Let’s see whether the German culture of remembrance can cope with Joshua Cohen’s novel “Witz”, which ingeniously laughs at their rituals. A meeting in Leipzig.
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Felix Stephen
The night before his appearance at this spring’s Leipzig pop-up book fair, American author Joshua Cohen sat in his hotel room and watched the presentation of the National Book Critics Award in New York. Other nominees included Rachel Cusk, Colson Whitehead and eventual winner Honorée Fanonne Jefferson, whose novel about an African American family was recommended by Oprah Winfrey. Joshua Cohen was under no illusions. than before presented his novel “The Netanyahus”. had been made, it took the presenter several attempts to pronounce the title. Cohen stared at his own picture in the corner of the screen, an ugly photograph of Leipzig on the wall behind him, and got drunker as the evening wore on.