Always one to upstage an event, Germany's most revered literary critic, Marcel Reich-Ranicki, has gone and joined the ranks of award-rejecters.
He was due to be given a lifetime award for services to the television industry, at the German equivalent to the Emmys. But first of all they kept him waiting on a hard chair in the front row for three hours, and then they gave most of the other awards to shows he didn't approve of. Mostly celebrity chefs.
When he was finally allowed to board the stage and graciously accept the award, he got a standing ovation, visibly embarrassed. "I don't want to insult anybody, but I do not accept this prize... I didn't know what was expecting me, I don't belong here. If the award had included money, I'd have given the money back. But it doesn't, all I can do is cast this object away from me that's been awarded to various people tonight. I can't accept it, and I think it's terrible that I had to sit through this for several hours..."
He got a round of applause for praising the ARTE channel, slagged off 3Sat, slagged off the "rubbish" they'd seen tonight. The presenter rushed onto the stage, offering him his own show about quality programming. He accepted that, wagging his schoolmaster finger in a characteristic gesture to warn that it probably wouldn't make any difference. Finished off with an over-long anecdote about a Russian composer, hugged the presenter and offered him the familiar "Du" form of address. Cue fanfare and another standing ovation.
You can watch all the fun here - I love the audience shots as the stars and starlets realise what the guy is actually saying. Now that's entertainment. Apparently, he did then take the glass obelisk home with him - he didn't want to appear impolite. More in the Guardian.
Monday, 13 October 2008
Friday, 10 October 2008
New New Books in German
At last, the English-language overview of this season's German-language books is online at New Books in German. Lots and lots to explore, although I hope they'll get around to posting some links and updating the events at some point.
Frankfurt
The Frankfurt Book Fair opens its doors this coming Tuesday.
I'm not going. Why not? Why won't I be rubbing shoulders with the publishing world, hobnobbing with the rich and famous and discussing Le Clézio over cocktails and canapés? Mainly personal, childcare-related reasons, actually. But also because, despite the wonderful events in the Translators' Centre, it's not actually geared to readers.
I have to admit I've only been once, and was thoroughly intimidated by the huge fortresses built up by the major UK/US publishers in their hall, specially designed to keep the professionals in and the riffraff out. The German publishers were slightly more approachable, as the fair is also a chance for them to present their products to booksellers and to a certain extent the general public. But for sheer accessibility of reading material, writers and events, there's just no topping the Leipzig Book Fair.
Plus I was put off by this posting, which revealed just how severely challenged I am in the bookfair footwear department.
I'm not going. Why not? Why won't I be rubbing shoulders with the publishing world, hobnobbing with the rich and famous and discussing Le Clézio over cocktails and canapés? Mainly personal, childcare-related reasons, actually. But also because, despite the wonderful events in the Translators' Centre, it's not actually geared to readers.
I have to admit I've only been once, and was thoroughly intimidated by the huge fortresses built up by the major UK/US publishers in their hall, specially designed to keep the professionals in and the riffraff out. The German publishers were slightly more approachable, as the fair is also a chance for them to present their products to booksellers and to a certain extent the general public. But for sheer accessibility of reading material, writers and events, there's just no topping the Leipzig Book Fair.
Plus I was put off by this posting, which revealed just how severely challenged I am in the bookfair footwear department.
Wednesday, 8 October 2008
Translation Midwifery
Remember Translation Idol, the poetry translation talent contest I co-organised in May? You can see rather gruesome photos and all the entries at no man's land, by the way, if you click on the link on the right.
Well, last night I got hold of a copy of the literary journal Neue Rundschau, which features the poet Ron Winkler's original poem, seven of the translations, plus Ron's re-translations of all the versions. Rather like he provided the egg, the translators the seed, and his retranslations are the zygotes, growing into strange genetically related beings that are yet different to their parents, often almost unrecognisably so.
It was interesting at the contest itself to see how fruitful misunderstandings and deliberate adaptations can be. The original poem, und später dann Paraboläpfel am Atem, is not a straight-forward text, combining all sorts of cultural references and tricky questions. But then the translators created their very own versions - and Ron reinterpreted these in turn. So Heckler & Koch becomes Lady of Bristol becomes braut. Or nothing at all becomes aye becomes tjaja. Or das infernalische Obst becomes le fruit infernal, zut! becomes daadwerkelijk infernaal vruchten, verfloekt!
I have to admit to not a little pride at helping to bring these poems into the world. I wish them long and happy lives.
Well, last night I got hold of a copy of the literary journal Neue Rundschau, which features the poet Ron Winkler's original poem, seven of the translations, plus Ron's re-translations of all the versions. Rather like he provided the egg, the translators the seed, and his retranslations are the zygotes, growing into strange genetically related beings that are yet different to their parents, often almost unrecognisably so.
It was interesting at the contest itself to see how fruitful misunderstandings and deliberate adaptations can be. The original poem, und später dann Paraboläpfel am Atem, is not a straight-forward text, combining all sorts of cultural references and tricky questions. But then the translators created their very own versions - and Ron reinterpreted these in turn. So Heckler & Koch becomes Lady of Bristol becomes braut. Or nothing at all becomes aye becomes tjaja. Or das infernalische Obst becomes le fruit infernal, zut! becomes daadwerkelijk infernaal vruchten, verfloekt!
I have to admit to not a little pride at helping to bring these poems into the world. I wish them long and happy lives.
Monday, 6 October 2008
Links Catchup
What with celebrating German Reunification Day on Friday by working extra-long hours and all the extra stress in the run-up to the book fair, I've now got a backlog of lovely links. So here they all are in one big muddle:
For Londoners: Vienna Café Festival at the Royal College of Art. Two weeks of fin-de-siècle Viennese fun in Kensington (with cake). If you scroll right down to the bottom of the linked page, you'll spot the following event:
For translators: Daniel Hahn will be blogging once or week or so on the Booktrust Translated Fiction site as he translates his way through José Eduardo Agualusa's Angolan Portuguese novel Estação das Chuvas. Looks promising.
For international readers: readme.cc is a virtual library with "the goal of becoming 'The European Forum for Readers'". Most popular book is Bonjour Tristesse. A bit messy perhaps but intruiging. If you like a reader review you can find out where to borrow the book from a library.
For wanderers: The young writer and film-maker Finn-Ole Heinrich is spending three months on the road around Germany. Not just me-me-me blogging, but documenting what the people he encounters have to say. Called Heimathuckepack (homeland in a piggyback?!), the project website is well worth a look for the nice photos and films, the original characters, and Finn-Ole Heinrich's really rather good writing. Click on the photos at the top to get to the stuff.
For Londoners: Vienna Café Festival at the Royal College of Art. Two weeks of fin-de-siècle Viennese fun in Kensington (with cake). If you scroll right down to the bottom of the linked page, you'll spot the following event:
Literary Evening: 23 October, 6.30pm - Fiction in Freud's Vienna: a translator's viewpoint, by Anthea Bell and new fiction from Deborah Levy. The Psychopathology of Everyday Café Life: an imagined encounter with objects and subjects in Freud's Vienna.
Presumably they don't have many seats, or they have some other good reason for hiding this little gem away. I'm going!For translators: Daniel Hahn will be blogging once or week or so on the Booktrust Translated Fiction site as he translates his way through José Eduardo Agualusa's Angolan Portuguese novel Estação das Chuvas. Looks promising.
For international readers: readme.cc is a virtual library with "the goal of becoming 'The European Forum for Readers'". Most popular book is Bonjour Tristesse. A bit messy perhaps but intruiging. If you like a reader review you can find out where to borrow the book from a library.
For wanderers: The young writer and film-maker Finn-Ole Heinrich is spending three months on the road around Germany. Not just me-me-me blogging, but documenting what the people he encounters have to say. Called Heimathuckepack (homeland in a piggyback?!), the project website is well worth a look for the nice photos and films, the original characters, and Finn-Ole Heinrich's really rather good writing. Click on the photos at the top to get to the stuff.
New Swiss Book Prize Shortlist
I'll try really hard to write this little piece without mentioning the word "bandwagon", OK?
The Swiss booksellers' and publishers' association and the Basel Literature Festival have launched a new book prize for the best Swiss fiction or essay title of the year. The award is open to Swiss authors or writers who have been living in Switzerland for at least two years, and interestingly enough the books have to have been written in German (although Switzerland also has French, Italian and Rheto-Romansh as its official languages). It's called the Swiss Book Prize (can you feel how hard that opening challenge is yet?) and the five shortlisted titles were announced last week. Here's the list:
The results will be announced on 16 November at the Basel Literature Festival.
Phew, I can't believe I managed to skirt the whole German Book Prize bandwagon issue!
The Swiss booksellers' and publishers' association and the Basel Literature Festival have launched a new book prize for the best Swiss fiction or essay title of the year. The award is open to Swiss authors or writers who have been living in Switzerland for at least two years, and interestingly enough the books have to have been written in German (although Switzerland also has French, Italian and Rheto-Romansh as its official languages). It's called the Swiss Book Prize (can you feel how hard that opening challenge is yet?) and the five shortlisted titles were announced last week. Here's the list:
Lukas Bärfuss Hundert Tage (Wallstein)
Anja Jardine Als der Mond vom Himmel fiel (Kein & Aber)
Rolf Lappert Nach Hause schwimmen (Carl Hanser)
Adolf Muschg Kinderhochzeit (Suhrkamp)
Peter Stamm Wir fliegen (S. Fischer)
Regular readers will be familiar with two titles from another list (still doing well, eh?): Bärfuss's amazing Rwandan J'accuse Hundert Tage and Rolf Lappert's Swimming Home, apparently the booksellers' favourite this year. Two of the other titles are collections of short stories, an interesting departure. But the Leipzig Book Fair prize went to short stories this year and last, so who knows which book will win. No essays actually in the running though.The results will be announced on 16 November at the Basel Literature Festival.
Phew, I can't believe I managed to skirt the whole German Book Prize bandwagon issue!
Wednesday, 1 October 2008
Sherko Fatah @ International Literature Festival Berlin
Being kind of unilateral in my literary interests, I don't tend to take full advantage of the "international" side of the Berlin Literature Festival. This year is no exception, as I'm only going to two readings by German writers. Ideally, I suppose, I'd take a week off work and hire a full-time babysitter and just flit from one event to the next, but you can get too much of a good thing.
Last night's reading by Sherko Fatah was scheduled late in the day. It was a dark, dank evening and on my way to the station I came across a man in a suit so drunk he was unable to get to his feet after falling over on a rain-slippery pavement, his face bloodstained. A woman stopped her car and we started to call an ambulance, but the man struggled upright, grabbed his briefcase and staggered off unaided. From then on, everything seemed rather threatening and surreal.
I found my way to the Berliner Festspiele, where I have never been before in all my 13 years in Berlin. Nice place. I even managed to get a ticket just in the nick of time, only disturbing the drum improvisation artist very slightly as I dashed in, breathless. The festival always has a bit of music before each reading, which makes me feel extremely uncomfortable every time. Can't we just cut to the books stuff and save a bit of time and money? No, we all have to be bloody renaissance man and appreciate classical music, sheesh.
But my drumming discomfort was mercifully short, and then came Sherko Fatah. The presenter was the renowned critic Wilfried F. Schoeller, who I found rather fond of his own voice and who kept insisting there were references to Christianity in Fatah's book Das dunkle Schiff, about an Islamic jihadist. Fatah politely commented that he hadn't intended to put any in. The author read for a good thirty minutes, and to start with I worried that my mind would drift at the late hour (which it must have done if I was worrying that it might rather than concentrating on the reading). But I was soon picked up and carried along on a wave of excellent writing, especially a description of a ragged group of Iraqi freedom-fighters/rebels/Islamist insurgents sheltering from US bombs in a cave.
Fatah refuses to psychologise, focusing the story on the fate of his protagonist Kerim, who ends up with the jihadists by chance. A reluctant fundamentalist of sorts. There is a lot of brutality and demagogy here, but it is always recognisable as such. The author doesn't seem to take sides (at least not in the section he read last night) - except in the sense of sympathy with Kerim, who is almost an adventure-story hero and later stows away on a ship to Europe, where the seed of his indoctrination finally blossoms.
What I found most interesting was when Fatah talked about his research process. He makes regular journeys to Iraq to visit his father, and actually visited the caves where the passage he read was set. At the time he was there they were empty, but have since been occupied again by other makeshift armies. He said he had spoken to people about the war and had tried to talk to a former fighter in prison - but it was impossible to penetrate to him - "it was like he was on drugs." And he said there is a huge amount of film footage available, recorded on camcorders like the characters in the book use and posted on the internet. So he used this to get an idea of just how brutal the situation was, although he did censor himself to a certain extent.
I'm really itching to read the book now but have to finish a couple of other things first. Sherko Fatah took part in the British Centre for Literary Translation's summer school a couple of years back, and has an advocate in Britain in the person of the translator Martin Chalmers. Das dunkle Schiff is in the running for the German Book Prize, so you can read a translated extract (including the sit-up-and-scream prologue) at signandsight (trans. Alexa Nieschlag). I think we can safely assume the book will be available in English at some time in the future, whether it wins the award or not. And so it should be.
Last night's reading by Sherko Fatah was scheduled late in the day. It was a dark, dank evening and on my way to the station I came across a man in a suit so drunk he was unable to get to his feet after falling over on a rain-slippery pavement, his face bloodstained. A woman stopped her car and we started to call an ambulance, but the man struggled upright, grabbed his briefcase and staggered off unaided. From then on, everything seemed rather threatening and surreal.
I found my way to the Berliner Festspiele, where I have never been before in all my 13 years in Berlin. Nice place. I even managed to get a ticket just in the nick of time, only disturbing the drum improvisation artist very slightly as I dashed in, breathless. The festival always has a bit of music before each reading, which makes me feel extremely uncomfortable every time. Can't we just cut to the books stuff and save a bit of time and money? No, we all have to be bloody renaissance man and appreciate classical music, sheesh.
But my drumming discomfort was mercifully short, and then came Sherko Fatah. The presenter was the renowned critic Wilfried F. Schoeller, who I found rather fond of his own voice and who kept insisting there were references to Christianity in Fatah's book Das dunkle Schiff, about an Islamic jihadist. Fatah politely commented that he hadn't intended to put any in. The author read for a good thirty minutes, and to start with I worried that my mind would drift at the late hour (which it must have done if I was worrying that it might rather than concentrating on the reading). But I was soon picked up and carried along on a wave of excellent writing, especially a description of a ragged group of Iraqi freedom-fighters/rebels/Islamist insurgents sheltering from US bombs in a cave.
Fatah refuses to psychologise, focusing the story on the fate of his protagonist Kerim, who ends up with the jihadists by chance. A reluctant fundamentalist of sorts. There is a lot of brutality and demagogy here, but it is always recognisable as such. The author doesn't seem to take sides (at least not in the section he read last night) - except in the sense of sympathy with Kerim, who is almost an adventure-story hero and later stows away on a ship to Europe, where the seed of his indoctrination finally blossoms.
What I found most interesting was when Fatah talked about his research process. He makes regular journeys to Iraq to visit his father, and actually visited the caves where the passage he read was set. At the time he was there they were empty, but have since been occupied again by other makeshift armies. He said he had spoken to people about the war and had tried to talk to a former fighter in prison - but it was impossible to penetrate to him - "it was like he was on drugs." And he said there is a huge amount of film footage available, recorded on camcorders like the characters in the book use and posted on the internet. So he used this to get an idea of just how brutal the situation was, although he did censor himself to a certain extent.
I'm really itching to read the book now but have to finish a couple of other things first. Sherko Fatah took part in the British Centre for Literary Translation's summer school a couple of years back, and has an advocate in Britain in the person of the translator Martin Chalmers. Das dunkle Schiff is in the running for the German Book Prize, so you can read a translated extract (including the sit-up-and-scream prologue) at signandsight (trans. Alexa Nieschlag). I think we can safely assume the book will be available in English at some time in the future, whether it wins the award or not. And so it should be.
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