The latest addition to my website is Oskar Maria Graf‘s Das Leben meiner Mutter (The Life of My Mother). This is an excellent autobiographical novel, about, of course, Oskar Maria Graf’s mother, Theres (but always known as Resl) née Heimrath, but it is also about the politics and history of the region (Lake Starnberg, in … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Lutz Seiler‘s Kruso, part of my feeble effort to read shortlisted books for this year’s book prizes, other than the Man Booker. This book was not only shortlisted for the German Book Prize (Deutscher Buchpreis) but won it. I had anticipated that it would win so had already … Read more
German author Siegfried Lenz has died. While not particularly well known in the English-speaking world, several of his works were translated into English, particularly Deutschstunde (The German Lesson), a superb novel about duty and art and the conflict between the two. It has been translated into English and is still readily available.
Lutz Seiler has won this year’s German Book Prize. He is known as a poet and this is his first novel, a modern-day Robinson Crusoe. I hope to have a review of it up later this week, though, of course, it has not been translated into English. I read last year’s winner and that has … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Oskar Maria Graf‘s Anton Sittinger [Anton Sittinger]. This book, first published in 1937 (in London) tells the story of the rise to power of the Nazis, as seen through the eyes of Anton Sittinger, a postal inspector in Munich, who retires to the country in 1929. He is … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Stefan Andres‘ Wir sind Utopia (UK: We Are Utopia; US: We are God’s Utopia). This is a short novel but a very fine one and Andres’ best-known novel. It was published illegally in Germany in 1942, while Andres and his wife were living in Italy. It takes place … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Hans Henny Jahnn‘s Epilog [Epilogue], the final part of his monumental and unfinished trilogy. This novel carries on from somewhat before the ending of the previous book. We see that Gemma is happily married to Egil Bohn, the horse dealer and they have four sons. The oldest, Nikolaj, … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Hans Henny Jahnn‘s Die Niederschrift des Gustav Anias Horn nachdem er 49 Jahre alt geworden war [The Notebook of Gustav Anias Horn after he was 49 years old]. After Jahnn wrote Das Holzschiff (The Ship), he planned to write a tenth chapter. This book – 1600 pages long … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Terézia Mora‘s Das Ungeheuer [The Monster], winner of this year’s German Book Prize. It follows on from Der einzige Mann auf dem Kontinent [The Only Man on the Continent], which told the story of the somewhat naive and simple computer engineer, Darius Kopp, from the former East Germany, … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Terézia Mora‘s Der einzige Mann auf dem Kontinent [The Only Man on the Continent]. The novel, told in a mixture of the first and third person tells the story of Darius Kopp, a forty-something, overweight, asthmatic man, from the former East Germany, who is the sole representative on … Read more