There are two big German book prizes: the German Book Prize, awarded to a novel every fall at the Frankfurt Book Fair, and, every spring, the Prize of the Leipzig Book Fair, which is actually three prizes: for best work of fiction, best work of non, and best translation.
They've now announced the finalists in the three categories, five titles in each, selected from 405 (regrettably and outrageously unrevealed) submissions.
Noteworthy: none of the translation-finalists is a translation from the English -- which definitely beats the odds, and is rather surprising. Nevertheless (or for that reason ?) it's a pretty impressive list: translations of works by Lucretius, Modiano, Amos Oz, and Selma Lagerlöf (two Nobel laureates, a perennial contender, and a Latin classic -- not bad). But the most intriguing title, which some US/UK publishers have been cautiously considering, is surely the translation of Stefano D'Arrigo's Horcynus Orca -- 1472 pages (!) in the S.Fischer German edition (see their publicity page), and the odds-on favorite for the prize. It'd be great to see this in English ... maybe someday .....
They've now announced the finalists in the three categories, five titles in each, selected from 405 (regrettably and outrageously unrevealed) submissions.
Noteworthy: none of the translation-finalists is a translation from the English -- which definitely beats the odds, and is rather surprising. Nevertheless (or for that reason ?) it's a pretty impressive list: translations of works by Lucretius, Modiano, Amos Oz, and Selma Lagerlöf (two Nobel laureates, a perennial contender, and a Latin classic -- not bad). But the most intriguing title, which some US/UK publishers have been cautiously considering, is surely the translation of Stefano D'Arrigo's Horcynus Orca -- 1472 pages (!) in the S.Fischer German edition (see their publicity page), and the odds-on favorite for the prize. It'd be great to see this in English ... maybe someday .....