Literature Prize: Jenny Erpenbeck wins International Booker Prize

The German author Jenny Erpenbeck is for her novel Kairos was awarded the International Booker Prize. The novel, which tells a destructive love story against the backdrop of the collapse of the GDR, is both personal and political, the statement said. Erpenbeck succeeded in tracing the intertwining of personal and national transformations, said the chairwoman of the jury, Eleanor Wachtel.

The jury’s decision was made with “considerable consensus,” said Wachtel. “I was actually surprised by the absolute unanimity.”

Her translator Michael Hofmann also received an award along with Erpenbeck. Wachtel said he managed to capture “the eloquence and eccentricity of Erpenbeck’s writing style, the rhythm of her sentences and the breadth of her emotional vocabulary.” Erpenbeck is the first German woman to win the prize and Hofmann is the first male translator to receive the prize. The prize money of 50,000 pounds (around 58,000 euros) will be divided equally between Erpenbeck and Hofmann.

Erpenbeck has been nominated for the literature prize for the fifth time – more than any other German author. In 2015, she won for the English translation of her novel Every day evening already received its predecessor, the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize.

In terms of importance, the International Booker Prize ranks directly behind the Nobel Prize for Literature. Erpenbeck was born in 1967 in what was then East Berlin. Her father is the physicist, philosopher and writer John Erpenbeck. Her paternal grandparents were also authors. Her mother, Doris Kilias, was a literary scholar and translator from Arabic into German.