Swiss Book Prize Shortlist

It's that time of year again, the day when I realize which German writers are actually Swiss. Nationalities are all nonsense anyway, surely?

Here's the list of five (pardon the bullet points, I seem to be incapable of deleting them):

• Lukas Bärfuss: Koala - man reflects on brother's death and marsupials 
• Dorothee Elmiger: Schlafgänger - group reflects on refugees and borders
• Heinz Helle: Der beruhigende Klang von explodierendem Kerosin - man reflects on philosophy, unhappiness and sex in New York
• Guy Krneta: Unger üs  - man reflects on family in Swiss German dialect
• Gertrud Leutenegger: Panischer Frühling - woman reflects on London and loss in London.
•  
•  
• Jesus, I can't get rid of these bloody bullet points. Anyway,
• (I've decided to embrace them)
• the winner is announced on
• 9 November and gets 
• 40,000 Swiss Francs. 
• That's € 33,000
• or £ 26,000.
•  
•  
• The Helle book and the Elmiger book will both be available in English translation at some point. Elmiger's my favourite, obviously, but I'm a fan of Helle too.