Looking Back, Looking Forward

This will no doubt be my last post this year, and I'm pretty pleased with the way the past months have gone here at Love German Books. I feel I've made a number of virtual friends and shared my biased and unprofessional opinions on German-language writing with the world.

There have been a couple of developments that show optimistic little me that the world isn't all a bad place, at least when it comes to interest in international literature: the World Literature Forum (if you haven't been there yet, take a week off work and dive in right now), Amazon's Literature in Translation store, and Chad Post's ongoing attempt to provide reliable statistics on translated literature, the Translation Database (for the USA). Plus, here in Berlin we held our own little celebration of the art of translation - Translation Idol. Watch this space for more news on the Return of Translation Idol in 2009.

I'll be spending Christmas and the New Year with my family and an old favourite that makes me feel all warm inside: Selim Özdogan's Die Tochter des Schmieds. And after that, I'm looking forward to three new German books in January/February:

Zoran Drvenkar, Sorry
Daniel Kehlmann, Ruhm
and Selim Özdogan, Zwischen zwei Träumen

Apart from the fact that they're all by men in their 30s, I don't think they'll have much in common. Plus, I'm sure 2009 will bring stocking-loads of events and books marking the twentieth anniversary of 1989. Here's a review of two old ones to be going along with in the NY Times, courtesy of David Vickrey again. And if you can receive NPR, the new year will see the dawning of a new era in radio with The Berlin Stories. I'm certainly looking forward to that.

So here's wishing all my fellow German book-lovers happy holidays and a good slide into the new year, with plenty of time and great books to read.