They've announced the twenty-title-strong longlist for this year's German Book Prize, the Man Booker-like (right down to the outrageous practice of not revealing the names of the 176 titles submitted and considered for the prize ...) which has quickly established itself as the leading German-language book prize (in a culture still dominated by author- (i.e. career-spanning-) prizes)).
A couple of names that have had books translated into English, but probably not much name-recognition for US/UK readers here.
Amusingly, Marlene Streeruwitz's Nachkommen -- about a German Book Prize shortlisted author -- has made the longlist (see, for example, the S.Fischer foreign rights page). It's sort of as if Edward St. Aubyn's Man Booker-satire, Lost for Words, had been longlisted for this year's Man Booker .....
On the whole, the German press seems rather unimpressed: in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung Andreas Platthuas bemoans the omission of their favorite -- Nino Haratischwili's 1000-pager Das achte Leben (Für Brilla) -- and the fact that a mere five of the twenty finalists are books by female authors; in Die Welt Richard Kämmerlings goes so far as to find: Diese Longlist ist ein schlechter Witz ('This longlist is a bad joke').
And, of course, always good to see pathetic nationalism dominate provincial coverage, in Switzerland (Basler Zeitung: Deutscher Buchpreis: Longlist mit drei Schweizern ('German Book Prize: three Swiss on longlist')) and Austria (Der Standard: Deutscher Buchpreis: Fünf Österreicher auf Longlist ('German Book Prize: five Austrians on longlist')).
The shortlist will be announced on 10 September.
A couple of names that have had books translated into English, but probably not much name-recognition for US/UK readers here.
Amusingly, Marlene Streeruwitz's Nachkommen -- about a German Book Prize shortlisted author -- has made the longlist (see, for example, the S.Fischer foreign rights page). It's sort of as if Edward St. Aubyn's Man Booker-satire, Lost for Words, had been longlisted for this year's Man Booker .....
On the whole, the German press seems rather unimpressed: in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung Andreas Platthuas bemoans the omission of their favorite -- Nino Haratischwili's 1000-pager Das achte Leben (Für Brilla) -- and the fact that a mere five of the twenty finalists are books by female authors; in Die Welt Richard Kämmerlings goes so far as to find: Diese Longlist ist ein schlechter Witz ('This longlist is a bad joke').
And, of course, always good to see pathetic nationalism dominate provincial coverage, in Switzerland (Basler Zeitung: Deutscher Buchpreis: Longlist mit drei Schweizern ('German Book Prize: three Swiss on longlist')) and Austria (Der Standard: Deutscher Buchpreis: Fünf Österreicher auf Longlist ('German Book Prize: five Austrians on longlist')).
The shortlist will be announced on 10 September.