Woah! They've announced the thirty candidates for the German indie book prize, the gruesomely betitled Hotlist. Lots and lots and lots of outstanding indie books, encompassing poetry, novels and short stories, and diaries by dead anarchists. About a third of the titles are translations.
They've managed to avoid last year's embarrassing pitfall of letting the public vote too early on - which meant people with a lot of computer-literate friends and relatives got their books onto the shortlist - I think by simply choosing thirty of the best from the word go. And really, there are some absolute jewels here. I literally can't decide between Simon Urban's Plan D, which is just plain amazing, Steven Uhly's Adams Fuge, which I haven't read yet but was intrigued by at a recent reading, and Lee Rourke's The Canal. Plus I'd love to get stuck into Nino Haratischwili's new book and I bet Carl Weissner's is worth reading too. Oh God, maybe I should change the name of this blog to Love German Indie Books.
You can vote on your favourite online, and there are samples from all the books on the site too. I hope I make it to the glitzy awards ceremony, especially as I know one of the judges again this year.
Anyway, here's the full list:
Belleville Naomi Schenk/Ulrich Rüdenauer (Hrsg.): Archiv verworfener Möglichkeiten
Corso Georg Stefan Troller (Hrsg.): corsofolio Paris
Diaphanes Joseph Mitchell: McSorley’s Wonderful Saloon
Dittrich Roland E. Koch: Dinge, die ich von ihm weiß
Droschl Monique Schwitter: Goldfischgedächtnis
Edition Rugerup Les Murray: Größer im Liegen
Eichborn DBC Pierre: Das Buch Gabriel
Frankfurter Verlagsanstalt Nino Haratischwili: Mein sanfter Zwilling
Haymon Andrej Kurkow: Der wahrhaftige Volkskontrolleur
Jung und Jung Katharina Geiser: Diese Gezeiten
Klöpfer & Meyer Nina Jäckle: Zielinski
Kookbooks Daniela Seel: Ich kann diese Stelle nicht wiederfinden
Kunstmann Paul Murray: Skippy stirbt
Libelle Christoph Meckel: Russische Zone
Luftschacht Martin Mandler: 23 Tage
Luxbooks John Ashbery: Ein weltgewandtes Land
Mairisch Lee Rourke: Der Kanal
Merlin Tahar Ben Jelloun: Jean Genet
Milena Carl Weissner: Die Abenteuer von Trashman
Rotbuch Akos Doma: Die allgemeine Tauglichkeit
Schöffling Simon Urban: Plan D
Secession Steven Uhly: Adams Fuge
Stroemfeld Peter Kurzeck: Vorabend
Taberna Kritika Franz Dodel: Von Tieren
Transit Indri Thorsteinsson: Taxi 79 ab Station
Verbrecher Erich Mühsam: Tagebücher, Bd. 1 1910-1911
Wagenbach Ascanio Celestrini: Schwarzes Schaf
Walde+Graf Christian Saehrendt: Die radikale Absenz des Ronny Läpplinger
Weidle Heinz Hilpert: So wird alles Schwere entweder Leicht oder Leben
weissbooks.w Breece D’J Pancake: Stories
3 comments:
I'm wondering how these books get on the Hotlist...? Do they allow each press to nominate one book? Or do they pick one book from each independent press? Noticed, eg., that DBC Pierre got the nod over at Eichborn. A good book (at least I liked it in English), but ... a translation? But I guess a book's being written in German isn't a requirement...?
Every time I see Paul Murray's "Skippy stirbt" I wonder whether I shoul buy it. It really makes me curious. And now it is even on the Hotlist. ... :)
Hi Daniel,
I asked about this. Independent publishers were invited to submit one book each. I believe the only requirement is that it's a book by an indie publisher. There was a Kuratorium that whittled down the 140 entries to thirty, and now the jury has to pick seven. The remaining three titles on the hotlist shortlist come from the public vote.
It's a lot of hard work and nobody's getting paid a penny! Now that's dedication, huh?
Post a Comment