Open Mike 2011

The Open Mike is probably - no, not probably, absolutely - the most important competition for young writers in German. It takes place across an entire weekend in November in Berlin, and has launched many a career. The idea is to take 22 writers under the age of 36, I believe, whittled down from over 700 entries this year, and get them to read for 15 minutes each, under the misleading title of "Open Mike". It's presumably the English title that encourages these young writers to sprinkle their texts with English phrases - or I'm just over 36 and don't understand the youth of today. Anyway, and then three writers choose their favourites and they get a bunch of flowers and are whisked away, Miss World-style, on a whistlestop tour of appearances in other cities.

There's also the taz-Audience Prize, where mere mortals choose their favourites and they just get a bunch of flowers and a nice taz mug and their story in the paper but not all the Miss World treatment. Regular readers may remember that I myself was one of the mere mortals allowed to choose the audience prize last year. This year, unfortunately, I couldn't actually attend the main competition - but I did go to the pre-event reading by past winners and also managed to catch the awards ceremony.

I'd been looking forward to the reading on Friday night because I was interested to find out what had become of our audience winner from last year, Sebastian Polmans. In fact I do know what's become of him; he's just published his first novel with Suhrkamp. I also know he had the contract in his pocket before we gave him the prize, but my vain ego wanted to hear grateful words from Polman's own lips for my personal part in building his legend. It was not to be - Polmans was sick and couldn't attend the event. Instead, we had Ondřej Cikán, who isn't a past winner in the strictest sense, not having actually won, but who did read some great cowboy poems in 2009. Alongside Konstantin Ames, who did win with his poems in 2009, and Rabea Edel, who won with prose in 2004.

German critics have been arguing recently about whether the autobiographically influenced first-person narrative has passed its zenith. Certainly, Friday evening was evidence of German writers who couldn't be much further away from that first-person model. Ames was not my cup of tea. I shall give him the benefit of the doubt and assume it was nerves that made him react so rudely to the moderator. And also that he is capable of thinking beyond national clichés à la: the British are better at irony. Whatever the case, however, he stated that poetry is not there to be understood, and his poems were indeed magnificently impenetrable. We learned nothing whatsoever about Konstantin Ames from his poems, except perhaps that he speaks English and French and reads Jandl.

The pattern continued with Cikán, who read from a glorious novel by the name of Menandros und Thaïs. It's set in ancient Greece! Sort of! With gruesome battles and abductions! And cups of tea! I was truly impressed and enjoyed the reading enormously, partly because it was such fun to see a writer go ahead and write about ancient Greek warriors and their soap-opera adventures. Ah! And then came Rabea Edel, who for me is the epitome of beautiful artifice. I mean that in a good way, Rabea. I know her vaguely, and like her, and yet I know absolutely nothing whatsoever about her because she seems to be a very private person. She read from her second novel Ein dunkler Moment, which again couldn't be more distinct from me, me, me literature. It's based very loosely around the Amanda Knox case, and I found it extremely chilling and extremely well-written, with a plot that is extremely unlikely and so all the more fascinating. There are writers, then, who prefer to keep themselves to themselves when it comes to their literature, despite the benefits or the ease of marketing oneself even through one's writing - I was going to call it banking in on the autobiographical, but that sounds too judgemental. Because of course it's a perfectly legitimate thing to do, and it's really the critics who need to stop discovering imaginary trends every ten minutes.

So then today I arrived at the venue just in time to catch precisely 30 seconds of the very last reading. This, I decided while talking to everyone else who'd just sat through two days solid of readings, was a great strategy. I bought the anthology to read later and appeared astoundingly witty and cheerful in comparison to the rest of the audience. It helped that my friend and I had a portion-sized bottle of fizzy wine each, which we drank through straws like the supermodels do, apparently. Just for that Miss World feeling. The drawback was that I couldn't enjoy the usual bitching sessions about the pretentious/talentless/bad-haired writers, but a few stock phrases got me by well enough: I can never concentrate on poetry, I hate it when they put English words into all their texts, They're just not adventurous enough these days, Why all the adjectives? and the classic: Didn't like her outfit much.

Eventually the juries had made their decisions and the press conference had been held, and we all took our seats for the ceremony. But what was this? Last year when I was on the audience jury - did I mention that already? - we had to go on stage and introduce ourselves personally in front of hundreds of people. And I died a million deaths and looked really shite. I know that because I saw a photo of myself later, so even if you were there and you saw me there's no point denying it. This year there was none of that, just a very brief list of the names and a wee speech from one of the jury members, none of whom looked shite. They chose Christina Böhm for her story "Platzanweisung", which was a bitter reflection on the culture industry from its margins, dripping with black humour. It also featured Kleist and Wyatt Earp. I wonder if Böhm would appreciate that it reminded me of Helene Hegemann? My quibble would be the ending: And then I woke up.

The jury jury (Felicitas Hoppe, Tilman Rammstedt and Kathrin Schmidt) also chose Christina Böhm, along with Joseph Felix Ernst for "Dora Diamant", which I found great fun, a fragmentary text about Dora and Kafka in the last few months of his life, and featuring a chess match rendered entirely in algebraic notation and a scientific lecture about moths and also several mentions of Kleist. I rather wish I'd seen Ernst reading it, although my favourite of Kafka's ladyfriends is of course Milena Jesenská. The designated poetry prize went to Sebastian Unger, who I'm assured is very good. Certainly his poems appear to be highly intertextual and semantically inventive.

Next year I'm sure I'll enjoy myself all the more for not having attended this time around.

Things I Am Looking Forward To in 2011

One of my favourite German rituals is the New Year's Eve tradition of "lead-pouring". You take little plugs of lead (actually aluminium these days), melt them down over a candle, and then pour them into cold water to see what shape they make and predict your fate for the coming year. Of course it's all in the interpretation, but this year I got a saxophone. Make of that what you will. I also had a fortune cookie that told me to "be patient and optimistic" - and chose not to apply that to my love life.

There a few German books I'm really looking forward to in 2011, in two different areas.

Firstly, in the patient and optimistic sector, two debuts of which I have no idea when they'll be coming out: novels by Jan Brandt and Sebastian Polmans. Brandt is a geezer about town I vaguely know, alway impeccably dressed and surrounded by hordes of women, and I'm curious to find out whether his writing's any good. So far I've heard one short story and was impressed - but found it slightly too smooth. The book's allegedly being published by Dumont. And Polmans was my favourite at the Open Mike competition a while back. He seems to write with a spirit of adventure and excitement, so again I'm very curious as to what his debut with Suhrkamp will bring us.

Secondly, I predict a major anti-chauvinist backlash against the likes of Thilo Sarrazin, in fiction and non-fiction. The most obvious title in this category is the essay volume Manifest der Vielen, edited by Hilal Sezgin and featuring pieces by all sorts of sensible writers. The publishers promise writing about their lives in Germany, home and identity, being a Muslim or a non-Muslim, focusing on critical analysis and personal stories rather than terms like migrants, Muslims, Germans, etc. Out in February from Blumenbar.

And after the exhilarating presence of "migrant writers" from all sorts of places all over last year's shortlists and awards (with Melinda Nadj Abonji taking almost every prize going for her beautiful but plot-disadvantaged novel about Hungarian-Serbian immigrants to Switzerland), this year promises more. Zsuzsa Bánk, feted back in 2002 for her debut Der Schwimmer, returns with a big fat novel about Hungarians and Germans growing up together, Die hellen Tage. Out in February from Fischer. And the same month sees the long-awaited follow-up to My Official Favourite German Book Ever, Selim Özdogan's Die Tochter des Schmieds. Called Heimstraße 52 (Aufbau), it follows the protagonist Gül and her family from Turkey to Germany, where Özdogan shows typical dramas, childhoods and working lives in Germany's industrial boomtime. Think Small Island applied to Germany. I love it already, and I think 2011 will be the year when writers whose parents came from abroad but who grew up in Germany, Austria and Switzerland themselves really come into their own. The postmigrant generation in your face, dude.

On the translation front, I'm looking forward to all sorts of goodies. First and foremost Helene Hegemann's Axolotl Roadkill in English, translated by - er, me. Out in April from Constable & Robinson. Then my translation of My Second Favourite German Book Ever, Inka Parei's The Shadowboxing Woman, published I'm not quite sure when by Seagull Books. Then I have two gorgeous young adult/children's titles by the delightfully talented Rusalka Reh coming out with AmazonCrossing in May and August.

Translations on the "to be reviewed" pile include Thomas Pletzinger's celebrated novel Funeral for a Dog, translated no doubt extremely well by Ross Benjamin, and Daniel Glattauer's Love Virtually, an internet romance romp rendered into English by husband-and-wife team Katharina Bielenberg and Jamie Bulloch. Both spring releases, I believe. I'm looking forward to two short books brought to us by Peirene Press - Matthias Politycki's Next World Novella (trans. Anthea Bell) and Austrian Alois Hotschnig's Maybe This Time, translated by my buddy Tess Lewis. Oh, and I don't know if it's actually coming out this year or not, but Open Letter are doing Benjamin Stein's jewel The Canvas.

Plus, 2011 sees the first books from the wonderful people at And Other Stories, who have confirmed two titles so far from Iosi Havilio (Argentina) and Juan Pablo Villalobos (Mexico). And who knows, maybe they'll discover a German writer to share with the English-speaking world as well. You certainly need to check them out if you haven't already.

So, join me in exercising patience and optimism, and let us all play our saxophones for fantastic German books in 2011.

Open Mike 2010

Berlin's Open Mike has slightly more gravitas than the name would suggest - it's probably the most important literary contest for German-language writers under 35. Invented back in 1993, it has nursed all sorts of literary talents including Karen Duve, Julia Franck and Terézia Mora. Nowadays, the competition has various add-ons such as a reading tour, workshops for the finalists - and an audience prize.

The TAZ Audience Prize is awarded by a group of mere mortals - as opposed to the three judges, who are established writers (this year Hanns-Josef Ortheil, Ilija Trojanow and Anja Utler). You can simply apply in advance to be on the audience jury, and the people at the taz newspaper pick five people out of the no doubt thousands of applications. So I applied and they picked me, to my great delight! Along with Eyk Henze, Walter Langlott, Franziska Matthus and Barbara Stark. Not quite a jury of their peers for the contestants, seeing as all but one of us are over 35, but at least a disparate group of non-writers. I've invited my fellow audience judges to write something here, so watch this space for their perspectives.

I wrote about the Open Mike in general last year, and for excellent blow-by-blow accounts (in German), go to litaffin and goldmag. This year, though, was very different for me.

It began with the fact that we were supposed to be incognito. So that none of the contestants could buy our votes, we were told. Except they announced our names at the beginning of the two-day event, so anyone who knew me was perfectly aware of what I was up to, tucked away in a shady corner taking copious notes. Plus I might have boasted about it a teeny-weeny bit in advance. Sadly though, not one of the twenty contestants bothered to offer me bribes. Perhaps they were busy being nervous, or assumed I was incorruptible. Or perhaps they weren't all that keen on the prize, which consists of getting your story published in the paper. And eternal fame and fortune, of course.

The other difference was that I had a mission. That meant none of last year's hanging around gossiping and bitching in the breaks - we judges sneaked off to our own special room for intense discussions at every opportunity. It also meant not having to queue for hours to go to the toilet, as we also had our own special facilities with much nicer toilet paper, and not having to eat tired cake and packaged sandwiches, as we had our own special catering. And a bit of hanging with the proper judges and the organisers, a glass or two of wine at the very end, a taz goodie-bag, that kind of thing.

I also read the texts much differently. In fact, last year I didn't read them at all, preferring to let the readings wash over me. But because the anthology is published just in time for the competition you can actually read along, and a surprising number of people do. That gave me a clearer idea of the writing itself; I could (and did) underline furiously and add my own rude and admiring comments. On the other hand, I read each text separately on its own merit and had absolutely no overview of common themes, trends, etc. Apparently, though, there were a lot of bathtubs, sheep and snow.

But enough about me; let's talk about the writing. There was about a fifty-fifty balance between creative writing students and people with proper jobs, which prompted some internal discussion about whether the texts were too smooth. Some of us were perturbed that there weren't any really wild and crazy young things doing more experimental stuff - no live wrist-slitting, no shouting, barking or whistling, and only one whisperer. (The people at goldmag were also disappointed by the rather grey wardrobe; I couldn't really see the writers very well but I did note a proliferation of bad hair.) We also found the five poetry entrants rather much of a muchness, possibly because they were all selected by one editor, Christian Döring. But that was a very good muchness, for the most part.

We worked by eliminating texts none of us cared for and then arguing about the ones we did like. My main criteria for the trash pile were predictability, making the audience (and me) sigh and shuffle in our seats, and just plain annoyingness. Plus of course gratuitous use of English, which the professional judges also objected to - although last year was worse in that respect, with only three texts that didn't include random English words. That left seven excellent writers.

My personal favourites were: Judith Keller, who read a collection of miniatures that captured a great many contradictions in a very small space. Susan Kreller, with a text that soured very well from misplaced optimism to out-and-out despair. Tom Müller, whose Clemens Meyer-esque misadventure was set in Australia (but didn't quite gel). Jennifer de Negri, for her beautifully written playground story with multiple perspectives and an interesting , if not quite unpredictable, twist. Sebastian Polmans, who read a great piece about a boy and a nun at a bus stop. And Jan Skudlarek's poems, which held my attention throughout and evoked all sorts of emotions. I hope the others will tell you which texts they particularly liked as well, because opinions did range widely.

So, capably and tactfully aided by Dirk Knipphals, culture editor at the taz, we whittled the longlist down to a shortlist and took one final secret ballot. And our winner was Sebastian Polmans for the story "Über Peanuts, mich und andere Sachen". Attentive readers will note that Polmans committed the dire sin of English usage even in the title - but in this case it wasn't gratuitous. In fact his highly rhythmic text is riddled with English, particularly song titles. It's about a black kid who sits next to an absurd black nun at a bus stop, and about his crappy life and his dreams and refuges. I loved the narrator's very characteristic voice and the very sexy nun in her vanilla habit, talking to God on her mobile phone and listening to a walkman.

The official winners were Levin Westermann for his poems, Janko Marklein for a story of rural juveniles doing nasty things with fish, and Jan Snela for a daring piece that played with language and emotions. Deutschlandradio Kultur will broadcast a feature on the event at 0.05 CET on 21 November. You can listen online, and I might be in it.

Many thanks to the lovely people at the Literaturwerkstatt and the taz, and of course to all my delightful fellow audience judges. I had a ball, and it's a shame I can't do it again.