We Tell Stories to Connect

In 1995, Dayton, Ohio, was chosen as the site of what came to be known as the Dayton Peace Accords, a last-ditch effort to stop the ethnic cleansing that had claimed more than 300,000 lives and displaced 1 million people, according to the Dayton Literary Peace Prize Foundation.

It was “the worst killing ground in Europe since World War II,” wrote Richard Holbrooke, the chief U.S. peace negotiator at the time, in his 1998 book, To End a War.

Then assistant secretary of state, Holbrooke chose Dayton because of Wright-Patterson Air Force Base. It provided stark accommodations for the nine participating delegations, sealed off the press, and displayed America’s air power. His strategy, now known in diplomacy circles as a “Dayton,” locked the negotiators in a room until they reached an agreement, signed by the presidents of Bosnia, Croatia, and Serbia on Nov. 21, 1995. It ended the war in Bosnia and outlined an agreement for peace in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

“In 2005, when Richard Holbrooke came to Dayton to accept the Dayton Peace Prize because he ended a war with words, he stood on the podium right in front of me, and he challenged Daytonians to celebrate peace annually. I felt as though he were talking directly to me.”

“Me” is Sharon Honaker Rab ’68, longtime English teacher at Kettering Fairmont High School and Miami University, now retired. Soon after hearing Holbrooke’s challenge, she founded the Dayton Literary Peace Prize (DLPP).

It’s likely no surprise that an English teacher’s perspective is honed by literature, but how does that relate to a peace prize? Why a literary peace prize?

“The syllogism works for me,” Rab said, explaining, “War is possible only when the enemy is dehumanized. Reading brings empathy. The enemy is humanized, and war can be averted.”

… empowering new perspectives … that strengthen our own. Like many of us, if not most, she is a “child of the canon,” the authoritative texts of Shakespeare and Chaucer and other “dead, white men,” as she calls them. She learned from them, cherished them, and taught them. But as powerful as their works may be, the DLPP winners are part of our world — breathing the same air, sharing the same resources, fearing the same fears. No one expects writers to change the world all by themselves, she said, emphasizing that readers, writers, publishers, and prizes are in this together. “Writers inform us, inspire us, and give us hope as they sit for long hours in the quiet of a room and shape truth with words — words that fill the silence with ideas. They capture a moment, a place in time that allows us to consider how peace can be built — one word, one discussion, one book at a time. They bring

Left: Sharon Honaker Rab ’68 (left), founder of the Dayton Literary Peace Prize, with Gloria Steinem, writer, feminist icon, peace activist, and recipient of the 2015 Richard C. Holbrooke Distinguished Achievement Award. Right: President Slobodan Milosevic of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, President Alija Izetbegovic of the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina, and President Franjo Tudjman of the Republic of Croatia initial the draft of the Dayton Peace Accords, which paved the way for the signing of the final “General Framework Agreement for Peace in Bosnia and Herzegovina” on Dec. 14, 1995, in Paris. Bottom: “Writers inspire us, infuse us, and show us how to work as allies with them to build a better world,” says Rab (far right) with DLPP honorees (l-r) Gilbert King, Susan Southard, Anthony Doerr, James Hannaham, Viet Thanh Nugyen, Marilynne Robinson, Josh Weil, Wil Haygood ’76, Jessica Posner, and Jeff Hobbs.

us closer to peace and challenge us to be our best selves.”

What started with Rab now involves hundreds of volunteers who believe as she does, that enlightenment leads to empathy, to justice, and finally to peace.

In the face of doubters, Rab quotes the late Elie Wiesel, the Romanian-born American writer, political activist, Nobel laureate, Holocaust survivor, and DLPP 2007 Lifetime Achievement winner:

“Are we so naïve as to think that we can bring peace to the world through words? Yes, we are. What else do we have?”

Are we so naïve as to think that we can bring peace to the world through words? Yes, we are. What else do we have?

— ELIE WIESEL