On 25 April, Princess Marie attended the presentation of Princess Marie-Esmeralda of Belgium’s 2014 book 10 Femmes Prix Nobel de la Paix (10 Women who won the Nobel Peace Prize) in Rungsted.
In 2014, Princess Marie-Esmeralda interviewed the nine women who won the Nobel Peace Prize and who were still alive. The last chapter is about Malala Yousafzai who won the Prize in 2014. The announcement of the awarding of the Prize to Malala Yousafzai was made a few weeks before the release of the book, so Princess Maria-Esmeralda didn’t have the time to interview her. The organisers of the event said they choose to host the event at the Karen Blixen museum because: “All these protagonists remind us of Karen Blixen, who was a pioneer in her art as in her life within topics such as women’s fate and environment.”
©Annemette Kuhlmann
The women interviewed in the book are Mairead Corrigan and Betty Williams (who received the Prize in 1976), Aung San Suu Kyi (1991), Rigoberta Menchú (1992), Jody Williams (1997), Shirin Ebadi (2003), Ellen Johnson Sirleaf & Leymah Gbowee and Tawakkol Karman (2011).
Princess Marie-Esmeralda is a journalist, and she said back in 2014 she wanted to make a book for women: “It is made primarily for women, obviously, because they are the real heroes. The message would be: if some of them have succeeded- by dint of courage and incredible energy- to achieve something, there are many who, in the shadows, work every day for peace.”
©Annemette Kuhlmann
The interview and discussion about the book were held in French, and Princess Marie was very interested. The story of Jody Williams must have been particularly interesting for the Princess as Williams won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1997 for her work for the banning and clearing of anti-personnel mines alongside the International Campaign to Ban Landmines. Princess Marie, as Patron of DanChurchAid, took part in their campaign against landmines in 2018, and she visited an exhibition about landmines earlier this month.
