Several Things in One Go

A quick round-up of all sorts of things:

The Prize of the SWR Bestenliste - an annual riff on the monthly SWR Bestenliste, a list of top recent fiction compiled by critics - has gone to Ulrike Edschmid for her work in general and the novel Das Verschwinden des Philip S. in particular. I must admit the book had slipped under my radar. It's about a couple in 1960s West Berlin, and what happens when the man becomes a left-wing terrorist. In July it also won the Grimmelshausen Prize, bagging Edschmid €10,000 for a narrative work that deals with contemporary history.

This coming weekend, the Goethe Institut New York is holding a series of talks, I think, about Berlin and New York and translation and literature and the all-round wonderfulness that is the Literary Colloquium Berlin. It's called Shining Island and you should go, if at all possible, because it features some fantastic people.

The new issue of New Books in German is out, all purple and regally full of recommended books. Very soon, they'll also have English sample translations from all six novels shortlisted for the German Book Prize. What they already have is a sweet little feature by Romy Fursland, I believe, about new publisher (and friends of mine) Readux Books. Where you can now place advance orders, by the way, and probably ought to.

Translators Canan Marasligil and Nicki Harman are revving up for their London discussion on International Translation Day by stating their positions on whether or not translators should write forewords and footnotes, on the Free Word Centre website.