The Cesare De Michelis International Award for Publishing is dedicated to Cesare De Michelis, publisher and soul of Marsilio Editori for decades. It has been created in 2022 to annually reward publishers who have distinguished themselves on the international scene for the vitality and novelty of their publishing achievements.

The event is dedicated to the 2027 award-winning publisher: Sonia Draga, founder and president of Wydawnictwo Sonia Draga in Katowice, Poland.

In conversation with Sonia Draga will be Juergen Boos, director of Frankfurter Buchmesse

Flavio Gregori, director of the literary festival Incroci di civiltà Ca’ Foscari in Venice, will then join the stage.

 

The award-winning publisher in 2027

SONIA DRAGA founded the publishing house bearing her name in 2000. A translator, photographer, writer, and social activist, she was born and raised in Silesia. Wydawnictwo Sonia Draga is one of the most significant players in the Polish publishing market. Its catalogue includes contemporary fiction, biographies, reportage, and popular non-fiction. Named «the publisher with a sense for good books» she has also translated various works from English and is the author of several books illustrated with her own photographs. Since 2008, she has served on the board of the Polish Chamber of Books (Polska Izba Książki), being its President in 2020-2024, and from 2025 she is the President of the Federation of European Publishers. Sonia Draga was awarded the National Order of Merit by the President of the French Republic for her achievements in promoting French literature; additionally, her publishing house – which also manages two bookstores – received the Premio Nazionale per la Traduzione (National Translation Award) for its commitment to introducing Italian authors to the Polish public. The SONIA DRAGA Publishing Group releases a total of approximately 180 new titles and around 40 audiobooks annually.

 

Speakers

JUERGEN BOOS has been Director and CEO of Frankfurter Buchmesse GmbH since 2005. He trained as a publisher at Herder Verlag (Freiburg) in the early 1980s and has degrees in both Marketing and Organisational Theory at the University of Mannheim. He has held management positions at Droemer Knaur Verlag (Munich), Carl Hanser Verlag (Munich), as well as Springer Science and Business Media (today Springer Science) and John Wiley & Sons (Weinheim). Boos is also Managing Director of LitCam (Frankfurter Buchmesse Literacy Campaign).

On 20 November 2013, he was awarded the Austrian Cross of Honour for Science and Art. In January 2017, Juergen Boos received an honorary degree from the Ivane Javakhishvili Tbilisi State University. In February 2018, he was conferred the cultural distinction of “Chevalier des Arts et des Letters“ (Knight of the Order of Arts and Letters) at the French embassy in Berlin. Furthermore, he is holder of the Spanish Order Isabel la Católica, Encomienda de Numero since October 2022 and of the Ribbon of Knight of the Royal Norwegian Order of Merit since February 2023. He is also a member of the Scientific Committee of Sheikh Zayed Book Award and a member of Akademie Deutscher Buchpreis (German Book Prize Academy).

 

FLAVIO GREGORI is Professor of English literature at Ca' Foscari University of Venice and the Director of the international literary festival “Incroci di civiltà” (Crossings of civilizations). At Ca’ Foscari he served as University Provost for Cultural Activities, Director of the Department of Comparative Cultural Studies, and The Rector’s Delegate for Literary Activities. He specialises in English eighteenth-century literature and adaptation studies, and is the founder and chief editor of the scholarly journal English Literature: Theories, Interpretations, Contexts.