Tuesday, 31 August 2010
Hotlist Shortlist
They've announced the 15 final titles in the running for the German-language indie book prize "Hotlist". The winner will be announced at a party at the book fair. I'm looking forward to it but I won't tell you who my favourite is.
Science Fiction and Fantasy Translation Awards
Look out for the first ever Science Fiction and Fantasy Translation Awards in the States. They should be presented in February 2011, to one long work and one short work of speculative fiction translated into English and published in 2010. The purpose of the awards, they say, is "to promote the fiction of non-English-speaking authors and to highlight the valuable work done by translators."
One German book is nominated so far: The War of the Dwarves by Markus Heitz, translated from the German by Sally-Ann Spencer (Orbit), originally published in 2004.
I think this is utterly cool.
One German book is nominated so far: The War of the Dwarves by Markus Heitz, translated from the German by Sally-Ann Spencer (Orbit), originally published in 2004.
I think this is utterly cool.
Sunday, 29 August 2010
Friedrich Christian Delius: Portrait of the Mother as a Young Woman
You know how you remember the first single you ever bought? Or the first band you ever saw live? Well, Friedrich Christian Delius was the first German writer I ever saw reading. This was back in 1994, when I was an exchange student. Professor Frank Hörnigk had organised a colloquium at Berlin’s Humboldt University, inviting a different Berlin-based writer to read to students and answer their questions every week. It felt absolutely revolutionary to me – I was used to the slightly dry stuff of German Studies in the UK, where I don’t think we read a single book by a living writer in the first two years. And suddenly there they were – actual real live German writers!
And Friedrich Christian Delius was the first of them, and he was genuinely entertaining, his humour struggling all the way through my undergraduate comprehension difficulties. So it may well be thanks to him, and to Professor Hörnigk, that love german books even exists today. And to Conrad Zuse of course – about whom Delius wrote his most recent novel, die frau, für die ich den computer erfand. Which is an odd, imaginative fictional interview with the disgruntled German inventor of the computer and well worth reading, if only to find out what Byron has to do with it.
His Portrait of the Mother as a Young Woman is out any day now from Peirene Press, translated by Jamie Bulloch, and Delius will be reading in London in mid-September. It’s the third ever book from Peirene Press, the British independent publishers specialising in contemporary European literature in English translation… of less than 200 pages. As they point out, “Peirene's books have a plot to pull the reader along BUT rhythm, structure and language are equally, if not more so, important.”
That certainly applies here – rhythm is very much it. The novella consists of a single sentence, broken up merely by indentations. That’s something Delius has done before, in his The Pears of Ribbeck, translated back in 1991 by Hans Werner, a book about what the fall of the Iron Curtain does to a rural East German community. In that case, as I recall, the tone is angry, an enjoyable rant. Here, the tone is very different.
The story is about Delius’ own mother, stranded heavily pregnant in Rome in early 1943. Her newly-wed husband has been called up to the Wehrmacht in Africa and she is left alone in this unfamiliar place, at least protected from Allied bombs, she believes, because nobody would harm the Holy City. And nicely fed and cared for by Protestant nuns and the German community. As she walks across Rome to a concert in a church, her mind wanders and we share her thoughts. So the pace is a leisurely stroll, ending up in a climax as the protagonist listens to the concert, moved to tears by the music, her language and her faith.
Delius has rather nicely wormed his way into a pregnant woman’s mind, with all the attendant problems of short attention span and anxiety. We learn gradually about a deeply religious young woman, lonely and longing for her husband. Initially, I found myself identifying with her, forgetting for a while the political circumstances at the time. And then Delius begins to add details of the small injustices in Rome, the tiny rations for Italians compared to the privileged Germans, the cafés closed for want of coffee and the poverty. He introduces another female character, the mother’s roommate Ilse, who prefers the company of Italian kitchen staff over that of the diplomats’ wives among the German ex-pats.
We begin to see how terrifyingly naïve the heroine is – “perhaps there were even Jews in Rome, she did not know, she could not recall having seen any, maybe wearing yellow stars on their coats, and she had not heard the thorny word Jew uttered by any of her Roman acquaintances, not even Ilse”. Of course she has been brainwashed by growing up under the Nazis, and Delius describes the draw of the League of German Girls with its campfire camaraderie. There are hints, however, that others around her are different, not just Ilse. Her husband Gert is a pastor, as is her father, and there is a brief mention of the Confessing Church, an opposition movement within Germany’s Protestant church.
This is perhaps one of the difficulties with the book, which might have benefited from a timeline or an appendix. I found it assumed a great deal of knowledge of German history and geography – and of what happened in Rome in 1943, namely German occupation, Allied bombings and the deportation of the Jews to Auschwitz. Delius deliberately alludes to these coming events in the course of the narrative, adding an extra element of threat, but I feel they’re hard to spot for English readers. A whole level of understanding, perhaps not crucial to appreciate the book but still adding depth, would be missing. It’s not so much the translation that causes losses as the cultural transplantation from Germany to the UK.
But ah, the translation! Jamie Bulloch has done a marvellous job, writing ever so slightly old-fashioned English to suit the narration. He deals well with the single-sentence structure, something I can imagine might have caused the odd headache. German is the perfect language for the single-sentence book, although Open Letter is publishing French writer Mathias Énard’s Zone in December, this time stretching the boundaries of sentence structure over a daunting 517 pages – no mean feat for translator Charlotte Mandell. Truncating long, complicated German sentences is hard for translators to resist, although I personally don’t think it’s always necessary. But no, Bulloch has made the book a smooth read despite that pretty major obstacle, and after a while the lack of full stops felt entirely natural.
The publisher Meike Ziervogel writes on the (rather beautiful) jacket: “…it’s a compelling and credible description of a ‘typical’ young German woman during the Nazi era. If we can relate to her we come close to understanding the forces that were shaping an entire generation.”
I have to admit I found it difficult to relate to the mother, and I’m not quite sure that was Delius’ intention. But he does address the subject of women in the Third Reich in an admirably subtle way, showing us a woman who feels her only role is as a mother and who longs for peace – as long as it’s “her side” that wins the war. At the same time, she wishes her more critical husband were there to help her understand what’s going on in the world. What the writer doesn’t do, I feel, is absolve his mother of all guilt.
Portrait of the Mother as a Young Woman is beautifully written, a naïve contemplation on Rome during the Third Reich on the surface, a deeper look at how people ticked at the time below that, and ultimately a testament to the power of faith, if only to distract from the anxiety of life under a dictatorship. The form is perfectly matched to the content - something you can't say every day. I'm very pleased to see the book in such an excellent English translation and wish it well in the UK.
And Friedrich Christian Delius was the first of them, and he was genuinely entertaining, his humour struggling all the way through my undergraduate comprehension difficulties. So it may well be thanks to him, and to Professor Hörnigk, that love german books even exists today. And to Conrad Zuse of course – about whom Delius wrote his most recent novel, die frau, für die ich den computer erfand. Which is an odd, imaginative fictional interview with the disgruntled German inventor of the computer and well worth reading, if only to find out what Byron has to do with it.
His Portrait of the Mother as a Young Woman is out any day now from Peirene Press, translated by Jamie Bulloch, and Delius will be reading in London in mid-September. It’s the third ever book from Peirene Press, the British independent publishers specialising in contemporary European literature in English translation… of less than 200 pages. As they point out, “Peirene's books have a plot to pull the reader along BUT rhythm, structure and language are equally, if not more so, important.”
That certainly applies here – rhythm is very much it. The novella consists of a single sentence, broken up merely by indentations. That’s something Delius has done before, in his The Pears of Ribbeck, translated back in 1991 by Hans Werner, a book about what the fall of the Iron Curtain does to a rural East German community. In that case, as I recall, the tone is angry, an enjoyable rant. Here, the tone is very different.
The story is about Delius’ own mother, stranded heavily pregnant in Rome in early 1943. Her newly-wed husband has been called up to the Wehrmacht in Africa and she is left alone in this unfamiliar place, at least protected from Allied bombs, she believes, because nobody would harm the Holy City. And nicely fed and cared for by Protestant nuns and the German community. As she walks across Rome to a concert in a church, her mind wanders and we share her thoughts. So the pace is a leisurely stroll, ending up in a climax as the protagonist listens to the concert, moved to tears by the music, her language and her faith.
Delius has rather nicely wormed his way into a pregnant woman’s mind, with all the attendant problems of short attention span and anxiety. We learn gradually about a deeply religious young woman, lonely and longing for her husband. Initially, I found myself identifying with her, forgetting for a while the political circumstances at the time. And then Delius begins to add details of the small injustices in Rome, the tiny rations for Italians compared to the privileged Germans, the cafés closed for want of coffee and the poverty. He introduces another female character, the mother’s roommate Ilse, who prefers the company of Italian kitchen staff over that of the diplomats’ wives among the German ex-pats.
We begin to see how terrifyingly naïve the heroine is – “perhaps there were even Jews in Rome, she did not know, she could not recall having seen any, maybe wearing yellow stars on their coats, and she had not heard the thorny word Jew uttered by any of her Roman acquaintances, not even Ilse”. Of course she has been brainwashed by growing up under the Nazis, and Delius describes the draw of the League of German Girls with its campfire camaraderie. There are hints, however, that others around her are different, not just Ilse. Her husband Gert is a pastor, as is her father, and there is a brief mention of the Confessing Church, an opposition movement within Germany’s Protestant church.
This is perhaps one of the difficulties with the book, which might have benefited from a timeline or an appendix. I found it assumed a great deal of knowledge of German history and geography – and of what happened in Rome in 1943, namely German occupation, Allied bombings and the deportation of the Jews to Auschwitz. Delius deliberately alludes to these coming events in the course of the narrative, adding an extra element of threat, but I feel they’re hard to spot for English readers. A whole level of understanding, perhaps not crucial to appreciate the book but still adding depth, would be missing. It’s not so much the translation that causes losses as the cultural transplantation from Germany to the UK.
But ah, the translation! Jamie Bulloch has done a marvellous job, writing ever so slightly old-fashioned English to suit the narration. He deals well with the single-sentence structure, something I can imagine might have caused the odd headache. German is the perfect language for the single-sentence book, although Open Letter is publishing French writer Mathias Énard’s Zone in December, this time stretching the boundaries of sentence structure over a daunting 517 pages – no mean feat for translator Charlotte Mandell. Truncating long, complicated German sentences is hard for translators to resist, although I personally don’t think it’s always necessary. But no, Bulloch has made the book a smooth read despite that pretty major obstacle, and after a while the lack of full stops felt entirely natural.
The publisher Meike Ziervogel writes on the (rather beautiful) jacket: “…it’s a compelling and credible description of a ‘typical’ young German woman during the Nazi era. If we can relate to her we come close to understanding the forces that were shaping an entire generation.”
I have to admit I found it difficult to relate to the mother, and I’m not quite sure that was Delius’ intention. But he does address the subject of women in the Third Reich in an admirably subtle way, showing us a woman who feels her only role is as a mother and who longs for peace – as long as it’s “her side” that wins the war. At the same time, she wishes her more critical husband were there to help her understand what’s going on in the world. What the writer doesn’t do, I feel, is absolve his mother of all guilt.
Portrait of the Mother as a Young Woman is beautifully written, a naïve contemplation on Rome during the Third Reich on the surface, a deeper look at how people ticked at the time below that, and ultimately a testament to the power of faith, if only to distract from the anxiety of life under a dictatorship. The form is perfectly matched to the content - something you can't say every day. I'm very pleased to see the book in such an excellent English translation and wish it well in the UK.
Thursday, 26 August 2010
House of World Cultures Takes A Stand on Sarrazin
Thilo Sarrazin is a former Berlin politician now on the board of the Bundesbank. He's also well known for voicing opinions on poverty, integration and immigration that don't sit well with his membership of the Social Democratic Party - in fact, the right-wing populist Pro Deutschland movement recently extended him an invitation to join and the NPD has also praised his ideas.
He caused a furore last year with his comments along the lines of Muslims or Turkish people in Berlin being only good as greengrocers - as I recall, and I'm loath to research this nasty business properly, so you'll have to bear with me - and before that by comparing benefit claimants to rats. Now Sarrazin has written a whole book. And you know what? I'm not going to link to it. It's called Deutschland schafft sich ab - Wie wir unser Land aufs Spiel setzen, and it's published by Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt. Which, incidentally, is part of the Bertelsmann empire that has been subject to political scrutiny and headlines of its own too, as Publishing Perspectives reports.
Sarrazin's book comes out at the end of this month, but has been previewed in the BILD tabloid and Spiegel magazine. Upon which even the CDU's Angela Merkel and Wolfgang Schäuble distanced themselves from the writer's remarks (see the Bloomberg piece - Spiegel Online has one too, but the intricacies of translation mean it presents at least one of Sarrazin's theses as fact). Today's papers are full of debates on whether what he says is actually racist or not. I haven't read the book and I don't intend to do so, but I think at least in Britain, there would be no problem labelling his ideas racist.
Now until today I'd been ignoring Sarrazin on my blog, unwilling to grant him even the very limited extra publicity it would give him. But now I'm delighted to report that someone's standing up to him!
Yesterday, Berlin's House of World Cultures issued a statement on an event planned there as part of the Berlin International Literature Festival. They write (my translation):
Thilo Sarrazin's polemical theses are completely contrary to the House's basic stand. Unfortunately, such excluding positions are often voiced in society. For this reason, we consider critical debate necessary, particularly on our own premises. The festival director Ulrich Schreiber informed us yesterday that the publishers and Thilo Sarrazin reject a critical dialogue partner on the podium.
So, they say, they're not going to host the event unless he changes his mind. Which is about the best thing I've heard all week.
He caused a furore last year with his comments along the lines of Muslims or Turkish people in Berlin being only good as greengrocers - as I recall, and I'm loath to research this nasty business properly, so you'll have to bear with me - and before that by comparing benefit claimants to rats. Now Sarrazin has written a whole book. And you know what? I'm not going to link to it. It's called Deutschland schafft sich ab - Wie wir unser Land aufs Spiel setzen, and it's published by Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt. Which, incidentally, is part of the Bertelsmann empire that has been subject to political scrutiny and headlines of its own too, as Publishing Perspectives reports.
Sarrazin's book comes out at the end of this month, but has been previewed in the BILD tabloid and Spiegel magazine. Upon which even the CDU's Angela Merkel and Wolfgang Schäuble distanced themselves from the writer's remarks (see the Bloomberg piece - Spiegel Online has one too, but the intricacies of translation mean it presents at least one of Sarrazin's theses as fact). Today's papers are full of debates on whether what he says is actually racist or not. I haven't read the book and I don't intend to do so, but I think at least in Britain, there would be no problem labelling his ideas racist.
Now until today I'd been ignoring Sarrazin on my blog, unwilling to grant him even the very limited extra publicity it would give him. But now I'm delighted to report that someone's standing up to him!
Yesterday, Berlin's House of World Cultures issued a statement on an event planned there as part of the Berlin International Literature Festival. They write (my translation):
Thilo Sarrazin's polemical theses are completely contrary to the House's basic stand. Unfortunately, such excluding positions are often voiced in society. For this reason, we consider critical debate necessary, particularly on our own premises. The festival director Ulrich Schreiber informed us yesterday that the publishers and Thilo Sarrazin reject a critical dialogue partner on the podium.
So, they say, they're not going to host the event unless he changes his mind. Which is about the best thing I've heard all week.
Wednesday, 25 August 2010
Franzen's Freiheit and the Multiple Translator Phenomenon
The whole world's in Franzen Freedom frenzy, and Germany's no exception. And of course somebody has to do the job of translating the book in record time - because while the author took nine years to produce the book, the German version has to be finished yesterday.
I've written about the multiple translator phenomenon before, specifically the six-man team who had to translate Dan Brown in ten days. Which may or may not have been a success, I don't know. But now there are a couple of rather more literary titles being translated by team effort.
I have a sneaking suspicion this is not an entirely new phenomenon. I know of one prominent North American novel that was translated by two different people to get it onto the market quickly back in 2003, and the name of the translator at the front of the book is a pseudonym. But now publishers seem to be more open about doing it.
The prime example at the moment is Jonathan Safran Foer's Eating Animals/Tiere essen. The book was translated by Isabel Bogdan, Ingo Herzke and Brigitte Jakobeit, and my friend Isabel accompanied the process occasionally on her jolly good blog. Which takes us back to the subject of translators building buzz for their books.
The German publishers Kiepenheuer & Witsch have garnered huge amounts of publicity elsewhere too and are setting up a new online readers' community for the book along the lines of their successful, groundbreaking, etc. etc. DFW site unendlicher spass. I look forward to seeing the site and whether the translators will be as involved this time as DFW's translator Ulrich Blumenbach. Certainly, it'd be interesting to find out how that collaboration worked.
Meanwhile, Jonathan Franzen's previous translator Bettina Abarbanell has been working with Eike Schönfeld on changing Freedom into Freiheit. It's due for release on 17 September, just over two weeks after the official US publication date. As in the case of Foer's book, the German publishers Rowohlt have chosen excellent translators for the job - but one wonders whether an 800-page novel can be translated excellently by two different people. Won't we be able to see the gaps? Schönfeld gave a couple of clues about the process in an interview with the Hamburger Abendblatt last month, if you read between the lines:
Not every author is suitable for every translator, says Schönfeld, and sometimes you work under exceptional conditions, somehow. For instance when a writer like Franzen speaks quite good German himself. Or when you have to translate a book faster than you'd actually want to.
Obviously, translators are always under time pressure, but as it becomes easier to get hold of the original versions, publishers are in an even greater rush to reap their investments on the home market. If I were a bestselling American author though, I'd want to know that my book was getting the best possible treatment in the translation process. And I'm not sure that includes being chopped into sections and then stuck back together again, no matter how talented the translators and editors working on it may be.
I've written about the multiple translator phenomenon before, specifically the six-man team who had to translate Dan Brown in ten days. Which may or may not have been a success, I don't know. But now there are a couple of rather more literary titles being translated by team effort.
I have a sneaking suspicion this is not an entirely new phenomenon. I know of one prominent North American novel that was translated by two different people to get it onto the market quickly back in 2003, and the name of the translator at the front of the book is a pseudonym. But now publishers seem to be more open about doing it.
The prime example at the moment is Jonathan Safran Foer's Eating Animals/Tiere essen. The book was translated by Isabel Bogdan, Ingo Herzke and Brigitte Jakobeit, and my friend Isabel accompanied the process occasionally on her jolly good blog. Which takes us back to the subject of translators building buzz for their books.
The German publishers Kiepenheuer & Witsch have garnered huge amounts of publicity elsewhere too and are setting up a new online readers' community for the book along the lines of their successful, groundbreaking, etc. etc. DFW site unendlicher spass. I look forward to seeing the site and whether the translators will be as involved this time as DFW's translator Ulrich Blumenbach. Certainly, it'd be interesting to find out how that collaboration worked.
Meanwhile, Jonathan Franzen's previous translator Bettina Abarbanell has been working with Eike Schönfeld on changing Freedom into Freiheit. It's due for release on 17 September, just over two weeks after the official US publication date. As in the case of Foer's book, the German publishers Rowohlt have chosen excellent translators for the job - but one wonders whether an 800-page novel can be translated excellently by two different people. Won't we be able to see the gaps? Schönfeld gave a couple of clues about the process in an interview with the Hamburger Abendblatt last month, if you read between the lines:
Not every author is suitable for every translator, says Schönfeld, and sometimes you work under exceptional conditions, somehow. For instance when a writer like Franzen speaks quite good German himself. Or when you have to translate a book faster than you'd actually want to.
Obviously, translators are always under time pressure, but as it becomes easier to get hold of the original versions, publishers are in an even greater rush to reap their investments on the home market. If I were a bestselling American author though, I'd want to know that my book was getting the best possible treatment in the translation process. And I'm not sure that includes being chopped into sections and then stuck back together again, no matter how talented the translators and editors working on it may be.
Monday, 23 August 2010
Vote for the Oddest German Book Title
Blatantly and openly modelled on the British Diagram Prize, the funkily titled German equivalent Kuriosester Buchtitel 2010 is now open for your vote. There's a longlist of twenty odd titles, presented in random order when you click on it. The public whittles that down to a six-strong shortlist, and then three judges choose the winner. Incidentally, I met one of the judges at a party where I was obscenely drunk. Just so you know.
Cleverly, they released the longlist on the same day as the German Book Prize longlist, but seeing as I've been on an emotional bender since finishing the first draft of my Helene Hegemann translation, I only just noticed it. Only one book is on both lists, Jan Faktor's Georgs Sorgen um die Vergangenheit oder Im Reich des heiligen Hodensack-Bimbams von Prag. Which translates as something like "Gregor's Concern for the Past or In the Kingdom of the Holy Scrotum Dingdong of Prague".
The winner will be announced on 6 October at the Frankfurt Book Fair. They seem to get a nice framed certificate and a kiss on the cheek.
Cleverly, they released the longlist on the same day as the German Book Prize longlist, but seeing as I've been on an emotional bender since finishing the first draft of my Helene Hegemann translation, I only just noticed it. Only one book is on both lists, Jan Faktor's Georgs Sorgen um die Vergangenheit oder Im Reich des heiligen Hodensack-Bimbams von Prag. Which translates as something like "Gregor's Concern for the Past or In the Kingdom of the Holy Scrotum Dingdong of Prague".
The winner will be announced on 6 October at the Frankfurt Book Fair. They seem to get a nice framed certificate and a kiss on the cheek.
Wednesday, 18 August 2010
German Book Prize 2010: The Longlist
The list of 20 titles nominated for this year's German Book Prize is now out, catching me rather on the hop. Here they are:
Alina Bronsky, Die schärfsten Gerichte der tatarischen Küche (Kiepenheuer & Witsch, August 2010)
And yes, I shall take it upon myself to plough through all the extracts and provide a lowdown on the titles before the shortlist comes out on 8 September. Wish me luck!
Alina Bronsky, Die schärfsten Gerichte der tatarischen Küche (Kiepenheuer & Witsch, August 2010)
Jan Faktor, Georgs Sorgen um die Vergangenheit oder im Reich des heiligen Hodensack-Bimbams von Prag (Kiepenheuer & Witsch, March 2010)
Nino Haratischwili, Juja (Verbrecher Verlag, March 2010)Thomas Hettche, Die Liebe der Väter (Kiepenheuer & Witsch, August 2010)
Michael Kleeberg, Das amerikanische Hospital (DVA, August 2010)Michael Köhlmeier, Madalyn (Carl Hanser Verlag, August 2010)
Thomas Lehr, September. Fata Morgana (Carl Hanser Verlag, August 2010)Mariana Leky, Die Herrenausstatterin (DuMont Buchverlag, February 2010)
Nicol Ljubić, Meeresstille (Hoffmann und Campe, February 2010)Kristof Magnusson, Das war ich nicht (Verlag Antje Kunstmann, January 2010)
Andreas Maier, Das Zimmer (Suhrkamp Verlag, September 2010)Olga Martynova, Sogar Papageien überleben uns (Droschl Literaturverlag, January 2010)
Martin Mosebach, Was davor geschah (Carl Hanser Verlag, August 2010)Melinda Nadj Abonji, Tauben fliegen auf (Jung und Jung Verlag, August 2010)
Doron Rabinovici, Andernorts (Suhrkamp Verlag, August 2010)Hans Joachim Schädlich, Kokoschkins Reise (Rowohlt Verlag, March 2010)
Andreas Schäfer, Wir vier (DuMont Buchverlag, February 2010)Peter Wawerzinek, Rabenliebe (Galiani Berlin, August 2010)
Judith Zander, Dinge, die wir heute sagten (Deutscher Taschenbuchverlag, September 2010)Joachim Zelter, Der Ministerpräsident (Klöpfer & Meyer Verlag, August 2010)
A few surprises there, and a few publishers will be cracking open the champagne, either for making it onto the list at all as indies or for multiple nominations. You can download samples from all the books at libreka and selected bookshops should have the lovely booklet of extracts from next week. Goethe-Institut branches in Athens, Stockholm, Budapest, Dublin and Thessaloniki will be hosting literary blind date events with the finalists.And yes, I shall take it upon myself to plough through all the extracts and provide a lowdown on the titles before the shortlist comes out on 8 September. Wish me luck!
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