Cornelia Funke tells stories of fairies and mud monsters, of adventurous girls, a gang of children in Venice ? and her stories somewhere between fantasy and adventure are Germany?s most successful literary export at the moment....
more
Fiction / Nonfiction / Political Books
Political Books
Jung Chang and Jon Halliday researched their
biography "Mao" for eleven years until nothing remained of the idealised image of the Great
Chairman.The Spiegel put the book on its cover and the SZ agrees that
if the author's take is accurate, China's history will have
to be retold "on several important points." The NZZ sees the biography
as a "detailed collection of shameless acts," the FAZ praises its
liveliness and density, while the FR considers it more of a criminal
charge than a nuanced biography.
German-Israeli historian and Middle East expert Dan Diner explores in "Versiegelte
Zeit" (sealed time) the controversial question of why the Arab world remains so
undeniably backward. He takes the Arab Human Development Report, which
has been published annually by the United Nations since 2002, and
discovers several interesting and shocking facts: for instance, that in the entire Arab
world, there are four book translations for every million people, compared with 519 in Hungary or 920 in Spain. Diner explains this
with the omnipresence of the sacral, particularly in Arabic speech and
text, which makes change virtually impossible. The SZ does not support
all his arguments but finds the book "stimulating and intelligent."
Andre Glucksmann's investigation of hate as a phenomena that is
spreading in the world, has sparked much discussion. The NZZ finds
Gluckmann's endeavor to locate evil right in the
midst of our modern civilisation "absolutely correct"; at the same
time, it would rather not have to look so closely. The FR considers the author's greatest accomplishment his analysis of the psychological levels of hate based on the Medea
myth, while suspecting that his argument is slightly one-sided. Die
Zeit is delighted that Glucksmann has confronted hate so actively, while
the SZ begs for a little more equanimity. (Features by Andre Glucksmann in English here)
Wolfgang Kraushaar's revelations about "Die Bombe im Jüdischen
Gemeindehaus" (The bomb in the Jewish community centre) has provoked heated debate. The main controversy is not over Albert Fichter's
involvement but rather Kraushaar's insistence that a pervasive anti-Semitism
was at work among the 68ers. The FR hopes the book will precipitate self-reflection
by the Left, and the Berliner Zeitung is most interested in the role of the
state as an agent provocateur. Götz Aly states in Die Welt, "The
German 68ers were wretchedly similar to their parents." (See
an interview with Albert Fichter's brother here)
Both the taz and the FR are extremely impressed by "Despoten vor
Europas Haustür" (despots on Europe's doorstep) in which Tunisian
human rights experts Sihem Bensedrine and Omar Mestiri demonstrate how
the EU's immigration and security policies serve to stabilise the
authoritarian regimes in North Africa, at the expense of the opposition
and human rights. Tunisia in particular has been only too happy to
introduce anti-terrorism measures that render any kind of opposition
illegal. Bensedrine and Mestiri (director of the online magazine Kalima) describe the hatred, desperation and
hopelessness that EU policy is causing in North Africa and show how the
region is becoming a hotbed of precisely the kind of extremist violence against which Europe is trying to protect itself.
High praise from both ends of Germany's political spectrum for the German translation of "The Rebel Sell"). The FAZ and the
taz agree that Andrew Potter and Joseph Heath's thorough-going critique
of the so-called anti-capitalist, anti-consumerist counter culture is
worth a read. The Canadian authors argue that the proponents of
anti-globalisation - the punks, hippies, no globals and Naomi Kleins -
are all essential fuel in the capitalistic machine. In the taz, Robert
Misik takes the thought a step further: the socialist Left has always
wanted to guarantee simple folk a good life, while at the same
time denouncing their pursuit of "wretched materialism". Misik
concludes that "the fight against all the rules should not be confused
with the fight against tyranny."
On a similar note, Georg Franck's "Mentaler Kapitalismus" has been met
with both enthusiasm and scepticism. Following up on his previous book
"The Economy of Attention" (more), Franck investigates further the political
and aesthetic impact of the pervasiveness of advertising. Franck sees
the much avowed "reification of culture" transforming into a
"culturisation of all things": the rich of today are those who get lots
of media attention. While the taz enjoys many of Franck's observations
– such as the fact that "people who would previously have landed
in the nut house are the television stars of today" – the FAZ feels that
Franck is out of his theoretical depth with Derrida and Wittgenstein,
trying to turn his theory into a "model of explanation for the entire
world".
Fiction / Nonfiction / Political Books
RSS
The headlines were stolen by Charlotte Roche's moist little sex shocker and Jonathan Littell's sprawling SS fantasies but only two books united the critics: one is good and the other, utterly objectionable. There was a flurry of interest in some fabulous comics and a resurgence of the political and the historical novel. A dip into the books published in Germany this spring.
The nonfiction books this spring look into life as a budding president, a kitchen slave, a prophet, a string quartet. They pick apart the world of the elites, of lust and taste and '68.
Travels through the dreams and nightmares of Europe, in a small land of great poets, torn between Balkan catastrophe and Brussels. A reportage on Croatia, this year's partner country at the Leipzig Book Fair. By Gregor Dotzauer 
An SS man reflects on mass murder - and there's a pigeon hole for every vile deed. Novelist Georg Klein on the Holocaust and the enlightened harmony of trivial realism in Jonathan Littell's novel "Les Bienveillantes" which has just been translated into German.
The 400-page German translation of Jonathan Littell's corpse-littered SS novel,"Les Bienveillantes," has put the German-language feuilletons into a critical frenzy, despite the general consensus that the book is bad. We have compiled a selection of the accusations hurled. 
Kurt von Hammerstein was head of the Reichswehr, a grand seigneur, and an implacable opponent of National Socialism. In his new book "Hammerstein oder Der Eigensinn" (Hammerstein or idiosycrasy), Hans Magnus Enzensberger engages in dialogues with the dead to deliver a literary and lunatic precipitate of German history.
This literary autumn belongs to two Russian writers: Vassily Grossmann and Varlam Shalamov, whose epic works have been published in German at long last. But older Germans and German Romantics, Polish queens, Romanian Mannerists, combative atheists, Neopolitan Camorristi, Catalonian knights and a glutton of glorious abandon have also come up trumps.
The literary event of the season is the inexplicably delayed publication of two Russian masterpieces: Vassily Grossmann's historic drama of the 20th century "Life and Fate" and Varlam Shalamov's collection of tales from Kolyma "Durch den Schnee". On the German side, we have seen older novelists flexing their muscles and reaching for the skies, biographers looking up to bygone giants, and the feuilletons rallying to defend religion against the air strikes of Christopher Hitchens and Richard Dawkins. 
The novel is blooming in the Urals, where the children of the former technology elite are letting their imaginations run riot. By Sonja Margolina
Polish author Andrzej Stasiuk's book "Dojczland" is a sophisticated portrait of German-Polish relations with flights of sarcasm and a fine sense of grotesque. Doused heavily in bourbon, it's a controversial bestseller in Poland. By Thomas Urban
Romanian literature is still a tiny niche in the German book
market. Mircea Cartarescu's latest novel to be published here,
"Die Wissenden," shows readers what they are missing. A visit to
Bucharest to meet the man who is probably Romania's most famous author. By Jörg Plath
Come cruising in the park they say is dead. In his
biography of Stefan George, Thomas Karlauf reveals the charismatic German poet's authoritarian practices and the homoerotic core of his work. By Alexander Cammann
Rüdiger Safranski has pulled off the improbable: his book on Romanticism is a genuinely exciting account of German intellectual history. By Ulrich Greiner
Germany's book market is being flooded this autumn by biographies of dead male writers. Ina Hartwig examines the whys, wherefores and potential pitfalls of this latest literary craze.
The German Book Prize 2007, an annual award for the best German language novel, has been awarded to Julia Franck. Read an English excerpt of her book, "Lady Midday", and of the other five on the shortlist.