German Book Prize 2023: These 20 novels are in the long list
Every year in October, the Foundation for Book Culture and the Promotion of Reading of the German Book Trade Association awards the German Book Prize. A total of 196 titles were presented this year; The 20 books nominated for the 2023 long list have now been determined, including eleven works by female authors.
In addition to big names from the literary world such as Terézia Mora and Georg Büchner prize winner Clemens J. Setz, the list also includes some impressive first works from German-speaking countries, including Anne Rabe’s “The Possibility of Happiness”, which deals with the consequences of the GDR in the family structure or “Paradise Garden” by Elena Fischer about a 14-year-old woman who has to deal with the death of her mother and goes in search of her absent father.
Jury spokesperson: Contemporary German literature is ‘full of surprises’
“A longlist isn’t just a list of titles that a judging panel deems worthy of an award. It’s educational
a process of collective reading,” said jury spokesperson Katharina Teutsch. This year’s selection proves once again that contemporary German literature is “full of surprises”. The newcomers “stand confidently next to the authors established”. Small publishers with big, tragic – serious stories with imaginative stories. For this year’s jury it was important to “appreciate literary humor”, continues Teutsch, also the expression of a sympathetic and non-dogmatic relationship to the world which has particularly impressed us in this period.
The jury for this year’s German Book Prize 2023 includes, in addition to Katharina Teutsch: Shila Behjat (journalist and publicist),
Heinz Drügh (Goethe University Frankfurt am Main), Melanie Mühl (Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung), Lisa Schumacher (Steinmetz’sche Buchhandlung, Offenbach), Florian Valerius (Gegenlicht Buchhandlung, Trier), Matthias Weichelt (Magazine “Sinn und Form”).
Last year Kim de l’Horizon became the first non-binary person to win the ‘Book of Blood’.
prestigious industry award. The shortlist of six finalists will be published on 19 September 2023 and the German Book Prize 2023 will be presented at the start of the Frankfurt Book Fair in October.
One theme runs through all the named novels
For all the differences in style and content, one overarching theme is clearly evident. Many of the submitted works are about pain, trauma and violence, large and small. Like Rabe, Angelika Klüssendorf also negotiates with “Risse” by growing up in the painfully experienced structures of the GDR. Kathrin Röggla ventures into a different environment. His novel “Proceedings” deals with the NSU process and the extent to which the courts are an active site of democracy. Necati Öziri, Elena Fischer, Sylvie Schenk and Terézia Mora look at families and couples shaped by loss and absence and in which there is simply no shelter. Sherko Fatah, on the other hand, tells of the so-called Islamic State, of a daughter who wants to join him and of a father who goes in search.
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