél they could rest in West Berlin, USA and Switzerland from the agony of this oppositional struggle; the greatest Hungarian writer – and somewhat informant – György Konrád, the shaper of German culture in the new age - the right man in the right place – after some opposition with his aczél-passport re-appeared in the West, and his first steps led him to Radio Free Europe, and we listened with our little pounding hearts, what we were, what we should be, and few of us thought about it – among them I – what a great guy this Konrád is, when he undertakes everything that is needed to be an oppositional here at home, so he with his “aczélic” passport just step out into the worldly plains, and there tell it to the aczélic system! He is a Hero!, I said to myself, and I just kept on sitting in my nook like the Hungarian writer that is not the greatest.”

In 1988 he was the founder member of the Alliance of Free Democrats (SZDSZ), his name was on the ballots in the following elections of 1990. In July 2009 after Attila Retkes was elected for president of SZDSZ he left the party with several founding members.^[5]

In 1990 he was elected president of International PEN serving until 1993, and in 1997 he was the first non-German to become president of the Akademie der Künste in Berlin.^[6]

He has published a number of essays on politics, literature and sociology, as well as fiction. One of Konrád's most significant novels is The Case Worker, a bleak portrait of human suffering in modern urban industrial society, written from the perspective of a social services functionary. A Feast in the Garden and The Stone Dial are the first two parts of a semi autobiographical fictional trilogy.

In 1985 he received the Prix européen de l'essai Charles Veillon for Antipolitik. Mitteleuropäische Meditationen.

In 2001 he received the Charlemagne Award of the city of Aachen.^[7]

In 2003 he was awarded an honorary doctorate from the University of Novi Sad.^[8]

In 2007 Konrád won the National Jewish Book Award in the Biography, Autobiography & Memoir category, for A Guest in my Own Country: A Hungarian Life.^[9]

He was a founder of the Hungarian liberal party the SZDSZ^[10] but left the party in 2009.^[11] He was a friend to the Polish intellectualist - writer Stanisław Lem and politician Władysław Bartoszewski. http://mno.hu/migr_1834/konrad-gyorgy-onsajnalata-a-radioban-423827

Partial list of works[link]

Fiction[link]

• The Case Worker
• The City Builder
• The Loser
• A Feast in the Garden
• The Stone Dial

Non-fiction[link]

• The Intellectual on the Road to Class Power (1978), with Iván Szelényi
• Antipolitics
• The Melancholy of Rebirth (1995)
• The Invisible Voice: Meditations on Jewish Themes
• A Guest in My Own Country: A Hungarian Life (2003)

Articles[link]

• “The Intelligentsia and Social Structure”. Telos^[12] 38 (Winter 1978-79). New York: Telos Press.

References[link]

1. ^ DAAD - wandel durch austausch - change by exchange
2. ^ http://www.yale.edu/sociology/faculty/pages/szelenyi/
3. ^ http://mno.hu/migr_1834/konrad-gyorgy-onsajnalata-a-radioban-423827
4. ^ http://mno.hu/migr_1834/konrad-gyorgy-onsajnalata-a-radioban-423827
5. ^ http://index.hu/belfold/hirek/2009/07/13/konrad_gyorgy_kilepett_az_szdsz-bol/
6. ^ DAAD - wandel durch austausch - change by exchange
7. ^ Charlemagne Prize 2001
8. ^ UNS.ac.rs
9. ^ Jewishbookcouncil.org
10. ^ http://www.nytimes.com/1990/05/20/magazine/politics-at-the-club-tomaj.html?pagewanted=all&src=pm
11. ^ http://www.politics.hu/20090714/famous-liberals-desert-szdsz-as-partys-woes-mount/
12. ^ Telospress.com

External links[link]

• Homepage
• "Chance Wanderings," an essay by Konrad on the 'revolutions' of 1989
• A biographical essay, written in English