The Goethe Institut has put together a bijou octolingual website called Cultures in Translation, showcasing German books now available in translation, the publishers daring enough to bring them out, and... the translators behind them!
They asked most of us three questions, and it's fascinating to read all the answers. A spoiler: not one person planned to become a translator!
Wednesday, 30 June 2010
Tuesday, 29 June 2010
Hope for Derring-Do Readers
This piece was originally published in German in Volltext Magazin 3/2010 (a special on the Ingeborg Bachmann Prize). Below is my slightly jazzed-up translation.
I know, I know, we’ve heard it a million times before – translated literature has it tough in the English-speaking world. One magic number’s been doing the rounds for years: three percent of publications are translations, so they say (and not just De La Soul). Mind you, this figure is a pretty generous estimate and includes not only literary titles. Whichever way you look at it, 31 translations of German-language literature were published in the USA in 2009, putting German at third place on the list of the most translated languages (after Spanish and French). So nobody’s turning somersaults.
German-language literature – there’s not usually much of a distinction made between Austria, Switzerland and Germany – used to have a certain reputation in Britain and the States. Not much of a surprise here either: it was seen as heavyweight and serious. Every cultured individual had to have read at least Thomas Mann, if not Goethe and Kleist as well; as long as they had their dead white men covered. Other hits in this department – perhaps a little astounding for German-speakers – are Joseph Roth, Stefan Zweig and Wolfgang Koeppen.
But cultured individuals are actually few and far between in the English-speaking world. I’d argue that the vast majority of today's readers don’t come to books with fixed expectations, whether they’re German, Icelandic or Mexican. As fewer and fewer children learn languages in Britain and the States, whole generations are spared the torture of reading foreign books in the original with a dictionary at the ready, only half-understanding them at best. And yes, we hopeless optimists can see that as a blessing for literature - as long as translations are there to fill the gap.
Occasionally, a translated book is a surprise hit. The case in point right now is Michael Hofmann’s translation of Hans Fallada’s Jeder stirbt für sich allein (Alone in Berlin). Penguin has already sold 100,000 copies in the UK and expects to shift up to a quarter of a million units. A very revealing phenomenon, as it shows what your average Brit does love about German-language literature: Nazis. Michael Wallner’s April in Paris, Bernhard Schlink’s The Reader, Günter Grass’ The Tin Drum – many of the very popular translations from German deal with the subject, yet they never quench the seemingly endless thirst for new perspectives on the Third Reich.
Aside from bestselling writers such as Daniel Kehlmann and Ilja Trojanow, publishers appear to find it easier to match up to certain clichés than to go by quality alone. Just look at all those Jewish family sagas from Austria and hedonistic adventures in Berlin. So it’s not easy for younger writers to break into the market if they simply write about what they’re interested in. The implicit message is: English, Indian, American, Australian, Nigerian authors are writing about relationships – so why should we translate that kind of thing?
Translators, of course, are locked in a constant battle to break down that invisible forcefield. All the translators I know are absolutely passionate about “their” literature and do their utmost to get that spark of enthusiasm across. We’re literary missionaries and we won’t shut up until everyone’s converted. Our great hope rests in few hands: a few scattered editors actually versant in foreign languages at the major publishing houses, the university presses and the small independents. These indies consist of one or two crazy people who put all their energies into their books, which then sadly have fewer chances on an almost entirely monopolised market than big-name titles. In recent years, there has been a minor rash of new small publishers specialising in translated literature: Europa Editions, Open Letter Books, Seagull Books with a German and a Swiss list, Archipelago Books, Peirene Press – and soon And Other Stories, an initiative set up by desperate and daring translators to bring quality international literature to British shores.
And things really do seem to be changing slightly. New forums, festivals, publishers and prizes are springing up, fostered by the internet as it enables people with obscure passions to find one another. Now even Amazon has announced it wants to save the world of translated literature. With AmazonCrossing, the mighty company intends to identify strong foreign-language titles and publish them in English. Whether their logarithms will have the right instincts remains to be seen; they certainly have the necessary resources to promote and sell international literature. And maybe, just maybe they’ll show the major publishers that it’s worth taking a risk on foreign books. Booksellers at least agree – readers are looking for good stories, regardless of where they come from.
Up to now, however, editors seem to need a reliable crutch if they are to go all out for a translation. Literary awards are very welcome pointers, particularly in the UK, where both readers and the press are held captive by the Booker Prize. Yet the vast numbers of prizes in the German-speaking countries have even the greatest of experts scratching their heads. One reason why the German Book Prize was invented, with mixed results – two of four past winners have been sold to the UK so far.
The Ingeborg Bachmann Prize seems to be doing something right at any rate. Former participants really are making their way into English translation. Alina Bronsky is currently picking up rave reviews for Broken Glass Park (trans. Tim Mohr), Kevin Vennemann’s Close to Jedenew (trans. Ross Benjamin) was received with great respect, and Saša Stanišić’s How the Soldier Repaired the Gramophone (trans. Anthea Bell) even made it onto a list of holiday reads in a glossy magazine. Other ex-participants Zoe Jenny, Julia Franck, Antje Ravic Strubel, Jenny Erpenbeck, Helmut Krausser, Richard David Precht and Juli Zeh have also made it to our shores. Next year sees my translation of Inka Parei’s Die Schattenboxerin hitting stores – OK, ten years after it was translated into thirteen other languages, but hey.
So it’s all the more pleasing that the good people of Klagenfurt have been getting all the texts for the competition translated into seven languages for the past three years – making it a tiny bit easier for derring-do editors and readers to find exciting new writing. This year I was one of the translators, which was a great thrill. I made discoveries, corrected prejudices, learnt huge amounts about high-seas fishing and realised: there’s so much talent out there! Anyone who gets as deeply involved with some of these texts as a translator can only hope that the US and the UK will soon overcome their fear of foreign literatures.
I know, I know, we’ve heard it a million times before – translated literature has it tough in the English-speaking world. One magic number’s been doing the rounds for years: three percent of publications are translations, so they say (and not just De La Soul). Mind you, this figure is a pretty generous estimate and includes not only literary titles. Whichever way you look at it, 31 translations of German-language literature were published in the USA in 2009, putting German at third place on the list of the most translated languages (after Spanish and French). So nobody’s turning somersaults.
German-language literature – there’s not usually much of a distinction made between Austria, Switzerland and Germany – used to have a certain reputation in Britain and the States. Not much of a surprise here either: it was seen as heavyweight and serious. Every cultured individual had to have read at least Thomas Mann, if not Goethe and Kleist as well; as long as they had their dead white men covered. Other hits in this department – perhaps a little astounding for German-speakers – are Joseph Roth, Stefan Zweig and Wolfgang Koeppen.
But cultured individuals are actually few and far between in the English-speaking world. I’d argue that the vast majority of today's readers don’t come to books with fixed expectations, whether they’re German, Icelandic or Mexican. As fewer and fewer children learn languages in Britain and the States, whole generations are spared the torture of reading foreign books in the original with a dictionary at the ready, only half-understanding them at best. And yes, we hopeless optimists can see that as a blessing for literature - as long as translations are there to fill the gap.
Occasionally, a translated book is a surprise hit. The case in point right now is Michael Hofmann’s translation of Hans Fallada’s Jeder stirbt für sich allein (Alone in Berlin). Penguin has already sold 100,000 copies in the UK and expects to shift up to a quarter of a million units. A very revealing phenomenon, as it shows what your average Brit does love about German-language literature: Nazis. Michael Wallner’s April in Paris, Bernhard Schlink’s The Reader, Günter Grass’ The Tin Drum – many of the very popular translations from German deal with the subject, yet they never quench the seemingly endless thirst for new perspectives on the Third Reich.
Aside from bestselling writers such as Daniel Kehlmann and Ilja Trojanow, publishers appear to find it easier to match up to certain clichés than to go by quality alone. Just look at all those Jewish family sagas from Austria and hedonistic adventures in Berlin. So it’s not easy for younger writers to break into the market if they simply write about what they’re interested in. The implicit message is: English, Indian, American, Australian, Nigerian authors are writing about relationships – so why should we translate that kind of thing?
Translators, of course, are locked in a constant battle to break down that invisible forcefield. All the translators I know are absolutely passionate about “their” literature and do their utmost to get that spark of enthusiasm across. We’re literary missionaries and we won’t shut up until everyone’s converted. Our great hope rests in few hands: a few scattered editors actually versant in foreign languages at the major publishing houses, the university presses and the small independents. These indies consist of one or two crazy people who put all their energies into their books, which then sadly have fewer chances on an almost entirely monopolised market than big-name titles. In recent years, there has been a minor rash of new small publishers specialising in translated literature: Europa Editions, Open Letter Books, Seagull Books with a German and a Swiss list, Archipelago Books, Peirene Press – and soon And Other Stories, an initiative set up by desperate and daring translators to bring quality international literature to British shores.
And things really do seem to be changing slightly. New forums, festivals, publishers and prizes are springing up, fostered by the internet as it enables people with obscure passions to find one another. Now even Amazon has announced it wants to save the world of translated literature. With AmazonCrossing, the mighty company intends to identify strong foreign-language titles and publish them in English. Whether their logarithms will have the right instincts remains to be seen; they certainly have the necessary resources to promote and sell international literature. And maybe, just maybe they’ll show the major publishers that it’s worth taking a risk on foreign books. Booksellers at least agree – readers are looking for good stories, regardless of where they come from.
Up to now, however, editors seem to need a reliable crutch if they are to go all out for a translation. Literary awards are very welcome pointers, particularly in the UK, where both readers and the press are held captive by the Booker Prize. Yet the vast numbers of prizes in the German-speaking countries have even the greatest of experts scratching their heads. One reason why the German Book Prize was invented, with mixed results – two of four past winners have been sold to the UK so far.
The Ingeborg Bachmann Prize seems to be doing something right at any rate. Former participants really are making their way into English translation. Alina Bronsky is currently picking up rave reviews for Broken Glass Park (trans. Tim Mohr), Kevin Vennemann’s Close to Jedenew (trans. Ross Benjamin) was received with great respect, and Saša Stanišić’s How the Soldier Repaired the Gramophone (trans. Anthea Bell) even made it onto a list of holiday reads in a glossy magazine. Other ex-participants Zoe Jenny, Julia Franck, Antje Ravic Strubel, Jenny Erpenbeck, Helmut Krausser, Richard David Precht and Juli Zeh have also made it to our shores. Next year sees my translation of Inka Parei’s Die Schattenboxerin hitting stores – OK, ten years after it was translated into thirteen other languages, but hey.
So it’s all the more pleasing that the good people of Klagenfurt have been getting all the texts for the competition translated into seven languages for the past three years – making it a tiny bit easier for derring-do editors and readers to find exciting new writing. This year I was one of the translators, which was a great thrill. I made discoveries, corrected prejudices, learnt huge amounts about high-seas fishing and realised: there’s so much talent out there! Anyone who gets as deeply involved with some of these texts as a translator can only hope that the US and the UK will soon overcome their fear of foreign literatures.
Monday, 28 June 2010
Wholly Compensated? Scratch That.
So there's me feeling all warm inside about enjoying the Ingeborg Bachmann Prize festivities at a distance, adored by my many fans and all that. And then comes this - Wolfgang Hörner, winner Peter Wawerzinek's publisher, on what he did in Klagenfurt. Jeez. Don't read it. You'll melt out of sheer envy.
John Le Carré on the Benefits of Learning German... in German
The arch-British writer John Le Carré has never made a secret of his enthusiasm for all things German, and recently held a speech on the subject for the London-based ThinkGerman project. Unfortunately, although I came across the speech online, it seems to be only available in German translation, in the FAZ. A classic case of preaching to the converted - but it's well worth reading anyway. My favourite part is when the young David Cornwell shakes Thomas Mann's hand at a reading in Bern in 1949.
Sunday, 27 June 2010
Ingeborg Bachmann Prize Day 4
Start at the bottom and scroll up.
12:00: The last bouquet goes to Michaela Monschein, who organised the competition from top to bottom - my contact in Klagenfurt, a delightful and very persuasive woman who deserves all the recognition she can get. I'd like to thank her and the people behind the prize for the opportunity to translate my half of the texts, which was an absolute pleasure. And many many thanks to my fellow translator Stefan Tobler, who is a wise editor and a great person to work with.
11:57: I've had a fantastic time blogging from my sofa. I hope you've enjoyed following my humble opinions, and I was delighted to get your feedback in the comments. And in fact, it's been so much fun that I feel wholly compensated for not actually going along. Because knowing myself, I realise I would never have concentrated on the texts and the criticism if I'd actually been there - I'd have been standing outside chatting, drinking too much every night and combatting hangovers every day.
11:45: Hubert Winkels was a juror for the first time this year. I found him unnecessarily cruel and I suspect he made notes in advance to make sure he looked good - but those comparisons to Stephenie Meyer and Stephen King were very much below the belt. Alain Claude Sulzer was the class clown, in a way, never afraid to say he just didn't get it. Which is cool. Hildegard Keller was fair, friendly, and made fantastic comments revealing her deep knowledge of German literature. If I'd been there I'd have wanted to hug her. Karin Fleischanderl was passionate and rude to her fellow jurors, which was very entertaining. Meike Feßmann looked at the language, for which I am grateful, but was too keen on the realistic for me to take her entirely seriously. Burkhard Spinnen was witty, wise and wordy. He was a popular contender in conversation yesterday. But the Chez Katy Prize goes to Paul Jandl, for only ever saying things that made sense, for keeping his feet firmly on the ground, and for taking a back seat and allowing the focus to remain on the texts.
11:40 My friend Meike Ziervogel from Peirene Press told me Klagenfurt is a great showcase for writers - and especially for critics. And I'd agree. We've seen three days of writing, and three days of critics talking about that writing. So I'd like to criticise the critics here and award the Chez Katy Prize for the top critic.
11:34: Audience Award goes to Peter Wawerzinek. A very personal text, beautifully and imaginatively written. The novel comes out in August from my buddies at Galiani Verlag (once again proving their immaculate taste).
11.33: Ernst Willner Prize Go Janesch!!!! Vote between her and Scholz. Scholz takes it - narrowly (even Burkhard Spinnen voted for him, with clenched teeth).
11:32: 3Sat Prize Scholz or Zander? Judith Zander. God those poor writers all sweating in their corner.
11:30: Can you believe Rossbacher's not on the shortlist? Elmiger wins the Kelag Prize. Cheering. She looks a bit emotional.
11:29: Kelag Prize vote between Elmiger and Scholz.
11:28: Who's won? Peter Wawerzinek. I'm happy with that. €25,000. He looks a bit upset.
11:24: Feßmann loves Wawerzinek. Sulzer too. Fleischanderl Elmiger. Spinnen Wawerzinek. Winkels Scholz. Keller Zander. Jandl Elmiger. So now they have to vote again between Wawerzinek and Elmiger. Yawn.
11:21: Shortlist for the Ingeborg Bachmann Prize: Peter Wawerzinek, Dorothee Elmiger, Aleks Scholz, Judith Zander, Daniel Mezger, Sabrina Janesch, Christian Fries. This is the very dull part where the critics vote on their nifty touchscreens.
So today the critics argue over who gets the four prizes. Yesterday 3Sat showed us Jo "the überchooch" Lendle, big boss man for proper literature at Dumont Verlag, talking about his favourites. And as he said, there really are only four writers in the running: Dorothee Elmiger, Aleks Scholz, Peter Wawerzinek and Verena Rossbacher. So here we go.
12:00: The last bouquet goes to Michaela Monschein, who organised the competition from top to bottom - my contact in Klagenfurt, a delightful and very persuasive woman who deserves all the recognition she can get. I'd like to thank her and the people behind the prize for the opportunity to translate my half of the texts, which was an absolute pleasure. And many many thanks to my fellow translator Stefan Tobler, who is a wise editor and a great person to work with.
11:57: I've had a fantastic time blogging from my sofa. I hope you've enjoyed following my humble opinions, and I was delighted to get your feedback in the comments. And in fact, it's been so much fun that I feel wholly compensated for not actually going along. Because knowing myself, I realise I would never have concentrated on the texts and the criticism if I'd actually been there - I'd have been standing outside chatting, drinking too much every night and combatting hangovers every day.
11:45: Hubert Winkels was a juror for the first time this year. I found him unnecessarily cruel and I suspect he made notes in advance to make sure he looked good - but those comparisons to Stephenie Meyer and Stephen King were very much below the belt. Alain Claude Sulzer was the class clown, in a way, never afraid to say he just didn't get it. Which is cool. Hildegard Keller was fair, friendly, and made fantastic comments revealing her deep knowledge of German literature. If I'd been there I'd have wanted to hug her. Karin Fleischanderl was passionate and rude to her fellow jurors, which was very entertaining. Meike Feßmann looked at the language, for which I am grateful, but was too keen on the realistic for me to take her entirely seriously. Burkhard Spinnen was witty, wise and wordy. He was a popular contender in conversation yesterday. But the Chez Katy Prize goes to Paul Jandl, for only ever saying things that made sense, for keeping his feet firmly on the ground, and for taking a back seat and allowing the focus to remain on the texts.
11:40 My friend Meike Ziervogel from Peirene Press told me Klagenfurt is a great showcase for writers - and especially for critics. And I'd agree. We've seen three days of writing, and three days of critics talking about that writing. So I'd like to criticise the critics here and award the Chez Katy Prize for the top critic.
11:34: Audience Award goes to Peter Wawerzinek. A very personal text, beautifully and imaginatively written. The novel comes out in August from my buddies at Galiani Verlag (once again proving their immaculate taste).
11.33: Ernst Willner Prize Go Janesch!!!! Vote between her and Scholz. Scholz takes it - narrowly (even Burkhard Spinnen voted for him, with clenched teeth).
11:32: 3Sat Prize Scholz or Zander? Judith Zander. God those poor writers all sweating in their corner.
11:30: Can you believe Rossbacher's not on the shortlist? Elmiger wins the Kelag Prize. Cheering. She looks a bit emotional.
11:29: Kelag Prize vote between Elmiger and Scholz.
11:28: Who's won? Peter Wawerzinek. I'm happy with that. €25,000. He looks a bit upset.
11:24: Feßmann loves Wawerzinek. Sulzer too. Fleischanderl Elmiger. Spinnen Wawerzinek. Winkels Scholz. Keller Zander. Jandl Elmiger. So now they have to vote again between Wawerzinek and Elmiger. Yawn.
11:21: Shortlist for the Ingeborg Bachmann Prize: Peter Wawerzinek, Dorothee Elmiger, Aleks Scholz, Judith Zander, Daniel Mezger, Sabrina Janesch, Christian Fries. This is the very dull part where the critics vote on their nifty touchscreens.
So today the critics argue over who gets the four prizes. Yesterday 3Sat showed us Jo "the überchooch" Lendle, big boss man for proper literature at Dumont Verlag, talking about his favourites. And as he said, there really are only four writers in the running: Dorothee Elmiger, Aleks Scholz, Peter Wawerzinek and Verena Rossbacher. So here we go.
Saturday, 26 June 2010
Ingeborg Bachmann Prize Day 3
Start at the bottom and scroll up.
13:50: That's it for today. I think it worked better for me when I didn't have visitors and wasn't slightly tipsy. But it was fun.
13:44: I'm flagging now, I'm sorry. Keller being nice as usual. Of course the text was a tad medieval. Jane Birkin! she says.
13:40: Spinnen defending his choice. It's hard to present people thinking in a realistic genre. Here, he says, it's the language that does the telling. He likes pregnant marbles, not like Feßmann.
13:33: Sulzer gave up reading it too, like I did. People hated her reading here, as did Sulzer. I chuckled all the way through. The critics are divided again, is it mannerism and is that a bad thing?
13:29: Fleischanderl says the Germans don't get Austrian literature. Laughter here. Someone here said the text was Habsburgian decadence. Feßmann says the text is waving a flag saying "I am art!"
13:22: I'm reading along in English, laughing almost as crazily as Rossbacher's reading. I think my guests might think I'm odd. They're restless now, they're annoyed that there's a murder at the end. Disappointed. Divided opinions here.
13:13: Stunned silence. Someone said "associative tapestry". "Did you translate this? Do you get it?"
13:06: She's reading like a woman insane. No surprise there then.
13:03: Someone just said "What the fuck".
13:02: She's reading. It's so completely odd. Here's what I prepared earlier.
Verena Rossbacher is the writer everyone’s pinned their hopes on this year. And hers was the text that made the deepest impression on me. Without a doubt. I first read it on paper and my heart sank. Untranslatable! Incomprehensible! An absolute cheek! What on earth is it about? I suspect Sulzer won’t like it.
And then I sat down and began translating. The text wavers and flickers and makes little sense on first reading, and it’s an absolute challenge to get to grips with, even as a reader. And it’s so utterly dependent on rhythm that the only possible way to translate it was as freely as possible. And it plays with letters and sounds and subtle alliteration, and colours and Catholicism – oh yes, it’s utterly Catholic. So I ended up spending a great deal of time immersed deeply within the text, using a kind of automatic writing approach to feel my way through in the dark. Reading aloud and grappling for rhythms, changing words to suit the effect rather than the content – which is there, but which I felt was almost secondary to the words themselves.
In the end it was an absolute pleasure and I’m quite proud of the result, given the time pressure I was under. I particularly like the middle section in which God – the Big Guy in my version – sends Gabriel to tell Mary about his plan, as he’s too busy gardening himself. In fact I got a bit carried away and added the odd bit to it myself, as a kind of compensatory strategy because, inevitably, some of the German stuff was lost in translation. That’s allowed – because I say so.
What’s it about? It’s about a man who’s killed a woman. I can’t wait to hear her read it. I’d love her to win and then the two of us would go on a tour of the English-speaking world and she’d read her version and I’d read mine, and the audiences would swoon like at the end of Perfume. This is a text that inspires wild fantasies. It may not be to everybody’s taste. But they won’t forget it in a hurry.
12:59: Irritatingly witty home-made portrait of Verena Rossbacher.
12:57: Spinnen's annoyed with Fries for reading such a lot so quickly.
12:50: Sulzer doesn't get the point either. Paul Jandl chose the text, he says it's a grotesque that's written to entertain. We're discussing Wilhelm Reich here. Turns out two of my guests have sat there in Klagenfurt themselves... One say Jandl's defending his text nicely. I wasn't listening.
12:45: OK, Hubert Winkels is pulling the "fun brake". Who'd have thought we'd ever dislike the same text? People do like it here but they wouldn't give it the Chez Katy Prize. The jurors resent him trying so hard to make them laugh, Feßmann too. Fleischanderl: "Wuchteldruckerei" - it's easy to make cheap jokes about sex - our Austrian expert here says that gorgeous word means squeezing the jam out of a doughnut...
12:41: Stefan, are you reading this? I'm completely prejudiced against this text - what did you think when you translated it?
12:34: Yeah, the others like it. They like the irony. And the reading.
12:26: Still very quiet and concentrated here. So it must be just me who dislikes it.
12:18: Concentrated frowns, occasional smiles.
12:12: He's reading. From a music stand. Oh my. Long, long introduction to Wilhelm Reich beforehand. People say all this talking is not a good sign.
Here's what I prepared earlier.
Stefan translated this text, which neither of us were hugely keen on. Steeped in self-pity, the story of a drama student whose parents split up. And being a very pretentious kind of narrator, he mixes in a little Reichian theory. Now obviously I have no idea about Reichian theory, but it’s certainly an annoying thing to put in a fictional text, and Fries thus succeeds in making his narrator not only pretentious and self-pitying but also very very irritating.
Of course everybody hates him, apart from the women, who want to go to bed with him. And he gets a job on TV, so everybody hates him a bit more. And his father is having a thing with a woman the children don’t approve of. I really can’t say much about this text in hindsight, other than that it’s really rather irksome on second reading too. An extract from a short novel: “Not exactly a bestseller, I think.”
Stefan's translation is here.
12:10: Portrait Christian Fries. He's playing the whistle. Now he's pushing a piano around. This confirms my prejudices about the writer. But you'll see.
11:51: Short break. We've cracked open the prosecco. So now the social experiment live blogging at a party is getting a tiny bit more exciting.
11:45: The jurors were dismissive, broke off the discussion early.
11:33: "A poor man's Stephen King." (Winkels) We're all feeling very sorry for Iris Schmidt. Poor woman sitting there, listening to the critics dealing the dirt (deservedly?). Keller chose the text and says it's "solidly written".
11:30: Burkhard Spinnen just made a plea for tact and speed. I think he wants to be kind.
11:25: We've started on the cake. Everyone's hoping something happens.
11:19: We're laughing at the daughter's generous bosom. Murmurs of "unliterary"...
11:15: We're chatting amongst ourselves...
11:10: The select audience chez Katy is bitching already. Last winter must have inspired people, all this snow... We're not overly impressed.
11:05: Oh gosh, Iris Schmidt's started already, no portrait. So here's a little something I prepared earlier. My translation: here.
This is one of the plainer stories that didn’t leave a great impression on me. An unpleasant sales rep, about whom we find out either a bit too much or a bit too little, ends up in a remote hilltop hotel in the forest. Very German. And the hotel is empty apart from him, and strangely old-fashioned, perhaps out of time. So he has an old-fashioned meal and talks to the old-fashioned daughter – no real sexual frisson here, sadly – and goes to bed in an old-fashioned room. And then there’s a hammering sound all night long but no explanation. I found Sabrina Janesch did the spooky much better.
So next morning he gets up and checks out and his car won’t start and he waits for a taxi that never comes and the hotel’s suddenly all locked up and he winds up walking and getting lost in a snowstorm. The height of spookiness is that he comes across a couple he saw on his way to the hotel and now they’re frozen in the snow.
It didn’t rock my boat hugely. Lots of atmosphere that may or may not be inspired by Hitchcock or Du Maurier or maybe Roald Dahl. A few slightly clichéd phrases about snow. Weak ending: “And the cold moonlight was already flooding across the broad, pale landscape in which Karl vanished. As fleeting as a shadow.”
11:02: The critics don't like the contemporary inserts much, but only in a mild, patient way.
10:55: We all love it here. Feßmann got a round of applause for her spirited defence of the story. Now Wawerzinek's joining in! He doesn't care if it's kitsch or romantic, he just wanted to get it on paper at last. It is autobiographical, oh yes. He got a round of applause here, we bloody love this guy.
10:50: Someone said you can tell Wawerzinek has a lot of experience in life, not like all these young things nowadays. Paul Jandl loves it! Yay! Feßmann loves it anyway. She's just being rude to Fleischanderl.
10:41: People here are gossiping about Peter Wawerzinek. They say his reading was strange. Hildegard Keller enthused. Hubert (long-windedly) impressed. But... He thought the means of telling the story were too uniform (as far as I can tell). The contrast between images and plain-talking. Fleischanderl wary of the snow cliché. Hah, wait and see what's coming up, love.
10:35: He's reading very well, putting lots of humour in there.
10:30: Everyone's very quiet here...
10:10: Now he's reading, devoted to a lady who helped him.
This was the best of Stefan’s texts, if you ask me, and the most sophisticated in terms of language. It works with its own rhyme, and rhythm, and imagination, and a wonderfully unreliable narrator, and nature, and more snow (or the first snow and there’s more to come, depending on the order). And with snatches of folk rhymes and tales, and it’s terribly sad but not out-and-out depressing like Zander’s piece. Stefan did a fine job of retaining all those added extras in the English.
A child put into a home, but where? Is it in Russia or in the GDR? In between newspaper-like reports on contemporary cases of child neglect. Abandoned for the West by his mother, the narrator looks back and gradually adjusts his idealised picture of that first journey to the home. Which is heartbreaking, really. “I’m thin. Unbelievably retarded, the home director scolds me. I’m retarded, thinks the boy, who is me.”
That narrator is quite open about being a writer – a likeable lack of guile, I must say. The only thing I don’t like is the end of the passage, which feels slightly tacked on – a medical-style excursus on speech itself. But yes, this is an absolutely impressive piece of writing and I really hope it wins something.
Stefan's text is here. It's very very East German, with in-jokes and all.
10:05: Portrait Peter Wawerzinek. A wee bit pseud-y.
Morning! Today's going to be slightly different, as I've launched a second social experiment - the Bachmann Prize Semi-Public Viewing. Round my place.
So I've prepared short statements on the remaining texts - by Ingrid Schmidt, Christian Fries, Peter Wawerzinek and Verena Rossbacher. And I'll just put them online when the respective readings begin, and see what else I manage. And no, I won't be uploading them in advance, or I'd probably get arrested.
13:50: That's it for today. I think it worked better for me when I didn't have visitors and wasn't slightly tipsy. But it was fun.
13:44: I'm flagging now, I'm sorry. Keller being nice as usual. Of course the text was a tad medieval. Jane Birkin! she says.
13:40: Spinnen defending his choice. It's hard to present people thinking in a realistic genre. Here, he says, it's the language that does the telling. He likes pregnant marbles, not like Feßmann.
13:33: Sulzer gave up reading it too, like I did. People hated her reading here, as did Sulzer. I chuckled all the way through. The critics are divided again, is it mannerism and is that a bad thing?
13:29: Fleischanderl says the Germans don't get Austrian literature. Laughter here. Someone here said the text was Habsburgian decadence. Feßmann says the text is waving a flag saying "I am art!"
13:22: I'm reading along in English, laughing almost as crazily as Rossbacher's reading. I think my guests might think I'm odd. They're restless now, they're annoyed that there's a murder at the end. Disappointed. Divided opinions here.
13:13: Stunned silence. Someone said "associative tapestry". "Did you translate this? Do you get it?"
13:06: She's reading like a woman insane. No surprise there then.
13:03: Someone just said "What the fuck".
13:02: She's reading. It's so completely odd. Here's what I prepared earlier.
Verena Rossbacher is the writer everyone’s pinned their hopes on this year. And hers was the text that made the deepest impression on me. Without a doubt. I first read it on paper and my heart sank. Untranslatable! Incomprehensible! An absolute cheek! What on earth is it about? I suspect Sulzer won’t like it.
And then I sat down and began translating. The text wavers and flickers and makes little sense on first reading, and it’s an absolute challenge to get to grips with, even as a reader. And it’s so utterly dependent on rhythm that the only possible way to translate it was as freely as possible. And it plays with letters and sounds and subtle alliteration, and colours and Catholicism – oh yes, it’s utterly Catholic. So I ended up spending a great deal of time immersed deeply within the text, using a kind of automatic writing approach to feel my way through in the dark. Reading aloud and grappling for rhythms, changing words to suit the effect rather than the content – which is there, but which I felt was almost secondary to the words themselves.
In the end it was an absolute pleasure and I’m quite proud of the result, given the time pressure I was under. I particularly like the middle section in which God – the Big Guy in my version – sends Gabriel to tell Mary about his plan, as he’s too busy gardening himself. In fact I got a bit carried away and added the odd bit to it myself, as a kind of compensatory strategy because, inevitably, some of the German stuff was lost in translation. That’s allowed – because I say so.
What’s it about? It’s about a man who’s killed a woman. I can’t wait to hear her read it. I’d love her to win and then the two of us would go on a tour of the English-speaking world and she’d read her version and I’d read mine, and the audiences would swoon like at the end of Perfume. This is a text that inspires wild fantasies. It may not be to everybody’s taste. But they won’t forget it in a hurry.
12:59: Irritatingly witty home-made portrait of Verena Rossbacher.
12:57: Spinnen's annoyed with Fries for reading such a lot so quickly.
12:50: Sulzer doesn't get the point either. Paul Jandl chose the text, he says it's a grotesque that's written to entertain. We're discussing Wilhelm Reich here. Turns out two of my guests have sat there in Klagenfurt themselves... One say Jandl's defending his text nicely. I wasn't listening.
12:45: OK, Hubert Winkels is pulling the "fun brake". Who'd have thought we'd ever dislike the same text? People do like it here but they wouldn't give it the Chez Katy Prize. The jurors resent him trying so hard to make them laugh, Feßmann too. Fleischanderl: "Wuchteldruckerei" - it's easy to make cheap jokes about sex - our Austrian expert here says that gorgeous word means squeezing the jam out of a doughnut...
12:41: Stefan, are you reading this? I'm completely prejudiced against this text - what did you think when you translated it?
12:34: Yeah, the others like it. They like the irony. And the reading.
12:26: Still very quiet and concentrated here. So it must be just me who dislikes it.
12:18: Concentrated frowns, occasional smiles.
12:12: He's reading. From a music stand. Oh my. Long, long introduction to Wilhelm Reich beforehand. People say all this talking is not a good sign.
Here's what I prepared earlier.
Stefan translated this text, which neither of us were hugely keen on. Steeped in self-pity, the story of a drama student whose parents split up. And being a very pretentious kind of narrator, he mixes in a little Reichian theory. Now obviously I have no idea about Reichian theory, but it’s certainly an annoying thing to put in a fictional text, and Fries thus succeeds in making his narrator not only pretentious and self-pitying but also very very irritating.
Of course everybody hates him, apart from the women, who want to go to bed with him. And he gets a job on TV, so everybody hates him a bit more. And his father is having a thing with a woman the children don’t approve of. I really can’t say much about this text in hindsight, other than that it’s really rather irksome on second reading too. An extract from a short novel: “Not exactly a bestseller, I think.”
Stefan's translation is here.
12:10: Portrait Christian Fries. He's playing the whistle. Now he's pushing a piano around. This confirms my prejudices about the writer. But you'll see.
11:51: Short break. We've cracked open the prosecco. So now the social experiment live blogging at a party is getting a tiny bit more exciting.
11:45: The jurors were dismissive, broke off the discussion early.
11:33: "A poor man's Stephen King." (Winkels) We're all feeling very sorry for Iris Schmidt. Poor woman sitting there, listening to the critics dealing the dirt (deservedly?). Keller chose the text and says it's "solidly written".
11:30: Burkhard Spinnen just made a plea for tact and speed. I think he wants to be kind.
11:25: We've started on the cake. Everyone's hoping something happens.
11:19: We're laughing at the daughter's generous bosom. Murmurs of "unliterary"...
11:15: We're chatting amongst ourselves...
11:10: The select audience chez Katy is bitching already. Last winter must have inspired people, all this snow... We're not overly impressed.
11:05: Oh gosh, Iris Schmidt's started already, no portrait. So here's a little something I prepared earlier. My translation: here.
This is one of the plainer stories that didn’t leave a great impression on me. An unpleasant sales rep, about whom we find out either a bit too much or a bit too little, ends up in a remote hilltop hotel in the forest. Very German. And the hotel is empty apart from him, and strangely old-fashioned, perhaps out of time. So he has an old-fashioned meal and talks to the old-fashioned daughter – no real sexual frisson here, sadly – and goes to bed in an old-fashioned room. And then there’s a hammering sound all night long but no explanation. I found Sabrina Janesch did the spooky much better.
So next morning he gets up and checks out and his car won’t start and he waits for a taxi that never comes and the hotel’s suddenly all locked up and he winds up walking and getting lost in a snowstorm. The height of spookiness is that he comes across a couple he saw on his way to the hotel and now they’re frozen in the snow.
It didn’t rock my boat hugely. Lots of atmosphere that may or may not be inspired by Hitchcock or Du Maurier or maybe Roald Dahl. A few slightly clichéd phrases about snow. Weak ending: “And the cold moonlight was already flooding across the broad, pale landscape in which Karl vanished. As fleeting as a shadow.”
11:02: The critics don't like the contemporary inserts much, but only in a mild, patient way.
10:55: We all love it here. Feßmann got a round of applause for her spirited defence of the story. Now Wawerzinek's joining in! He doesn't care if it's kitsch or romantic, he just wanted to get it on paper at last. It is autobiographical, oh yes. He got a round of applause here, we bloody love this guy.
10:50: Someone said you can tell Wawerzinek has a lot of experience in life, not like all these young things nowadays. Paul Jandl loves it! Yay! Feßmann loves it anyway. She's just being rude to Fleischanderl.
10:41: People here are gossiping about Peter Wawerzinek. They say his reading was strange. Hildegard Keller enthused. Hubert (long-windedly) impressed. But... He thought the means of telling the story were too uniform (as far as I can tell). The contrast between images and plain-talking. Fleischanderl wary of the snow cliché. Hah, wait and see what's coming up, love.
10:35: He's reading very well, putting lots of humour in there.
10:30: Everyone's very quiet here...
10:10: Now he's reading, devoted to a lady who helped him.
This was the best of Stefan’s texts, if you ask me, and the most sophisticated in terms of language. It works with its own rhyme, and rhythm, and imagination, and a wonderfully unreliable narrator, and nature, and more snow (or the first snow and there’s more to come, depending on the order). And with snatches of folk rhymes and tales, and it’s terribly sad but not out-and-out depressing like Zander’s piece. Stefan did a fine job of retaining all those added extras in the English.
A child put into a home, but where? Is it in Russia or in the GDR? In between newspaper-like reports on contemporary cases of child neglect. Abandoned for the West by his mother, the narrator looks back and gradually adjusts his idealised picture of that first journey to the home. Which is heartbreaking, really. “I’m thin. Unbelievably retarded, the home director scolds me. I’m retarded, thinks the boy, who is me.”
That narrator is quite open about being a writer – a likeable lack of guile, I must say. The only thing I don’t like is the end of the passage, which feels slightly tacked on – a medical-style excursus on speech itself. But yes, this is an absolutely impressive piece of writing and I really hope it wins something.
Stefan's text is here. It's very very East German, with in-jokes and all.
10:05: Portrait Peter Wawerzinek. A wee bit pseud-y.
Morning! Today's going to be slightly different, as I've launched a second social experiment - the Bachmann Prize Semi-Public Viewing. Round my place.
So I've prepared short statements on the remaining texts - by Ingrid Schmidt, Christian Fries, Peter Wawerzinek and Verena Rossbacher. And I'll just put them online when the respective readings begin, and see what else I manage. And no, I won't be uploading them in advance, or I'd probably get arrested.
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