German Literature Month

November is German Literature Month!

Not here, obviously, where every month is German literature month. I mean at Lizzy's Literary Life and Beauty is A Sleeping Cat. They've also given away loads of German/Austrian/Swiss books to other British bloggers, so look forward to a rash of reviews all over the shop. Here's their schedule:

Week 1 (Nov 1 -7) German Literature
Maybe you like Thomas Mann or you are a fan of Genazino.  Perhaps you prefer contemporary German literature. Erpenbeck or Kehlmann perhaps?  Who is your favourite German author?  Now’s the time to share with us.
Week 2  (Nov 8-14) Crime Fiction
There are a lot of German crime novels. Whether you like it gritty or prefer psychological suspense, you are sure to find something to suit.
Week 3  (Nov 15 – 21) From Austria and Switzerland 

You could read some of the 19th century Swiss classics like Gotthelf, Keller or Meyer or finally read those Roths and Zweigs that have been sitting in your TBR for years.

Week 4 (Nov 22-28) Kleist and Other German Classics
November 21 marks the bicentennial of Kleist’s death.  We will read some of his novellas and I may read a play (something I haven’t done since university).  This is also the time to (re-)acquaint ourselves with other German classics – Goethe anyone?

Week 5  (Nov 29-30) Read As You Please and Wrap Up
Here’s your chance to read and review whatever you like.

I shall just carry on regardless I'm afraid.

Feridun Zaimoglu on Fifty Years of Turks in Germany, and Jewellery

You gotta love him, eh? Kiel's most famous literary type Feridun Zaimoglu gets all hot under the collar at Zeit Online - he loves Germany, he can't stand Germany, he loves Turks, he can't stand Turks. And then there's this:

I was angry back then (when he wrote Kanak Sprak). I still am. I don't want that anger to go away, that furore that I've ruined a lot of things with. I mean, I could say: Feridun, take off all that metal, all the tasteless oversized rings on your fingers. It's bad style. I do know the rules in the German culture business, all I'd have to do is take off my rings. I'm not considered a serious writer. (...) I love these rings. When they touch each other while I'm typing it sounds like the cows coming down from the pastures.

Please, Feridun, don't take off the rings. I may be the only person reminded of Guy Ritchie-style lovable London lads' signet rings, but I'm sure I'm not the only person who loves all that metal. And we have plenty of sensible writers already.

On a more serious note, Zaimoglu laments the lack of respect for what the first generation of Turkish immigrants achieved in Germany, while not holding back on young lads who can't spell the word "respect". All this comes after fifty years of immigration from Turkey - once the Berlin Wall was built it was a matter of months before West Germany needed extra labour and signed an agreement with Ankara.

Michael Krüger versus Womankind?

The publisher, poet, novelist, friend-of-the-Nobel-prizewinners and all-round old-school literary superhero Michael Krüger is smoking a cigarette on the front page of yesterday's arts section in Die Zeit, and talking to Iris Radisch. About what a superhero he is and how he can't retire from running the Hanser publishing house because who could possibly do such a good job as he does?

There's some interesting banter about the new imprint Hanser Berlin - to be run by Elisabeth Ruge, who stepped down at Berlin Verlag after Bloomsbury reined in its subsidiaries. She seems to be taking a few writers with her, including Richard Ford, Jeanette Winterson and Péter Esterházy, and Krüger says he wants a foot in the door in Berlin and its "so-called intellectual life".

Then comes the best bit though – perhaps, Radisch speculates, Elisabeth Ruge might take over from him when he does retire in 2014? At which point Krüger seems to get rather flustered. "I can say that quite clearly. She absolutely won't." And why? The wrong type of person, too much for her, and she has two children.

At which the (German literary) world is up in arms. Richard Kämmerlings wrote in Die Welt at 6:37 this morning: "Why are we even discussing quotas for women executives in DAX companies if a proven expert is considered unsuitable to run even a medium-sized family firm as a mother of two?"

Here's what I think: what we should really be discussing is not whether Michael Krüger's statement is sexist. Maybe it is - what a surprise. What's really important though is whether working models in publishing are compatible with parenting per se. By 2014, according to my calculations, Elisabeth Ruge's children will be 17 and 19, so not quite as demanding as a pair of toddlers. But if we look at Michael Krüger's work schedule as laid out in the article at hand - first meeting at 8.30 a.m. every day, off home at 8 p.m. every day, "with a pile of papers under his arm" - it's hardly a family-friendly model. Anyone with children - whether a man or a woman - would be crazy to take on a job with that kind of expectations attached to it. Even many of the editors I know work ridiculous hours for ridiculous wages, and I know of one foreign rights woman who said she wanted to work in publishing but also wanted children, so editing was out of the question.

Incidentally, I met Michael Krüger in Frankfurt. I was eating sushi using splintery wooden chopsticks while balancing the plastic container on my knees at the time and may not have made a particularly good impression. Certainly, he didn't offer me a job as his successor. But then who'd want it?

Update: So a lot of people think Krüger's statement definitely is sexist. And worth talking about sexism in publishing (where, yes, like so many other industries with not terribly high pay, women do most of the work and gain few of the prestigious positions). They're probably right but I'm giving the guy the benefit of the doubt in this particular instance because I really don't know whether he'd have said the same thing about a man or not. The thing is, I would say the same thing about a man, and I think that's where we ought to be heading. 

articulate in New York

My friend Jan Valk is curating a series of events featuring young German-language writers at the Goethe Institut in New York, called "articulate". I'm not quite sure whether that's a verb or an adjective here. Anyway, instead of constructing some kind of artificial link between the writers - writers from the former East, writers with a background in physics, writers with Polish grandfathers, whatever - the series just presents people who are doing interesting stuff. I like the idea.

articulate—a series about new tendencies in contemporary German literature. The event series articulate spotlights the young German-language literature scene. By trying not to construct a generation consisting of these highly varied exponents, the series purposely focuses on its diversity. The guests of articulate traverse borders in the biographical and stylistic sense, and are connected only by the hybrid forms of their career paths and their joy in experimenting with different medial forms of expression. They are narrators, lyricists or dramatists, filmmakers, translators, journalists, and literary mediators. Above all, they always take on more than one role at once—sharing this polymorphism in their ways of life, work, and expression. On five nights in 2011, the authors will meet John Wray and—after a short reading—start a conversation with the host. They will talk about their diverse and multi-faceted involvement in the literary and artistic world as a principle career strategy, and their work and survival in the current cultural scene.

If you're quick and I'm not getting my time zones muddled, you can catch Peggy Mädler there tonight. Sadly, you may have missed Thomas Pletzinger and Daniela Dröscher, but you can still make it to Katharina Adler on November 8 and Milo Rau on December 8.

Clemens Meyer Occupies Wall Street

German writer Clemens Meyer, always a guy with an eye for the underdog, has a fellowship in New York and visited Liberty Square last week. You can read his description at Die Welt - very well written, it's a collage of truth and fiction and helped me at least to understand what on earth is going on there. In his usual - how can I put this? - not terribly tactful style.

"I don't want you not to be rich, I don't want you to be rich in a poor country!" Before you can enter the square, which is slightly lower than the sidewalk, a sea of placards. "Don't feed the greed!", "I love you", further back "Jesus loves you", a black boy holding a small sign saying "I am Joe". Next to the park, two young men push a young woman carefully but determinedly aside, because her cardboard sign only says she's into guys who smoke cannabis. An older man directly in front of me is holding a placard "Stop bombing Afghanistan", several people are holding a loud and agitated discussion with him, and I try to understand the details: he seems to have been born in Kabul and lived here for decades, and now he wants to support his old and his new country. People spot my dictaphone and get suspicious, but I have my press ID with me. "Ah German Press! I will tell you a story!"

ALMA highlights German illustrators

The Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award (ALMA) is the world's largest prize for children's and young adult literature. The award, which amounts to SEK 5 million, is awarded annually to a single recipient or to several. Authors, illustrators, oral storytellers and those active in reading promotion may be rewarded. The award is designed to promote interest in children's and young adult literature, and in children's rights, globally. An expert jury selects the winners from candidates nominated by institutions and organisations worldwide. The Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award is administered by the Swedish Arts Council.

The award has a wonderfully long list of nominated candidates, and this year they include a number of German-speaking writers and especially illustrators: Jutta Bauer, Rotraut Susanne Berner, Aljoscha Blau, Wolf Erlbruch, Nikolaus Heidelbach, Binette Schroeder, Austrian Lisbeth Zwerger and the writers Paul Maar and Jutta Richter along with the Austrian Renate Welsh-Rabady.

I must say I do find many German children's books beautifully illustrated, even though my taste tends to the British because, well, that's what I grew up with. I've tried to find links that take you to some of their work, so do have a look. What I particularly like about German children's books is that most of them avoid the pink and sparkly trap you often see in British bookshops. So even books about fairies won't give you what the Germans charmingly term "eye cancer".

Although the award is international, it's quite telling that it comes from Sweden, where they have a tradition of children's literature that's hugely, hugely popular in Germany. And probably not only because you can buy the books at Ikea. I'm sure there are at least five Pippi Longstockings at every fancy dress party across the country, with more recently arrived characters boasting their own musicals and the like. My favourite is probably Astrid Lindren's rib-ticklingly naughty Karlsson-on-the-Roof. If anyone has a badge like the one shown on the Wikipedia page, by the way, you know what to give me for Christmas.

Anyway, like certain other countries with their own strong literary traditions, Sweden is not all that forward about importing books. A recent article in the trade mag Börsenblatt mentions 20 literary titles sold from Germany to Sweden last year, compared to 144 in the other direction. Interestingly - and here we do see a difference to the English-speaking world, 33 children's books sold to Sweden in 2010 (although again, a more weighty 150 went from Sweden to Germany).

But never mind. At least there's reason to celebrate with all these illustrators singled out for attention. Why not give them a little bit of yours too?

Hotlist 2011 to Nino Haratischwili

So this year was the third time the German independent publishers got together to crown their best book under the slightly absurd title of Hotlist, once again with an awards ceremony embedded within the indie party at the Frankfurt Book Fair.

It was a very strong, eclectic shortlist and the prize went to Nino Haratischwili for her novel Mein sanfter Zwilling. I really enjoyed her debut Juja (see my review) and am looking forward to this one. Her new publishers Frankfurter Verlagsanstalt, however, aren't doing her any favours with this blurb: "Nino Haratischwili presents a novel that combines both her dramatic and narrative skills with a language that is pervaded by Georgian passion und images." Presumably they suppose Georgian passion to be different to common or garden passion, but whatever. Congratulations are definitely in order for this very talented writer.

And now for word or two on the event itself. I go to a lot of literary events, and this was one of the piss-poorest in a long time. One problem was the venue - Frankfurt's Sinkkasten was plainly too small for the number of people who wanted to come, which resulted in a block-long queue at around 11 pm. Quite a lot of people gave up and went away again. Also, there was only one large room (rather reminiscent of a 1980s suburban disco, but I mean that in an affectionate way) unless you wanted to stand like a sardine in the smoking lounge, so there was no escaping problem two: the Icelandic techno DJ combined with the space's appalling acoustics. Which meant that we were treated to teeth-juddering bass all around the edges of the space and every track sounded exactly the same as the one before and after it. And also, as the evening progressed the room emptied of literary folk and filled up slightly with club regulars in brown leather jackets, busily attempting to hit on the ladies. Who didn't really appreciate their efforts.

Before that, however, came the awards ceremony. I'd throughly enjoyed last year's and had been looking forward to the 2011 version - until I heard that Charlotte Roche would be doing the honours with Jakob Augstein. Gosh - two of my least favourite persons from the margins of German literary life - on one stage! So it was no great shame that my friends and I were unable to see or hear anything at all of the ceremony from our distant vantage point. I did have a brief peek as things got exciting, only to see them both sitting down at a table, transmitting an air of bored irony and mispronouncing authors' names. There was none of last year's playful tension and reverence - in fact a friend I caught leaving in disgust said their ironic show had been unworthy and disrespectful to the excellent books they were supposed to be showcasing. And that was a great, great shame.

I did manage to have a rather rollicking evening despite all this, however, by dint of imbibing a great deal of gin and perching on a raised seat right by the entrance, where my friends and I pounced on people we knew coming in and going out. The effect was that at the end of the night I felt like an absolute diva, what with everybody filing past and being forced to pay their respects to the drunken queens of literary translation. And we also had a lot of fun critiquing everyone else's outfits, as you might expect. May I just say one thing on this topic: red jackets may be cool, but elbow patches just scream "English teacher". Not a good look, especially for the follically challenged.

Plenty of room for improvement next year, let's say.