US historian Anne Applebaum receives German literary Peace Prize

US historian Anne Applebaum is due to be honoured with the Peace Prize of the German Book Trade at the end of the Frankfurt Book Fair on Sunday.

The laudation was to be delivered in Frankfurt's Church of St Paul by Irina Scherbakowa, a Moscow-born Germanist, historian and one of Russia's best-known human rights activists.

"At a time when democratic values and achievements are increasingly being caricatured and attacked, her work embodies an eminent and indispensable contribution to the preservation of democracy and peace," the prize's selection jury said in a statement.

Appelbaum's work has revealed the mechanisms of authoritarian seizure and protection of power and shown how fragile democratic societies are, it added.

Endowed with €25,000 ($27,170), the Peace Prize has been awarded by the German Publishers and Booksellers Association since 1950.

It honours personalities who have contributed to the realization of the idea of peace in literature, science or art.

Applebaum was honoured with the prestigious Pulitzer Prize in 2004.

Applebaum, 60, was born in the United States to Jewish parents. In addition to her US citizenship, she also holds Polish citizenship.

Married to Polish Foreign Minister Radosław Sikorski, she has authored such works as "Gulag: A History" (2003), "Iron Curtain: The Crushing of Eastern Europe 1944-56" (2012), "Twilight of Democracy: The Failure of Politics and the Parting of Friends" (2021) and "Autocracy, Inc: The Dictators Who Want to Run the World" (2024).