Hello Gentle Reader
Autumn is the start of the Literary Season, for me. It’s the time of the harvest, bonfires and pumpkin pie and turkey dinner; ghoulish children and ghastly ghosts – it’s almost a time of reflection in many aspects. It is the beginning of a long farewell. Here in Canada it is a homecoming of winter. The ominous; yet fragile, omen of winter can be seen. Farmers have swathed and combined their fields. The leaves have already started the gradual change. The streets where I live are becoming a continual destination for the fallen poplar leaves. The Literary Season started with the Booker Prize Longlist, then Ladbrokes Nobel Prize for Literature Speculation. Later the Booker Prize Shortlist had been announced. Now the German Book Prize has announced its own Shortlist for their prestigious award. This comes as quite an enjoyment away from the all the continual whining and grumbling from some countries who should remain unnamed – India and China(!) – who have continued their raging campaign about how the Swedish Academy has once again snubbed them for another year. This year a man from India has started a national campaign for India to have the Nobel Prize for Literature in two-thousand and thirteen, on the grounds that Indian writers from India (naturally) have not been given proper recognition. This nationalist campaign for Literature has used the example of the Bengal Poet Rabindranath Tagore who ironically won the Nobel a century before; as a pure and honest example of how the Nobel Committee has continued to push India aside. Though this Literary Activist has offered recognition that such great writers have been recognized by the Prize and benefited form it; he argues that there have been many ‘competent,’ Indian authors who deserve the prize. Competence is not relevant in such a prize (at least not in my opinion). Competence in Literature is saying that a writer has the ability or at least the understanding of comma’s and semi-colons and use of producing and writing a proper sentence. It does not mean that the author has talent or literary merit; or a wide ranging of concepts and idea’s that can traverse borders and boundaries, and sail on continents. Another problem with this entire campaign is that many people forget (I included) is that the Nobel Prize for Literature is awarded to the individual author. It is not awarded to a country. The Nobel Prize for Literature is awarded to the Author not to the Government or to a Country. One must remember that. Many of the recent authors have lived extraordinary lives of country traveling and immigration. Doris Lessing was born in Persia (now Iran) and then lived in Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) before living in England. Jean-Mari-Gustav Le Clezio is a citizen of France and Mauritius, by definition. He lived in Nigeria as a child. He studied at the University of Bristol in England. Then leaving to the United States to be a teacher. He served with the French military in Thailand and was quickly expelled for his criticism of child prostitution; from there he finished his military duties in Mexico. J.M.G. Le Clezio continues spend time in France and in Mexico. Herta Müller is a Romanian born German author. It is these kinds of authors that lead to the concept that the prize transcends borders and boundaries and awards itself to the individual not the country.
The German Book Prize is the equivalent of the Booker Prize. It is a prize that is awarded to the best German Language book, and author. In two thousand and ten the Swiss author Melinda Nadj Abonji had won the Prize for her novel “Falcons without Falconers.” Other shortlisted authors include Austrian authors as well like Clements J Setz who was shortlisted in 2009 for his novel “The Frequencies.”
This year two of the two-thousand and nine, shortlisted authors are back for another try at the prize again. One of them is Clements J Setz the “wunderkind,” of contemporary Austrian literature. For his novel “indigo,” a young math teacher begins his search to discover the origins and cause of a mysterious disease called “Indigo Disease,” which is plaguing the boarding school the teacher works at. Students go missing, and when he starts searching for answers; he is promptly fired. The author plays with identities; and is not limited to those of characters; even his own.
Ernst Augustin is this year’s oldest shortlisted author, at the age of eighty two. His novel “Robinson’s House Blues,” and is interestingly enough considered a fantasy genre author. The psychiatrist and author, writs about a character who travels through time and space; who also happens to be a crafty banker; whose experiences in risky transactions have got him in some hot water. He therefore has set up tiny rooms all over, where he can disappear into the virtual world. This also leaves the reader to get lost in the world as well.
Wolfgang Herrndorf’s novel “Sand,” has already won the Leipzig Book Prize this year; but that does not mean the German Book Prize is out of the question. It reads like a nineteen-sixties, portrait done in the romanticism style; but with dashes of espionage and murder. Played against the back drop of an expansive desert the author has captured something unique.
Ursula Krechel is interesting for two reasons: one she is primarily a poet, and two she is the only woman on the shortlist. Her novel “District Court,” recounts Germany’s recent past. Taken place after World War II the main character is a Jewish-German Judge who returns to a homeland that he can no longer identify or recognize. Pasting and placing his life on the page and the aspects that make it up like his lonely wife he left behind when he left for Cuba, a man who can no longer deal with day to day life; and Foster Children in Great Britain – it appears to be a sorrowful and melancholic piece of work.
Many will recognize the name Stephan Thome from two thousand and nine when he was shortlisted for the author “Border Walk,” and now the author and philosopher (trained in sinology) is back on the list for his new novel “Centrifugal Forces.” In this latest book which is said to be a pastiche of a travel book, Stephan Thome, traces the mid-life crisis of a philosophy professor, whose stresses of daily life and family problems have brought on this terrible catastrophe of the main protagonist; who travels to Portugal to find himself.
“Nothing White,” is the last novel to be shortlisted by Ulf Erdmann Ziegler. This is a novel about letters and typography. It is about words, and the letters that fill the white empty void of a blank white page. It traces the time of West Germany in the eighties. A place of liberal child development, new housing projects, all to the sound of new wave music. The author traces his generations development and the end of the printed age and the beginning of the digital age.
There you have it Gentle Reader, the German Book Prize shortlist. I love when deutschewelleenglish on youtube, will post the vide of the authors and their books, detailing them. But patience was thin this year, and it was time to announce the books and the authors. Let’s see who wins. It’ll be an interesting from the choices.
Thank-you For Reading Gentle Reader
Take Care
And As Always
Stay Well Read
*And Remember: Downloading Books Illegally is Thievery and Wrong*
M. Mary
