A jury of seven literary critics determined the nominations for the Leipzig Book Prize. Three of the five fiction titles were published last year: Dietmar Dath’s novel “Gentzen oder: Drunken Aufreinigung” (Matthes & Seitz Berlin), which traces the biography of the German mathematician Gerhard Gentzen in an idiosyncratic and original language of form.
Tom Gardis Contrary to what the title suggests, the novel ” Eine Runde Sache” (literature publisher Droschl) is a complementary story that not only takes place in different centuries and between Berlin and Java, but was also written in different languages. Gardi wrote the first part in German, the second part, which he wrote in Hebrew, was translated into German by Anne Birkenhauer.
The nominated novel also has a transnational framework of action “A Space Bounded by Shadows” (Suhrkamp Verlag) by Emine Sevgi Özdamar, who tells theater history between Istanbul, Berlin and Paris. Nominated but not yet published are Heike Geißler’s “Die Woche” (Suhrkamp Verlag), the inner monologue of a young Leipzig woman who turns to political and life-view questions, and Katerina Poladjan’s novel “Zukunftsmusik” (S. Fischer Verlag), which is published in is set in a Soviet Kommunalka and tells the story of a single, historically far-reaching day, March 11, 1985, from the perspective of a family.
Two books deal with the question of the right way to live together
In the non-fiction/essay category, Horst Bredekamps are larger in format Photo and text volume “Michelangelo” (Wagenbach Verlag) and Christiane Hoffmann’s “Everything we don’t remember. On foot on my father’s escape route” (Verlag CH Beck). With Hadija Haruna-Oelker’s book “The beauty of difference. Thinking differently together” (btb Verlag) and Juliane Rebentisch’s philosophical volume “The Controversy over Plurality. Disputes with Hannah Arendt” (Suhrkamp Verlag) include two books that deal in a broader sense with the question of how to live together properly in a society. It is unusual this year that among the nominees of the non-fiction list are Uljana Wolf and her Volume “Etymological Gossip. Essays and Speeches” (kookbooks) is also a poet.
The Translation category brings together novels from many parts of the world. Irmela Hijiya-Kirschnereit has been nominated for her translation of Hiromi Itô’s “Thorn Extractor. The Fabulous Jizô by Sugamo” (Matthes & Seitz Berlin) from Japanese, as has Stefan Moster for the translation of the thousand-page-long novel “Im Saal von Alastalo. A description from the skerries” by the Finn Volter Kilpi (mare Verlag). Also present are Andreas Tretner with his translation of the novel “Wunderkind Erjan” (Friedenauer Presse) by Hamid Ismailov from the Russian, Helga van Beuningen with Marieke Lucas Rijneveld’s novel “Mein klein Prachttier” (Suhrkamp), which was originally published in Dutch, and Anne Weber, who translated the novel “Nevermore” (Wallstein) by Cécile Wajsbrot from French.
The prize of the Leipzig Book Fair is endowed with a total of 60,000 euros, the respective winner receives 15,000 euros, each nominee receives 1,000 euros. In addition to the chairman, this year’s jurors also include the literary scholar Moritz Baßler, Anne Dore-Krohn (rbb kultur), Andreas Platthaus (FAZ), the freelance critics Shirin Sojitrawalla and Katharina Teutsch as well as Miryam Schellbach, who is part of the literary editorial team of this newspaper.
Although the Leipzig Book Fair 2022 is canceled for the third year in a row, the prize will be awarded on March 17th on site and in the presence of the authors.