Who wrote the best novel this year and will receive the German Book Prize 2022? You can now speculate about this. 20 names made it onto the coveted longlist – including Heinz Strunk for the second time in a row.
It is a huge mountain of books that the jury for the German Book Prize 2022 dug through: 233 titles from 124 German-speaking publishers – this is a new record after the 230 books from the previous year.
The publishers had submitted 202 novels – in addition there were a few subsequent nominations from the jury. And this is what it looks like, the longlist for the German Book Prize 2022, which the German book trade association published on Tuesday.
The nominees in alphabetical order:
- Fatma Aydemir: Djinns (Carl Hanser, February 2022)
- Kristine Bilkau: Next door (Luchterhand, March 2022)
- Daniela Dröscher: lies about mine mother (Kiepenheuer & Witsch, August 2022)
- Carl Christian Elze: Freudenberg (edition AZUR, February 2022)
- Theresa Enzensberger: on lake (Carl Hanser, August 2022)
- Jan Factor: jerk (Kiepenheuer & Witsch, September 2022)
- Marie Gamillscheg: riot the sea animals (Luchterhand, March 2022)
- Kim de l’Horizon: blood book (DuMont, July 2022)
- Yael Inokai: A simple one intervention (Hanser, February 2022)
- Reinhardt Kaiser Mühlecker: poachers (S. Fischer, March 2022)
- Anna Kim: story of one child (Suhrkamp, August 2022)
- esther Kinsky: Rombo (Suhrkamp, February 2022)
- Dagmar Leupold: On the other hand elephants! (Young and Young, February 2022)
- Eckhart Nickel: Spitzweg (Piper, April 2022)
- Gabrielle Riedle: In jungles. In deserts. in the War. (The Other Library, March 2022)
- Slata Roshal: 153 forms of nonbeing (homunculus, February 2022)
- Anna Yeliz tavern: Kangal (S. Fischer, March 2022)
- John Schmidt: phlox (CH Beck, September 2022)
- Andreas Stichmann: a love in Pyongyang (Rowohlt, March 2022)
- Heinz Strunk: A summer in Niendorf (Rowohlt, June 2022)
Overview of the nominees novels
“The big questions of our time are rumbling in contemporary German-language literature: about origins and identity, about the forms and future of our coexistence,” said jury spokeswoman Miriam Zeh. These could unfold in the German or Austrian provinces as well as in Kabul or Pyongyang, in an approaching dystopia or the real-historical East Berlin before the fall of the Wall.
The long list compiled by the jury of seven includes epic narratives, poetic cascades of language creation and formal experiments that break up the classic and realistic forms of the novel. Established authors can be found as well as “a large number of less well-known and younger voices”, according to jury spokeswoman Zeh.
Four debuts and a few book prize winners
Twelve female authors are on the nomination list – all of whom can be described as female and quite young. With Carl-Christian Elze, Kim de l’Horizon, Slata Roschal and Anna Yeliz Schentke, four debuts have made it into the coveted longlist.
Heinz Strunk, who was only on the list last year, Jan Factor and Reinhard Kaiser-Mühlecker already have longlist experience. The latter also made it onto the shortlist. Jan Factor 2010 with “George’s worries about the past or in the kingdom of Prague’s sacred scrotum gimmick” and Reinhard Kaiser-Mühlecker 2016 with “Foreign soul, dark forest”.
The jury for the German Book Prize 2022
These literary experts decide who will be awarded the German Book Prize 2022: Erich Klein (freelance critic, Vienna), Frank Menden (stories! Die Buchhandlung, Hamburg), Uli Ormanns (Agnes Buchhandlung, Cologne), Isabelle Vonlanthen (Literaturhaus Zürich) , Selma Wels (curator and moderator, Frankfurt), Jan Wiele (FAZ), Miriam Zeh (Deutschlandfunk Kultur).
And what happens now?
The jury selects the winning title in a multi-stage selection process. Six titles from the longlist make the jump to the shortlist, which will be published on September 20th. Only on the evening of the award ceremony, on October 17, will the six authors find out which of them has won the German Book Prize. The winner receives 25,000 euros, the other five finalists each receive 2,500 euros.
The award ceremony traditionally takes place in the Kaisersaal of the Römer in Frankfurt. On the German website book price the event will be broadcast live. The German Book Prize has been awarded to the novel of the year since 2005. Antje Rávik Strubel won the German Book Prize 2021 for “Blue Woman”.
Book award blogger, reading samples and shortlist evening
While the jury meets behind closed doors to agree on the top 6 titles for the shortlist, 20 book bloggers discuss the titles of the long list, provide background information and guess which title has what it takes for the German Book Prize. You will be able to follow this on Twitter in the coming weeks under the hashtag #bookpriceblogging.
Starting this week, the paperback “German Book Prize 2022. The Nominees” will be available free of charge in bookstores. It contains excerpts from the nominated novels as well as information on the authors.
A shortlist reading will take place on Sunday, October 9 at 11 a.m. at the Schauspiel Frankfurt. The six finalists then present themselves there – on site and in the live stream.
End of further information