German critics' best list - November

       I occasionally mention the SWR German critics' monthly best list, where the leading German literary critics vote for the best titles of the month, and the November list seems worth a mention for what it says about the German literary scene.
       Sure, Frank Witzel's German Book Prize-winner and some of the other big local titles of the year came out earlier this year (unlike in France, where it seems that something like 95 per cent of the big literary titles are published in late August and September, the Germans spread the goods out a bit more), but it's noteworthy that the languages the top books for November were originally written in are:

1. French
2. French
3. German
4. Catalan

       Not just that, but two of the top four titles were originally written in the mid-1950s.
       True, Anselme's On Leave and Joan Sales' Uncertain Glory -- in translations by David Bellos and Peter Bush, respectively -- also only recently made much of a ... well, at least UK-impression (Uncertain Glory was .... previously available, in David Rosenthal's 2002 translation, but I suspect you missed that American Institute for Catalan Studies edition ...), but still -- it's amazing that so little contemporary German literature can ... compete, as it were (it's not -- or shouldn't be -- a competition, but still ...). With Jane Gardam's over-a-decade-old (but admittedly very fine indeed) Old Filth also on the list -- along with the new Javier Marías (yes, already available in German ...) -- the foreign presence is ... well, at the very least, hard to overlook.
       That said, the 50s books (and the others) are worth your while: get On Leave at Amazon.com or Amazon.co.uk; get Uncertain Glory (bonus: an Introduction by Juan Goytisolo) at Amazon.com or Amazon.co.uk