Among contemporary German authors, one stands out who for years has been able to operate in various forms of expression and does not fit into any category: Thomas Kapielski....
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The German Literature Days opened in Klagenfurt on Wednesday the 29th with the usual "Speech on Literature". As part of the festival, the prestigious Austrian Ingeborg Bachmann Prize for literature is awarded. This year's speaker, Swiss author and literary critic Iso Camartin warned the jury and the audience to exercise critical rigour in their decision. "Of course we can let anyone write what they want, but let us ensure that we don't waste our time with junk thoughts and word waste." It will be interesting to see whether his words are heeded. (Read the speech in full on the Bachmann Prize website which is full of other useful links.)
The 22,500 euro prize money is donated by the city of Klagenfurt in memory of its famous daughter Ingeborg Bachmann (1926-1973). (Read a biography in English here. Further information in German here and here)
The three-day literary marathon began yesterday, with renowned authors reading from their own unpublished works. This year's participating authors include Barbara Bongartz, Julia Schoch and Anne Weber. (Here a complete list and video portraits of the authors. Here a selection of excerpts. The magazine Volltext also offers many of the texts in full.) This year's jury includes Burkhard Spinnen, Ilma Rakusa, Norbert Miller, Heinrich Detering and jury president Iris Radisch.
What distinguishes this competition from others of similar rank is its transparency. The jury discusses the work with the authors immediately after the reading and the public can watch the entire proceedings live on ORF and 3sat, and follow them on the Internet. "What does this exceptional interplay between literature and the media mean for the participants?" asks Doris Moser in an English study "Reality-TV, cultural mission, literary marketing. The Ingeborg Bachmann Prize on television". (Download )
Previous winners include Ulrich Plenzdorf (1978), Sten Nadolny (1980), Wolfgang Hilbig (1989) and last year the prize went to Uwe Tellkamp. Here a list of all 28 winners and information on German and international literature prizes.)
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Former East-German novelist Christa Wolf has spent a lifetime writing against forgetting and the repression of guilt. But the will to remember, it seems, has not been enough to prevent her from doing exactly that. Her biographer Jörg Magenau reviews her new autobiographical novel "Stadt der Engel", which ends in Death Valley. Perhaps 'dead end' would have been more to the point. Photo:©Susanne Schleyer
The Austrian writer Josef Haslinger talks about his sexual encounters with paedophile priests as a boy in a Catholic boarding school. Instead of joining the chorus of moral outrage, he acknowledges the full spectrum of feelings that these episodes provoked, and argues that simple criminalisation is not the way forward.
Since its publication in January, Helene Hegemann's novel "Axolotl Roadkill" has been at the centre of a debate whose vagaries of terminology have allowed the seriousness of the case to be downplayed. Philipp Theisohn wishes the literary establishment would drop all its talk of intertextuality in favour of a more democratic category: plagiarism.
UPDATE: The German Book Prize 2009 has been awarded to Katrin Schmidt for her novel "You're Not Going to Die". Read excerpts from all the shortlisted titles - including one from the Nobel Prize laureate Herta Müller's novel "Everything I Own I Carry With Me".
The new novel by Nobel laureate Herta Müller tells of a harrowing experience which will leave an indelible stamp on its survivor for the rest of his life. Her book stems from interviews with the poet Oskar Pastior and other Gulag survivors. An excerpt in English.
Günter Grass has just published his diary from 1990, recording the tumultous events after the fall of the Berlin Wall. "From Germany to Germany" is a list of ominous predictions for the future of German unity. The former GDR writer Monika Maron looks at how blinded Grass was by his own preconceptions.
This year Turkey was the guest country at the Frankfurt Book Fair. We introduce the books that attracted the most critical attention.
and all the best for 2009!
This year's prestigious Büchner Prize went to Austrian writer Josef Winkler. He talks to Paul Jandl about dung heaps, patriarchs, the fear of speechlessness and the elegance of John Paul II's coffin. Photo © Jerry Bauer / SV