German Book Prize 2013 to Terézia Mora

The German Book Prize - Germany's most attention-grabbing literary award - has gone to the lovely Terézia Mora for her novel Das Ungeheuer. Follow the link to read a sample translation by Zaia Alexander.

The book is the second in a trilogy about a character called Darius Kopp; the first part, Der einzige Mann auf dem Kontinent, appeared in 2009 and was also nominated for the prize. In the new novel, Darius's Hungarian wife Flora has died and he travels around central and eastern Europe with her ashes, smuggled out of Germany. At 688 pages, the book looks longer than it is. That's because it takes place on two levels - yes, literally - with Darius's sad adventures at the top of the pages and Flora's diary, as he reads it, on the bottom halves. The monster of the title is love, by the way, but they wouldn't let her call it Das Ungeheuer Liebe.

I've seen Mora - who also translates from Hungarian, including Peter Esterhazy - reading from the novel, twice in fact. It came across as beautifully written, paper-cut painful and exciting, and I look forward to reading the whole thing. Her debut novel was translated by the great Michael Henry Heim, as Day In Day Out, and I suspect winning the prize will help her get this book into English too. Congratulations!

Adelbert von Chamisso Prize to Terezia Mora

This year's Chamisso Prize (for writers from ethnic minorities, see here and here and here for past rants, with more to come in the near future) goes to Terezia Mora.

I more than congratulate her on the €15,000 prize money, but not perhaps on the patronising honour of being singled out as "good for a foreigner". Having seen her in action though, I expect she may have a thing or two to say about the whole matter.

You can read a sample from her excellent novel Der einzige Mann auf dem Kontinent on her publisher's website (trans. Zaia Alexander). Michael Henry Heim's translation of Day In Day Out is fantastic stuff too.