Bricks and Mortar by Clemens Meyer – A Translator's Note

February 2016 

I have just submitted my translation of Clemens Meyer’s Bricks and Mortar. It’s the best book I’ve translated so far, has stretched me the most and required the most drastic approaches. I feel tearful. For added bathos – and this is a book with a lot of bathos – my email got an out-of-office reply from the publisher.

I’ve been following the novel since 2008, when Clemens first published what became the final chapter as a short story in an anthology. It was even filthier than the present version. He read it at an event that was recorded for radio, checking nervously with his editor if it was really OK to put it on record. Last week I read from that final chapter myself, blushing, and was pleased that other people liked it too.

It took a long time to find a publisher willing to take a risk on this novel, which was originally published in German in 2013. It is long, which means my translation has been expensive. And it’s a playful, ambitious, neo-modernist, Marxism-tinged exploration of the development of the east German prostitution market, from next to nothing in 1989 to full decriminalization and diversification in the present day. Not everybody’s cup of tea.

Translating it was all-consuming. It required a great deal of research because I wasn’t directly familiar with the sex industry before working on it. But it was also emotionally draining because of the intensity of the writing. Translators are used to immersing ourselves in writers’ work but this book – and Clemens’s writing in general – is so unflinching that it affected me more than ever before.

***

Most translation requires us to explain the source culture to some extent. In this case, though, the legal situation with regard to prostitution in Germany is completely different to that in the UK and the US, even Nevada. Since 2001, German law has enabled prostitutes to work under regular employment contracts, explicitly stating that prostitution is no longer an unconscionable act. Sex work is legal and widely accepted – although the area is not free from moral judgement – and sexual services are advertised plainly. That means the language around it is different.

I started out by looking for British ads for sexual services. They do exist but they are so euphemistic as to be no use to me; the language in Bricks and Mortar is very much to the point. Meyer plays on the codes used in small ads, abbreviations and cute phrases, and I needed an equivalent that made sense. Thankfully, there are internet forums where punters rate ‘adult service providers’, and one of them provides a glossary containing exactly what I needed. I also read the Feminist Press’s very useful $pread: The Best of the Magazine that Illuminated the Sex Industry and Started a Media Revolution for a sense of how people in the US sex industry talk about their work, and many articles in the British press. TV dramas were also helpful for a sense of how readers might expect sex workers to talk, especially the excellent Band of Gold.

Another key difference between the cultures is that a lot of prostitution in Germany takes place in apartments in normal buildings; I once lived above one, in fact, which closed down after a shooting. Street prostitution exists but is unsafe, like anywhere else, and only comes up on the margins of the novel. Again, that makes the language different. Where British and American sex workers speak of “clients”, I preferred to stick to the German “guests” with its suggestion of hospitality, an issue several characters raise.

And once I started creating my own language for the novel’s unique situation, I felt I could take that approach even further. So readers will come across two neologisms – “in the Zone” and “after the Wall”. I hope this is the kind of novel in which readers can deal with new phrases. I’m very pleased with “in the Zone” because it sounds aptly science-fictional, referring simply to East Germany in communist days. And “after the Wall” is shorthand for “after the fall of the Iron Curtain”. Where German has the succinct “Wende” for the turning point in its late-20th-century history, a sailing metaphor, English struggles with all sorts of long-winded explanations. Meyer writes very rhythmically and it was important to me to cut anything that interrupted the flow – although that flow is sometimes jagged and abrupt, sometimes smooth and colloquial.

Emboldened, I then did something translators of “serious literature” are not supposed to do. I changed a character’s name. A hard-punning punter by the name of Ecki – a quiet homage to Hubert Fichte’s Jäcki in Die Palette – has an internet radio show called Eckis Edelkirsch, named after a cheap cherry liqueur. But that reference wasn’t strong enough for me, or not strong enough for a character who’s anything but subtle. I wanted the crass “cherry”, the overtly sexual title for an overtly sexual show, not something foreign and unpronounceable. And so Ecki became Jerry and his show became Jerry’s Cherry Pie, inspired by a sex shop in West Ealing. Meyer gave me permission for the change – and Jerry is still not far from Jäcki. Jerry’s two chapters were a joy to translate, punning and rhyming and getting almost psychedelic.

My favourite chapter, though, is now called ‘My Huckleberry Friend’. Meyer, knowing I was so keen on it, gave me the first page of the chapter from the first galley proof – in a frame – for my fortieth birthday. It’s typical of his writing, interweaving two women’s voices and never making it quite clear whether what’s happening is really happening. The German title – like many chapter titles in the book – is a song, a slow waltz in fact. The two sex workers may or may not end up dancing to the song, which isn’t mentioned by name other than in the melancholy title, a song about saying goodbye: ‘Sag beim Abschied leise Servus’. Although the direct reference to parting is lost, I hope my new title conjures up Audrey Hepburn’s yearning for glamour in Breakfast at Tiffany’s, a film I’m sure the two characters might watch together. And ‘Moon River’ is a slow waltz that many readers can probably hum, keeping that essential rhythmic element intact.

***

July 2016

As of the 4th of July, the Commons inquiry into prostitution has recommended legalizing brothels and soliciting as quickly as possible in the UK. Bricks and Mortar may give British readers an idea of what might happen once sex workers are allowed to work in greater safety. First and foremost, though, I hope readers will value it as much as I do, as a novel that makes no apologies as it pushes back the boundaries of what literature can do. ‘A journey into the night, brutal, dark, somnambulistic, surreal and often cruelly precise. A book about Germany, today’ wrote the critic Volker Weidermann in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung. He was right. 

***

17 October 2016

Bricks and Mortar is published in the UK today by Fitcarraldo Editions. My copies should arrive on Wednesday.

Clemens Meyer Reference Works

I'm on the home straight for my translation of Clemen's Meyer's Im Stein – although we don't have an English title yet. So I thought I'd share my extracurricular reading and reference works for the novel. In order of decreasing naivety.

The Oxford Dictionary of Nursery Rhymes

Let's Sing Together 

The Penguin Rhyming Dictionary

It's all part of the job. Deutsch für die Polizei

A Dictionary of Marxist Thought


Karl Marx: Capital

Alfred Döblin: Berlin Alexanderplatz


Bobby Cummines: I Am Not a Gangster - Fixer. Armed robber. Hitman. OBE

William T. Vollmann: Whores for Gloria

Rachel Aimee, Eliyanna Kaiser, Audacia Ray (eds.): $pread. The best of the magazine that illuminated the sex industry and started a media revolution

Wolfgang Hilbig, I (trans. Isabel Cole)

David Peace: Tokyo Year Zero

Skip the Games: Escort terms, sex definitions and abbreviations in escort ads

I might have forgotten some.

Lost in Translation*

So here's what's up. First it's been really hot and I've been spending too much time on my own, two things I'm not all that good at.

But the big thing is – and notice I'm not calling it a problem – that I've started translating Clemens Meyer's novel Im Stein. And I genuinely think it's the best novel to come out of Germany for years, which makes every new book I read seem pale and unimpressive. I don't think it's fair to review those books here under the circumstances, so I haven't been. I've read a couple that will be coming out at the end of the summer, which I do think are good (although not as good as Im Stein) and I'll try and write about them later on. But at the moment I think many publishers are holding back the good stuff for the autumn. So that's one side to it.

The other is that this translation is incredibly intense. The book contains all sorts of snippets of knowledge and quotes, from Karl Marx to the Brothers Grimm to geology to forensic medicine and, especially, the sex industry. On my desk I have a dictionary of Marxist thought, a dictionary of nursery rhymes, a dictionary of police terminology, an East German book of English songs, an anthology of writing by sex workers, plus the usual thesaurus and a website I hate but have to call up several times a day, explaining abbreviations used in online forums for rating prostitutes' services. I'm reading background material and chasing after quotes and absolutely tied up in this project.

Meyer writes like a dervish, creating a cynical psychedelic rock opera, rarely coming up for air. And I'm right in there, in my translation tunnel, in the flow, typing in tongues to channel the characters' voices and Meyer's crazed tone. I'm doing it quickly, intensely, because that's the way I understand it best. So I'll spend eight hours at a time in this world of pimps and prostitutes, bikers, managers, punters, detectives, florists, heartbroken fathers and resigned daughters, and if someone speaks to me I can't always answer because my mind isn't really in the room. I'm loving it and it's making me a little bit disturbed. I think it will get worse before it gets better.

This is something I've worked towards for two years, or in fact more since I first heard Clemens Meyer reading extracts from the work in progress. It took a long time to find a publisher brave enough to take on the novel and the writer, neither of them easy to work with but both incredibly rewarding. Fitzcarraldo Editions are a new publishing house with some extremely exciting books out already, and I think the novel fits perfectly with their catalogue. And then it took a long time for the publisher to find the money to pay for my work, which is expensive because the book is long. I wanted to do this so badly and I knew it would affect me very intensely, and it is. There's one chapter that I know will make me sick to translate, and I'm hoping I can find a place to work on that chapter where I never have to go again, so that my everyday environment doesn't get poisoned. I'm not sure when that's coming up though.

My translation should be out in the autumn of 2016, and then you will tremble and maybe understand why I'm feeling so strange. I dread to think what the inside of Clemens Meyer's head must have looked like while he wrote it. I dread to think what the inside of my head will look like by the time I finish translating it. I am doing exactly what I want to be doing. But it's so gargantuan that it's making a lot of other things seem small and insignificant. At the risk of laying on the pathos (I don't care though because if Meyer's not scared of pathos then I can't be either), I need to take care of my daughter and myself during my precious hours of sanity, and if that means my blog suffers, so be it.



*Great title, huh? I felt it was my turn to use it.

German Writers on Stage and Screen

This post is going to be one long caveat – I know next to nothing about German theatre. But I recently read this piece by Holger Syme about the Theatertreffen, a festival that invites productions in German to Berlin in the hope of showcasing what's going on in the theatre right now. Syme is troubled that there are four brand new plays in the festival, three book or film adaptations and only three older plays. It took me a while to grasp his point – which is that there has traditionally been a strand of German theatre that uses the classics "to speak to the present" and that this strand is missing from the festival. Because my immediate reaction was, great, new plays getting recognition! Perhaps this is because I'm still annoyed by the British habit of putting Nazi uniforms into productions of German classics – Woyzeck, for goodness' sake! Think harder! I wanted to shout. But I didn't, and it was a very long time ago. At any rate, I'm not sure I share Syme's concerns (after all, this is just one year of one festival) but I'm glad someone's writing about German theatre in English.

I was particularly glad that there are four new plays on the programme and only one novel adaptation. I'm not the only person to feel uncomfortable about these, which are common on German stages. When I've seen them I've come away feeling disgruntled – my readings of novels are so personal that a director's version feels to me rather like a violation, and the brutal abbreviation that's necessary to squeeze a slow-moving novel into a couple of hours' entertainment doesn't help. People who know more about this than me seem to agree that a good book-to-stage adaptation has to go a long way away from the original – embracing that act of appropriation, perhaps, as something creative rather than violent. I think that makes sense. I can only imagine that the book adaptation on the Theatertreffen programme falls into this category, because Judith Schalansky's Atlas of Remote Islands is not a traditional narrative work.

There are reasons for these novel adaptations, though, and they're partly economic – audiences will be familiar with the books' names, at least, and publishers are getting better and better at selling rights for film and stage adaptations. What makes me sad is that a lot of German-language novelists also write for the stage, and have traditionally done so. Off the top of my head: Elfriede Jelinek, Lukas Bärfuss, Kristof Magnusson, Daniela Dröscher, Julya Rabinowich, Max Frisch, Thomas Bernhard, Nino Haratischwili, Feridun Zaimoglu, Kathrin Röggla. And they write plays that don't need adapting, they're made-to-measure pieces for the stage written by astoundingly talented people, and yet the novel adaptations often seem to be a bigger deal. Sheesh, I wish I knew enough about theatre to say that they're actually better quality. I wish I knew enough about theatre to define quality.

Films, I can do a bit better. But there's little point writing the five millionth piece about how page-to-screen adaptations fall short, right? So here, two fabulous things to do with the writer Clemens Meyer, one of my translatees. He's just been awarded a big sparkly prize for best (unfilmed) screenplay, along with co-writer Thomas Stuber, for an adaptation of his short story "In den Gängen". You can read the original story in English in All the Lights. And director Andreas Dresen's adaptation of his debut novel Als wir träumten is competing in the Berlinale as we speak, then on general release in Germany from 26 February. 

Clemens Meyer's Dream of a Police Career

This is so fantastic. When I went out drinking with the writer Clemens Meyer he said the director Andreas Dresen was making a film version of his debut novel Als wir träumten. And he said he hoped he could get a cameo role. This February article in the Märkische Allgemeine gives us a little teaser, and it has an entry on imdb and is in post-production but I can't find a release date.

What you can look at, though, on that Fischer Verlag website 114, is a picture of Clemens in costume as a police officer. With a tiny interview about how he wanted to be a detective on the murder squad when he was a kid, but that became (ahem) impossible. I'm so impressed. It's even better than the larger-than-life painting of him that surprised me in the Leipzig art museum. He's living the dream, that boy is, living the dream.

Bremen Literature Prize 2014 to Clemens Meyer

Hooray! The Bremen Literature Prize will be awarded to Clemens Meyer for his amazing novel Im Stein. €20,000 and it won't arrive in his account until the next financial year.

I rather like this little detail from the award foundation's website:

In December 1959 the judges' suggestion to award the Bremen Literature Prize to Günther Grass for The Tin Drum was rejected by the Bremen senate because of the book's "literary description (...) of disgust and sexuality, death and blasphemy".  

That fits Im Stein as well, don't you think?

The award has gone to various greats since 1954: Ilse Aichinger, Ingeborg Bachmann, Paul Celan, Thomas Bernhard, Christa Wolf, Alexander Kluge, Volker Braun, Peter Handke, Wolfgang Hilbig, Elfriede Jelinek, WG Sebald, Ulrich Peltzer, Reinhard Jirgl, Felicitas Hoppe, Clemens Setz. They now also have a smaller prize for emerging writers, which has also proved to be in good taste, and this year goes to Roman Ehrlich for his debut novel Das kalte Jahr.

On Gushing

I gush. I do, I know I do it but I can't stop.

I get hooked on certain books and certain writers. I write about them here and sometimes elsewhere, in glowing tones and all that. Repeatedly. And then occasionally, I'm lucky enough to translate them. So I have a vested interest in gushing, to some extent.

I read my friend Henry Holland's report on Clemens Meyer on his blog Goethe's Gonna Getya. He says:

I had got it wrong, quite, quite wrong. I'd read Katy (Derbyshire) hyping, pushing, gushing about & explaining this man on her Love German Books, but I wasn't able to trust her backing Meyer. I thought self-interest was at play, that she's only praising this guy to the heavens cause she's already had her translation of one of Meyer's books published, & maybe more are in the pipeline. (...) But thank God I did read Katy communicating Meyer, even if I mis-read her. That misreading was enough to make me get a ticket to hear and see Meyer reading on the old trans-atlantic ferry boat, The Cap San Diego, two nights ago as part of the Harbour Front Festival.

Thankfully, Henry was actually impressed when he saw Meyer in person.

Another time, I met Clemens on the evening after he was shortlisted for the German Book Prize, and I was very excited and pleased for him, and for myself as his translator, I have to admit. And a friend said to me, Oh, you've got dollar signs in your eyes. And I was upset because I hadn't been thinking in terms of money. It's not like I'd have got any of Clemens's prize money if he had actually won. It was more that it would have made it easier for his publisher to sell the translation rights to his 550-page novel about the sex industry.

So I've been thinking about my literary enthusiasms and how they come across to other people. I do gush, it's true. I think, as far as I can judge myself, that my gushing is just part of my personality, that evangelical zeal to share my passions. I'm glad there are things I'm enthusiastic enough about to want to recommend them to other people. I'm glad I'm not a wizened cynic like some of the people who work in publishing, and I'm glad I have the buffer of working for myself rather than for a publisher, which I hope protects me from that cynicism and the kind of glassy-eyed automatic praise I occasionally hear from publishing people whose job it is to talk up their company's books.

But here's the thing. There is indeed some self-interest at play. I do really want to translate certain books. But that self-interest is not of a monetary nature. At the risk of laying on the pathos, I have to explain that every book I translates makes me poorer than I could be. If I were translating contracts and advertising copy rather than literature, as I used to, I would be earning more. Translating literature does pay better in the UK than in many other countries (including the USA), but translating almost anything else pays better than that. I supplement what I earn from literary translation through commercial translation, mainly for museums. If I didn't do that I wouldn't be able to pay the rent - although my rent isn't as low as it could be, for personal reasons.

The reason why I really want to translate certain books is because I love translating books I adore. It's a huge luxury and something that makes me genuinely happy. I know I'm privileged to be in my position right now, having enough literary work to keep me going. That's a wonderful thing. Most people I come across do not love their jobs, and I do. When I translate Clemens Meyer, for instance, I develop tunnel vision and focus only on words and rhythm for hours on end. It's scary but exhilarating.

But I'm becoming aware that people may not understand that. That it may be a tiny bit annoying when I rabbit on about a book I love for the seventeenth time. That editors to whom I recommend books may think I'm doing it solely to get my hands on their budgets. That readers of my blog might think I big up my own translations in order to boost my huge royalty payments (while most contracts I sign either don't grant me any royalties at all, or royalties only kick in after a very optimistic number of books have been sold). I've always felt slightly uncomfortable writing about my own translations, actually, and I'm trying to come up with a way to do that without feeling like I'm blowing my own trumpet too much. More on that another time. 

So, to sum up this rambling post: Yes, I gush. Part of that gushing comes in the form of translating extracts, placing them in magazines, sending them to editors and so on, in the hope that I can one day possibly translate the entire book for my own pleasure and also so that other people can read it for their pleasure. The other part is just plain gushing on this blog. You don't have to read it and if you do read it, you don't have to share my opinion. But I'm proud to say that when I gush, it is genuine.

...And the Shortlist Sample Translations!

But the VERY VERY EXCITING thing is that English sample translations of all six German Book Prize contenders are now online at New Books in German. Please take the rest of the day off work and read them all. They are by Martin Chalmers, Iain Galbraith, me, Zaia Alexander, Kári Driscoll and Alexandra Roesch. So obviously you should start with the Clemens Meyer one.

And seeing as you happen to be a publishing type with a large budget at your disposal, you could also enquire about buying translation rights, now that you too have fallen for Im Stein.

Meyer and Me

Why yes, I did go out drinking with Clemens Meyer. He plays the trumpet and likes Benedict Cumberbatch and James Joyce and single malt whisky from Islay. He is also an outstanding writer.

Shortlist Shortlist Shortlist Joy

Hooray! Here's the shortlist for this year's German Book Prize.

Mirko Bonné: Nie mehr Nacht

Reinhard Jirgl: Nichts von euch auf Erden

Clemens Meyer: Im Stein (hooray hooray hooray)

Terézia Mora: Das Ungeheuer

Marion Poschmann: Die Sonnenposition

Monika Zeiner: Die Ordnung der Sterne über Como

German Book Prize 2013: My Take on the Longlist

The six-title shortlist for the German Book Prize is announced on Wednesday, and I have finally finished my traditional trawl through the longlist extracts. There are a number of excellent books on the list and a couple that simply puzzled me. I have a clear favourite but it wasn't hard to select five others for my personal shortlist, which you'll find at the bottom of the piece. I've also turbo-translated sample sentences from each extract and added a couple of pointers to what they have in common. For links to the books, please see my previous piece.

So here you are:

Mirko Bonné: Nie mehr Nacht

An artist and his nephew travel to France, dealing in parallel with the boy’s mother’s suicide and all the young men who died when the Allies landed in 1944. I admire Bonné’s prose a great deal and I think the novel is probably well-structured too. Thoughtful, reflective, well-written. This is one of my favourites; reviews have been good.

Sample sentence: “Ira called the house her fossilization.”

Non-USPs: Dead character, artist character, (mental) health issues, three-word title, writer also translates, writer also a poet, German-speakers abroad, family matters

Ralph Dutli: Soutines letzte Fahrt

A novel about the Jewish painter Chaim Soutine in occupied France, 1943. He is sick and remembering his life in a morphine-induced delirium. The subject feels a little specialised, but I suppose it explores art and exile and sickness via a single life. The extract felt to me rather bitty and pretentious, laying it on a little too thick for my taste. Too much mustard, if you get what I mean. Reviews have been very enthusiastic though.

Sample sentence: “A sharp click like from a gun, a dry snapping into the waiting lock.”

Non-USPs: (Mental) health issues, three-word title, writer also translates, writer also a poet, artist character, framing device

Thomas Glavinic: Das größere Wunder

I’m not a fan of Glavinic’s writing. I find it kind of middlebrow, exploring simple ideas in too long a format, and this seems to fall into the same category. A man climbs Mount Everest and remembers his life – perhaps I’m missing something but I found the extract slightly kitsch and not all that promising, personally. Reviews have been mixed; critics have been confirming the kitsch and clichés but liking it nevertheless.

Sample sentence: “For Jonas, time had its own smell, the way it had its own mood and a few characteristic images.”

Non-USPs: Three-word title, German-speakers abroad, love story, framing device, trilogy, family matters

Norbert Gstrein: Eine Ahnung vom Anfang

A teacher thinks he recognises an extremist with a bomb in the newspaper as his former favourite pupil. Cue confusing memories. Gstrein writes in a very ambitious style, and I appreciate that. There’s little explaining; the story seems to tell itself. The extract made me curious and reviews have been good.

Sample sentence: “The route disappears into the hill immediately after that, to protect the village from traffic noise, and one can watch for ever as the tunnel swallows up car after car like a giant maw.”

Non-USPs: Framing device, teacher character

Reinhard Jirgl: Nichts von euch auf Erden

In the 23^rd century, humankind has settled Mars and the Earth has regressed, but then the Mars people come back to kick a bit of shape into the Earth people. Also some fun ideas about sex in the future, which I think I heard him read in Leipzig in the spring. A very odd book that, as with all of Jirgl’s writing, challenges the reader (although the extract doesn’t feature his special orthography). Big big stuff, I suspect too big for me, and too much for a number of reviewers as well. But you have to respect the guy for it.

Sample sentence: “These artificial membranes – called the imagospheres – consist of thin, extremely resistant, electrically conductive woven fibreglass.”

Non-USPs: Genre as high lit, German-speakers abroad

Daniel Kehlmann: F

I’m sorry, but I have an irrational dislike of Daniel Kehlmann; he’s just one of those writers. Three brothers, truth and lies, family, forgery, fiction and filosophy. All the Fs, you see. I can’t tell much from the extract other than it’s trying to build up tension, and reviews have been mixed. Some critics love it, others are harder on him for not going deeply enough into the issues he tries to raise. I won’t be reading it but it’ll no doubt be translated. Readers who like this book will also like… Jonathan Franzen.

Sample sentence: “Years later – they were all grown up and each entangled in his own misfortune – none of Arthur Friedland’s sons remembered whose idea it had been to visit the hypnotist that afternoon.”

Non-USPs: Family matters, one-word title

Judith Kuckart: Wünsche

A woman finds someone else’s stuff and escapes the German provinces to London with a stolen identity, while someone else opens up a department store called “Wishes”. I rather liked the extract, its jerky rhythm and special charm. There are a lot of contradictions in a small space, and critics have said it’s a clever, melancholy novel with the kind of flaws you can overlook, about how wishes don’t make anyone happy.

Sample sentence: “Or perhaps it’s the fault of the way Vera sits on the teacher’s desk during lessons and crosses her legs when she asks the hordes of eighteen-year-old painters and decorators, plumbers, bricklayers and carpenters how they imagine life at thirty.”

Non-USPs: Teacher character, provinces, German-speakers abroad, family matters, one-word title

Olaf Kühl: Der wahre Sohn

A sort of detective ends up in the Ukraine and gets drawn into a strange family, whose son is in a mental hospital and obsessed with his missing nanny and violent Ukrainian history. Gorgeous long and short sentences in the extract, very sharp prose. No reviews as the book’s not out for a couple of days, but I know I’m quite intrigued. Promisingly non-clichéd, especially as the writer really knows his stuff as a translator of some great Polish writers.

Sample sentence: “Reaching for the packed bag, not enough sleep but awake anyway and a little bit like hungover, even though not much was drunk the night before, slamming the front door and going down the stairs, through that smell of floor polish and indefinable stew, throwing the bag on the back seat of the car, one last look up at the windows on the third floor (…).”

Non-USPs: Genre as high lit, writer also a translator, German-speakers abroad, family matters, (mental) health issues, three-word title, place as character

Dagmar Leupold: Unter der Hand

Good grief. A rich Italian man pays a German lady writer to write, providing she brings people joy. So she tells her life story in a fairytale manner, apparently, and a neighbour finds the manuscript alongside her dead body. I disliked the style and found the premise too contrived. Also, I don’t think literature needs to make anyone happy in such a simplistic manner (although perhaps that’s the moral of the story, but I still don’t want to read a book to find that out). There haven’t been many reviews.

Sample sentence: “Minna is lying on her bed with a bedspread over it, wearing a white man’s shirt and tight black trousers.”

Non-USPs: Framing device, writer also a translator, three-word title, love story

Jonas Lüscher: Frühling der Barbaren

A Swiss businessman witnesses London stockbrokers celebrating in Tunisia, and then comes the crash and brings them down with it, far from home. And tells the story inside a mental institution, I believe. I liked the extract a lot – it hints at complexity, intelligence and wit, in a strangely old-fashioned diction. And I like the idea of trying to tackle political and social issues in fiction. Reviews have been excellent; it’s another of my favourites.

Sample sentence: “Preising was still in demand as the face of the company, though, because Prodanovic knew if there was one thing Preising could do, it was giving an impression of consistency, the unshakable spirit of a family company in the fourth generation.”

Non-USPs: Debut novel, German-speakers abroad, three-word title, social/political issues, (mental) health issues, framing device, place as character

Clemens Meyer: Im Stein

This is the best novel on the list and ought to win. Reviews have been awe-struck.

Sample sentence: “And I stand by the window and push the slats of the blind apart with my fingers and look at the houses on the other side of the road, the sun behind them turning red now and the night coming up.”

Non-USPs: Social/political issues, dead character (briefly), genre as high-lit (sometimes), place as character

Joachim Meyerhoff: Wann wird es endlich wieder so, wie es nie war

The actor Joachim Meyerhoff is writing his life story with a twinkle in his eye, and this is the second part. He grew up inside a mental institution, which his father ran. The writing is fun, light and entertaining but raises some serious issues. It won’t win but it’s well worth reading. Reviews have said pretty much the same thing.

Sample sentence: “His feet and calves were on the grass, the rest of his body in the flowerbed.”

Non-USPs: Dead character, (mental) health issues, trilogy, family matters, provinces, autobiography

Terézia Mora: Das Ungeheuer

Darius Kopp’s Hungarian wife has died and he’s trying to dispose of her ashes illegally on a journey around Europe. Meanwhile, at the bottom of the pages, he reads her diary. I’ve heard Mora read from the novel twice now and have been very impressed. Great tone, marvellous structure, complex language, very sad. Only just out but great reviews. Another of my favourites.

Sample sentence: “What are you laughing at, hyenas, who are you anyway, what are you doing here, Juri, for God’s sake, you swine!”

Non-USPs: Dead character, place as character, German-speakers abroad, trilogy, love story, writer also a translator

Marion Poschmann: Die Sonnenposition

I’m reading this novel at the moment, and enjoying every sentence. A psychiatrist in a mental institution loses a friend and then loses grip on his own sanity. I suspect it’s much more complex than that, though. I love Poschmann’s language: so precise, and capturing so much in few words, sometimes previously non-existent ones. There are no clumsy explanations in here – everything’s subtly shared through the mood and the language. Early reviews are equally enthusiastic.

Sample sentence: “From the middle of the sun hangs the cable for the chandelier, an old East German model.”

Non-USPs: Dead character, writer also a poet, (mental) health issues, family matters, provinces

Thomas Stangl: Regeln des Tanzes

Three characters walking Vienna, several years apart. A retired academic finds two rolls of film, pictures of two sisters fifteen years previously. The women were heavily involved in demonstrations against Austria’s neo-fascists and hedonism, respectively. I enjoyed the extract’s dense prose and characterisation, its unorthodox style, but I wasn’t sure I’d want to read 280 pages of it. Not many reviews yet.

Sample sentence: “For the first time since her father’s death she has the feeling that something’s really at an end, and this time not only (do you think that, ‘not only’?) for her and the whole small area of her own life, but for the whole country and perhaps, regardless of how small and insignificant the country is, as a consequence for the whole continent and all the countries that call themselves democracies.”

Non-USPs: Dead character, social/political issues, place as character, family matters

Jens Steiner: Carambole

Social panorama of Swiss village life told from twelve different perspectives. The extract annoyed me (perhaps a poor choice?). I felt there were too many clumsy markers telling us about the character, a middle-aged mother with a less than fulfilling life. It’s hard to tell much about the novel as a whole as it’s only just come out and hasn’t been reviewed yet. But what I read didn’t seem promising.

Sample sentence: “I turned away and picked up an old Brigitte magazine from the telephone table.”

Non-USPs: Place as character, family matters, social/political issues, one-word title

Uwe Timm: Vogelweide

A man has failed at family and business life and is now looking after birds alone on an island. Only then his ex-affair comes to visit and he remembers what happened back in Berlin. With lots of references to older literature (including the title). I really like Timm’s prose, really. Beautiful sentences that must take either hours to get right or come out perfectly formed in the first place. Unfortunately, everyone who’s read the novel is disappointed, critics included.

Sample sentence: “Here, where he was standing now, had been only water and mud flats forty years ago.”

Non-USPs: Framing device, teacher character, love story, place as character

Nellja Veremej: Berlin liegt im Osten

A woman moves from the Caucasus to Berlin and works as a carer, weaving her clients’ stories with her own. I heard Veremej read from the autobiographically-shaped novel earlier this year and found it a tiny bit too flowery for my taste, and the extract confirmed that for me. But the critics love it: Döblin, Tolstoy, exile, expectations, disillusionment, they say. So maybe I’m wrong.

Sample sentence: “The contours and colours melted away until the memory of the little town consisted only of a few grey snapshots: the long, low house built of rough stones.”

Non-USPs: Place as character, social/political issues, (mental) health issues

Urs Widmer: Reise an den Rand des Universums

Every Swiss person’s favourite writer has started writing his autobiography, after writing his father’s and his mother’s stories and pretty much using his own life as material for ever anyway. So it may be a little tongue-in-cheek, as is his wont. The extract is about his childhood memories of the war, which he could literally see across the Swiss border. Charming, witty and skilfully told. Reviews have been good.

Sample sentence: “(The war) wasn’t visible in Basel, hardly, or at times it was, as even for a child – especially for a child – there were signs of it everywhere.”

Non-USPs: Autobiography

Monika Zeiner: Die Ordnung der Sterne über Como

A musician meets an ex-lover in Italy and they remember their affair and her partner’s death. I wasn’t convinced by the extract; there were a lot of style issues I was unhappy with and nothing yelled “new and interesting” at me. Reviews are few and far between and similarly unmoved.

Sample sentence: “Once again, she stood in her underwear in front of the darkness of her wardrobe, and her eyes alighted on the blue princess dress that Alfredo had bought her in a boutique on Via Chiaia many years ago, and its torn hem.”

Non-USPs: Dead character, German-speakers abroad, place as character, framing device, love story, debut

+++++

The Love German Books Shortlist:

Mirko Bonné

Olaf Kühl

Jonas Lüscher

Clemens Meyer

Terézia Mora

Marion Poschmann

And you won't be biting your nails to find out who'd win if I ruled the world, obviously.

Clemens Meyer: Im Stein

How can I write about this book, Im Stein? It’s so hard.

I first heard Clemens read from it – what became its final chapter – in 2008. I first read it in an antisocial delirium in April, just after it was finished. I translated an extract in May. It came out two days ago and I have been re-reading it. Until then it felt like it belonged to me. I realize that’s nonsense, but it doesn’t stop me feeling jealous, wildly and fiercely so, that other people can read the book now and write about it and talk about it – and they are, and how. I know the only way I can claim it back for myself is to translate the whole thing.

I don’t want to tell you what it’s about, but I will. This won’t be a review because I can’t do it justice. It’s not a novel that will fit into a review.

It’s about the sex industry, about prostitutes and the men who make money out of them. It’s about one particular man, Arnold Kraushaar, who rents flats out to prostitutes and provides them with services, a man who doesn’t see himself as a pimp as such. And there are other men with other names running other businesses, club managers, gang members, policemen, fathers and regular customers. And there are women who work as prostitutes, and we learn some of their names but they never tell us them directly. It’s about the changes that happen in one big city in East Germany, from a state that tolerated a miniscule amount of informal prostitution to one in which it has been a legalized industry for ten years.

And there are stones and rocks – gemstones and crystal and eyes like diamonds, and tunnels through the rock under the city, and there are angels and killers and horror and there’s even love, or something like it. The women are all so different but most of them so strong, and p. 301 made me cry twice over and I had to skip one chapter when reading for the second time. There is Machiavelli and Karl Marx and Wolfgang Hilbig and David Peace and Hubert Fichte and Lewis Carroll, and no doubt more I haven’t identified. And it ends – almost – with Mahler, but is otherwise nothing like Open City.

Mostly though it’s Clemens Meyer. I know his work very well and, looking at the book again over the past few days, I’ve started to understand what style might mean. Because he employs a number of the techniques from his previous writing here, sharp cuts or stream of consciousness, switching perspectives or making us reel with his characters as the ground falls away beneath their feet. At times he reinvents modernism; snatches of song and conversation, wandering thoughts in the city – very Döblinesque. And he blatantly ignores the rules of reality, physics and even writing, to produce literature that nonetheless feels utterly true-to-life. Dreams never dreamt, conversations never held, dances never danced, dead men’s thoughts. All these things that worked so well in his debut novel, Als wir träumten, and in his short stories that I translated as All the Lights, and in the diary-form collection Gewalten, come together here in an almost overwhelming structure. Meyer skips back and forth in time but propels us along as Arnold Kraushaar ages. He has buried mysteries in his bedrock, which we can trace as the story moves on. But they’re not the driving force of this style-led novel.

People are talking about the book’s morals, but a novel doesn’t have morals. What Meyer has done though is given us these women’s voices, telling banal stories or horrifying ones, making us laugh. Im Stein starts and finishes with prostitutes talking to us about their working days, and there is a great deal of sex in between too, although most of it is not sexy; it’s their job. For the men, too, it’s mostly business. I think that’s what the author wanted to tell us.

The reviews have been excellent, but what bothers me about many of them is that they want to talk about prostitution. Perhaps that’s inevitable; perhaps it’s not yet a topic people can view without a moral lens. There are two things I’d like you to read instead, to give you an idea of the many things that went into the book: an interview with Clemens Meyer and a promotional piece including photos of his desk. You can also read a pdf sample from the first chapter. Im Stein is longlisted for the German Book Prize and I assume will make the shortlist, after which you should be able to read at least part of my translated extract online. And then British and American publishers will buy the translation rights and you’ll be able to read it all in English, one day.

Wilhelm Raabe Longlist

They announced the longlist for the prestigious Wilhelm Raabe Literature Prize, which is awarded by Deutschlandradio and the City of Braunschweig and worth €30,000.

Mirko Bonné: Nie mehr Nacht

Gunther Geltinger: Moor

Thomas Glavinic: Das größere Wunder

Ernst-Wilhelm Händler: Der Überlebende

Georg Klein: Die Zukunft des Mars

Brigitte Kronauer: Gewäsch und Gewimmel

Hartmut Lange: Das Haus in der Dorotheenstraße

Rainer Merkel: Bo

Clemens Meyer: Im Stein

Terézia Mora: Das Ungeheuer

Hans Pleschinski: Königsallee

Marion Poschmann: Die Sonnenposition

A lot of big books on this list - Geltinger read from something that became this novel at Klagenfurt in 2011 and I liked it, Bonné, Merkel and Klein have adventure books for boys, Kronauer and Poschmann give us mental health issues, as does Mora, perhaps, in a sequel to her last book, and Pleschinski's book is a Thomas Mann novel (surely a genre of its own by now, the novel about major German novelists).

My favourite, though, is obviously Clemens Meyer's Im Stein, which is out on 22 August. I'm not allowed to review it until then, which is tough because I've been loving it with a passion since April and talking about little else.

The award is a little complicated. It goes to a writer for a book out this year, but it also takes in all their previous work. And it's gone to some really top writers in the past, from Max Frisch to Ralf Rothmann and Sibylle Lewitscharoff.  

Ampersand/MixLit

The publishers And Other Stories have launched their new blog Ampersand - with a special treat made out of all eight of their books so far.

Leonardo Villa-Forte has made a mashup, including parts of Clemens Meyer's story "Riding the Rails", if I'm not mistaken. It speaks volumes about something I've been thinking about recently - what we can do with literature if we abandon the idea of reading as a passive process. Beautiful.

On Loving

Last weekend saw the annual German literary translators' get-together, as I mentioned previously. And one of the features is an evening event at which translators read from their work on a selection of themes. I unleashed my inner diva and read a short story by Clemens Meyer, "A Ship Will Come", from my translation of his collection All the Lights.

Partly, it was a fantastic ego-massage exercise. Some Germans have a tendency to read in a slightly monotonous manner, so if you raise and lower your voice and speed up and slow down and do the kind of thing you'd generally do when reading a bedtime story, German audiences can be very impressed. And the atmosphere among literary translators, as I'm sure I've mentioned before, is terribly supportive and appreciative - possibly because we don't see each other very often - so people did actually come up to me over the weekend and tell me how much they enjoyed it. Which was wonderful. Thanks everyone!

But one major reason why I enjoyed it and the audience did too is that the story's just so damn good. I really, really love that story. I won't tell you much about it because obviously I want you to buy the book and enjoy it for yourself, but it leaves a lot open to interpretation and it gets you almost as confused as its protagonist. I love the way Clemens Meyer does that to his readers, it's a real art.

Later in the weekend there was a panel discussion between the writer Katharina Hagena and her English and Norwegian translators, Jamie Bulloch and Elisabeth Hallvorsen. The chair Gregor Dotzauer asked about the differences between writing and translating, suggesting that writers put more of themselves into the process. Now that may or may not be the case, but it made me think of something else.

One huge benefit we translators have - if we're lucky - is that we're free to adore the writing we work on. I imagine that most writers are never fully satisfied with their writing, similarly to the way most translators are never fully satisfied with our translations. But while I do feel that frustration, at the same time I can marvel at what someone else has put into words. And I can say, "Yes, I genuinely love this story!" I don't know, maybe I'm the only person who feels that way, but it gives me the conviction to present the writing I've translated with enthusiasm and - yes, absolutely - with love. I hope that comes across.

Best European Fiction 2012

Have I mentioned that Dalkey Archive Press's latest edition of their Best European Fiction anthology includes a story by Clemens Meyer? Possibly in reaction to those accusations of being middle-class and irrelevant, they chose a rather upsetting piece about a murderer, which was no fun at all to translate, and apparently also no fun to write either.

But if it's not fun you're after - and you happen to be in London - then you can catch Clemens himself in conversation with Sanneke van Hassel (The Netherlands) and Duncan Bush (Wales) at the Southbank Centre this coming Monday. I assume the editor Aleksandar Hemon will be there too, who doesn't look quite as pouty and rebellious in real life as he does in the photo, sadly. I attended last year's event and was pleasantly surprised by the range of voices presented, and also by the free glass of wine afterwards.

And speaking of best fiction and London, the wonderful Charlotte Ryland has a guest piece on the Foyles blog. She writes about how German-language fiction isn't what people used to think it was, highlighting a few excellent examples. Foyles, in case you don't know, is an excellent bookshop in London, the kind where you can go to the information desk and ask, "Excuse me, who was it that wrote The Yiddish Policemen's... ummm... Thingy?" and the charming information person will reply at the drop of a hat, "Michael Chabon" - without making you feel like a total fool. And then they'll also have it on their incredibly long fiction shelves. If Foyles were a man, I'd take him home with me. He would no doubt peruse my personal bookshelves with interest and ask intelligent questions that didn't make me feel inadequate. And really, what more could a girl ask for?

Generation Germany Goes UK

Brits! March is the month to catch outstanding German writers on your very own turf! To wit:  Clemens Meyer at Edinburgh's Wee Red Bar on 13 March and Leeds Central Library on the 14th. And before that, Jan Brandt at UCL with Joe Dunthorne and Philip Oltermann under the teeth-hurting title of Generation X Reflects on 7 March.

Clemens Meyer is a super-talented writer with a penchant for all things gloomy. You can – no, you should – read my translation of his short stories All the Lights, to discover how excellent writing lifts you out of a gloom. Joe Dunthorne has written an impressive, witty, entertaining short novel about growing up in Wales which has been made into a film. Jan Brandt has written an impressive, witty, entertaining very long novel about growing up in East Frisia which has been somehow made into a live radio play. Philip Oltermann has written a book I haven't read yet about Anglo-German encounters. 

I believe Mr Brandt will also be holding public readings in Oxford and Cambridge. And also hanging out with students in London. Mr Meyer will no doubt also be out and about sampling the delights of Edinburgh. So keep your eyes peeled!

Fantasy Launch List

The lovely ladies at Peirene Press recently shared an email they got from the editor Andrew Wille. In it, he praises the way they have been making their mark in their particular niche – European short fiction. And he adds that he's teaching a class of creative writing students and has given them the assignment of creating a fantasy launch list for their own publishing companies.

Now that got me thinking. And thinking, and thinking, and having a thoroughly good time thinking about setting up my own niche publishing house. The niche, as you might guess, would be excellent and innovative contemporary German-language fiction. And here's my very own fantasy launch list, arranged around the theme of coming of age, seeing as I'd be a fledgling publisher:

First off, an old favourite that still hasn't found a publisher in English: Selim Özdogan's Die Tochter des Schmieds. It's a beautiful, evocative and loving portrait of a girl growing up in 1950s rural Turkey. And it's part one of a trilogy, so there'd be lots to look forward to.

Secondly, Olga Grjasnowa's forthcoming Der Russe ist einer, der Birken liebt. Trauma, loss, survival in Azerbaijan, Germany and Israel, beautifully written and composed. A girl who asks all the right questions but can't find the answers. 

Number three would be Jan Brandt's Gegen die Welt. 927 pages of East Frisian gothic, as a friend of mine put it. A boy's youth is an absolute disaster, while the village he comes from lives and breathes in his descriptions.

Finally, number four would be Clemens Meyer's Als wir träumten. Lads living it up in Leipzig, before and after the Wall came down.

All in all, perhaps a tad melancholy. I'd probably have to find some more cheerful books for the next season. What would you put on your fantasy launch lists?

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Also, if you happen to work in publishing and have a degree in economics and also speak German, the perfect job opening's come up: senior commissioning editor at Bloomsbury Berlin. Go here to download the details.

All the Lights Playlist Part 3

Here's the third and final installment of the playlist to go with Clemens Meyer's short story collection All the Lights. Do go out and buy a copy, why don't you?

Story Eleven: Riding the Rails – two men who form a bond in prison meet up again on the outside and travel around Germany pulling petty crimes. The song: KD Lang’s Ridin’ the Rails – because this is how the two imagine themselves, a romantic couple of hobos. The title (which is a long way from the original “Wir reisen”) wasn’t inspired by the song, but it could have been.

Story Twelve: Your Hair Is Beautiful – a man abandons his wife, having fallen for a prostitute he believes to be Lithuanian. The song: Joe Cocker, You Are So Beautiful – because it’s ridiculous and obsessive and OTT and imagine someone saying something like that to you. You’d want to do something nasty to them too.

Story Thirteen: A Ship Will Come – a young asylum-seeker boxes her way up through life. The song: Iggy Pop’s Lust for Life – because it’s punchy and go-getting and there’s no resisting it. And it's in Trainspotting, which a few people have compared Clemens' writing to.

Story Fourteen: Carriage 29 – a wine salesman finds himself on a train and can’t quite work out what on earth he’s doing there. The song: The Beatles’ Helter Skelter – because this is one of those Clemens Meyer stories that whirls you round and makes you dizzy and brash with confusion, just like the protagonist.

Story fifteen: The Old Man Buries His Beasts – an old man kills his animals and says goodbye to his neighbours in a dying village. I have to admit I was stumped to find a song to go with this very precisely told, melancholy story. To I crowdsourced it and my colleague Shaun Whiteside came up with Randy Newman’s Old Man – the perfect match.

Anyway, thanks for your patience, and do excuse the rather strange link choices. It's partly because a lot of material isn't available for viewing in Germany due to Youtube restrictions.

All the Lights Playlist Part 2: Guest Post by Jamie Lee Searle

Following on from yesterday’s Part 1 of the playlist, I jumped at the chance when Katy asked if I’d like to write a guest post and choose the next five tracks. I was lucky enough to edit her translations of Clemens Meyer’s All the Lights, and fell for many of the stories in the process. Here are my picks:

Story Six: I’m Still Here – a journeyman boxer from Rotterdam on the road in Germany, who gets knocked down time and time again, but keeps on trying to make money to support his wife and future child. The song: Simon and Garfunkel’s The Boxer, not just because of the title, but the lyrics: ‘In the company of strangers/In the quiet of the railway station running scared.’ And, because he gives into temptation on occasion too: ‘I do declare, there were times when I was so lonesome/I took some comfort there.’

Story Seven: All the Lights – A man meets up with an old flame. Perhaps my favourite in the collection; the simple but powerful prose highlights everything they don’t say to each other. The song: Neil Young’s Heart of Gold. Because, for me, it fits the mood – that wistful awareness of what you could have had, but moving on all the same…

Story Eight: The Short Happy Life of Johannes Vettermann – a disturbing tale of a man holed up in an opulent hotel suite with drugs and hookers and memories. The song: Jimi Hendrix’ Purple Haze. Because the tense, hallucinogenic atmosphere of the song matches how I felt when I was reading and editing it.

Story Nine: A Trip to the River – a guy gets let out of prison and goes to visit his cellmate’s daughter to pass on some money to her, only to find she’s working as a hooker. The song: Johnny Cash’s San Quentin. ‘And I walk out a wiser, weaker man’. Because both the story and the song tell of difficult lives, bad things happen and repeat through the generations – but there’s an element of gritty determination to keep going too. And also because I love Johnny Cash and was determined to fit him in somewhere.

Story Ten: In the Aisles - about a shelf-stacker who spends his nights working in the aisles of a cash'n'carry and forms a tentative bond with two co-workers, an old man and a young, fragile married woman. The song: Barbara Jones' I Can't Help it, Darling. Katy actually suggested this one and I agreed as soon as I listened to it - because it has a bitter-sweet feeling that reminds me of the prose.


Thanks, Katy, for letting me join in!

Jamie Lee Searle is a German to English translator and blogs at http://translatingbetweenthelines.wordpress.com
Many thanks from me too, for the editing and the playlist. Come back tomorrow for more musical fun, pop-pickers!