Wednesday 24 September 2014

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.   

1 comment:

Margarete said...

bullets: just click return button twice and go one back. But it's fine how you dealt with it, anyway.

Nice blog. Found it via Paris Review (D. Searls about Hieronymus etc. on Translation Day).
Hurray to all translators!
Hurray to wonderful words!