#FBM23: Gaia Vince to give keynote at opening press conference

British environmental journalist and nonfiction author Gaia Vince will be the keynote speaker at Frankfurter Buchmesse’s opening press conference (Tuesday, 17 October 2023, 11 am in the Frankfurt Pavilion). In her book Nomad Century (Penguin Books, August 2022; published in German by Piper in September 2023 as Das nomadische Jahrhundert), the award-winning science journalist puts two of the biggest social challenges in context: the climate crisis and global migration flows. Vince makes the inspiring suggestion to view migration not as a problem, but as part of the solution to a worldwide drama. The task at hand, she argues, is finding a politically pragmatic and humane response to the fact that in coming decades climate change will force many millions of people to leave their home countries in the Global South.

“We invite speakers to Frankfurter Buchmesse’s opening press conference whose books address pressing social issues. In recent years, figures such as Nobel literature prize winner Olga Tokarczuk (2019), Mohsin Hamid (2022), Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (2018) and Salman Rushdie (2015) have shared their views on current events. They’ve provided food for thought and expanded our horizons,” explains Juergen Boos, director of Frankfurter Buchmesse. “I am very pleased that in Frankfurter Buchmesse’s 75th year, Gaia Vince has agreed to join us in Frankfurt. Thanks to her extensive research, clear language and critical insights into our highly complex world, she has become one of the most influential nonfiction authors of our time. Climate migration has already begun. Gaia Vince’s book opens our eyes to the policy decisions that must be taken now if we are to avert a humanitarian catastrophe – making it a breath-taking read for me.”

Vince currently writes for The Guardian and BBC Online; she previously contributed to Nature and New Scientist. Her research has taken her all over the world: she has visited more than 60 countries, has lived in three and now resides in London. In 2015, she was awarded the Royal Society Winton Prize for Science Books for her nonfiction debut Adventures in the Anthropocene: A Journey to the Heart of the Planet We Made (German: Am achten Tag: Eine Reise in das Zeitalter des Menschen, Theiss).

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Registration: All media representatives only need a press accreditation for the Frankfurter Buchmesse.

Please direct your interview requests at press@buchmesse.de

The opening press conference will also be live streamed on our YouTube channel.