They've announced the winners of the Deutscher Krimi Preis for 2015.
In the national category:
1. Franz Dobler: Ein Bulle im Zug
A cop has shot a boy dead on duty and takes a long, long train trip around Germany to go through it all in his mind.
2. Oliver Bottini: Ein paar Tage Licht
Algeria, the German arms export industry and a murder.
3. Max Annas: Die Farm
An eight-hour assault on a South African farm.
And international:
James Lee Burke: Rain Gods
Liza Cody: Lady Bag
Oliver Harris: London Underground
It looks like a very eclectic and interesting selection.
Showing posts with label crime. Show all posts
Showing posts with label crime. Show all posts
Wednesday, 14 January 2015
Monday, 19 May 2014
Plan D Shortlisted for CWA International Dagger
The shortlist for the British Crime Writers Association's International Dagger award was announced on Friday night. Rather excitingly, it includes a German book that I personally translated, Simon Urban's Plan D. The novel is a detective story set in a fictitious present-day East Germany, in which the Berlin Wall is still up. The International Dagger award has existed since 2006 and has never gone to a German book, partly because it is usually awarded to Fred Vargas and her translator Siân Reynolds. They are indeed very good. The author receives £1000 and the translator £500. The winners of a whole slew of awards are announced at a swanky London ceremony on 30 June. I haven't been invited so far, but maybe these things take time. Or maybe I just won't go.
I'm not expecting my book to win because it's up against some very tough competition, including Fred Vargas/Siân Reynolds and the meta-crime novel The Siege by Arturo Perez-Reverte/Frank Wynne. So I'm going to take this opportunity to tell you how the novel got on the list in the first place.
The first step was when the German publishers Schöffling Verlag commissioned me to translate a sample chapter. The people who work in Foreign Rights often use different translators for these samples - which they use to try to sell translation rights around the world - depending on who they think would be right for the job. In this case, they second-guessed my taste very well and I was very keen on the style. I was then asked to write a reader's report on the whole thing for New Books in German magazine, and that turned out equally enthusiastic. On that basis, the German Book Office in New York asked me to talk in front of camera (at the Frankfurt Book Fair) about the book for one of their rather good videos. Armed with all this ammunition, I suggested the book to an editor at Harvill Secker. She liked the idea, bought the rights, and promptly quit the job.
So I translated the book for another editor, who specializes in international crime fiction. It took about four months of intensive work, which I enjoyed immensely. Unusually for me, I didn't have a great deal of contact with the writer, as he's in Hamburg and was working long hours in an advertising agency at the time. He's since also quit and published his second crime novel, Gondwana. So we had one long phone call to clear up my questions at the end of the translation process, although I didn't have all too many. The biggest challenge and the greatest joy was probably capturing the rhythm, with Urban's sentences often running on for whole paragraphs. I left most of them as they were - if you don't like them, buy a different book. But of course there were also the difficulties of guessing what aspects of long-gone East German society British readers would understand and which needed subtle explaining. Plus the real-life characters, for which I produced an explanatory list that was used at the back of the book. Some of them were expunged from the English version for legal reasons but I wasn't really party to that process.
So then the book came out in the UK and didn't get quite as much attention as it had in Germany. Apparently it was reviewed in the Financial Times but I didn't see that. Some bloggers responded well, some less so. The Amazon reviews tend to blame me for their not liking it, but are kind enough not to mention my name. Part of the problem may be the description: "A modern-day Cold War thriller: Robert Harris's Fatherland meets John le Carré's The Spy Who Came in from the Cold." This is pretty inaccurate - actually the novel is more literary than these examples and was inspired much more strongly by Michael Chabon's The Yiddish Policemen's Union. So if readers are expecting plain, clean, entirely plot-led crime writing they are indeed likely to be disappointed.
Never mind. Harvill Secker submitted Plan D for the award regardless and I'm thrilled that it was one of six titles chosen out of sixty-four entries. The CWA calls it a fine debut and writes: "This novel impressed with its ambitious, wide-ranging counterfactual history of two Germanies in which nothing happened in 1989. In this East Germany, everyday life under dictatorship requires remarkable navigational skills, which Wegener, the detective, does not always possess. Urban’s evocation of grimy corruption is punctuated with wit, not least in the conclusion." I hope the nomination helps get more positive attention for the book in the UK.
I'm not expecting my book to win because it's up against some very tough competition, including Fred Vargas/Siân Reynolds and the meta-crime novel The Siege by Arturo Perez-Reverte/Frank Wynne. So I'm going to take this opportunity to tell you how the novel got on the list in the first place.
The first step was when the German publishers Schöffling Verlag commissioned me to translate a sample chapter. The people who work in Foreign Rights often use different translators for these samples - which they use to try to sell translation rights around the world - depending on who they think would be right for the job. In this case, they second-guessed my taste very well and I was very keen on the style. I was then asked to write a reader's report on the whole thing for New Books in German magazine, and that turned out equally enthusiastic. On that basis, the German Book Office in New York asked me to talk in front of camera (at the Frankfurt Book Fair) about the book for one of their rather good videos. Armed with all this ammunition, I suggested the book to an editor at Harvill Secker. She liked the idea, bought the rights, and promptly quit the job.
So I translated the book for another editor, who specializes in international crime fiction. It took about four months of intensive work, which I enjoyed immensely. Unusually for me, I didn't have a great deal of contact with the writer, as he's in Hamburg and was working long hours in an advertising agency at the time. He's since also quit and published his second crime novel, Gondwana. So we had one long phone call to clear up my questions at the end of the translation process, although I didn't have all too many. The biggest challenge and the greatest joy was probably capturing the rhythm, with Urban's sentences often running on for whole paragraphs. I left most of them as they were - if you don't like them, buy a different book. But of course there were also the difficulties of guessing what aspects of long-gone East German society British readers would understand and which needed subtle explaining. Plus the real-life characters, for which I produced an explanatory list that was used at the back of the book. Some of them were expunged from the English version for legal reasons but I wasn't really party to that process.
So then the book came out in the UK and didn't get quite as much attention as it had in Germany. Apparently it was reviewed in the Financial Times but I didn't see that. Some bloggers responded well, some less so. The Amazon reviews tend to blame me for their not liking it, but are kind enough not to mention my name. Part of the problem may be the description: "A modern-day Cold War thriller: Robert Harris's Fatherland meets John le Carré's The Spy Who Came in from the Cold." This is pretty inaccurate - actually the novel is more literary than these examples and was inspired much more strongly by Michael Chabon's The Yiddish Policemen's Union. So if readers are expecting plain, clean, entirely plot-led crime writing they are indeed likely to be disappointed.
Never mind. Harvill Secker submitted Plan D for the award regardless and I'm thrilled that it was one of six titles chosen out of sixty-four entries. The CWA calls it a fine debut and writes: "This novel impressed with its ambitious, wide-ranging counterfactual history of two Germanies in which nothing happened in 1989. In this East Germany, everyday life under dictatorship requires remarkable navigational skills, which Wegener, the detective, does not always possess. Urban’s evocation of grimy corruption is punctuated with wit, not least in the conclusion." I hope the nomination helps get more positive attention for the book in the UK.
Thursday, 20 February 2014
Schirach and Lust Nominated for LA Times Book Prizes
I know nothing about the Los Angeles Times Book Prizes except that they're awarded on 11 April and come in lots of different categories. Among them are Graphic Novel/Comics and Mystery/Thriller, and two names looked oddly familiar: Ulli Lust for Today Is the Last Day of the Rest of Your Life (trans. Kim Thompson) and Ferdinand von Schirach for The Collini Case (trans. Anthea Bell).
How exciting! An Austrian graphic novelist and a German crime writer, nominated for American book prizes! On the one hand I'm very pleased that the awards don't discriminate between books written in English and books written in other languages, simply singling out good stuff. But then there's the fact that the LA Times website doesn't mention the translators' names, or indeed the fact that the books are translated. And that I had to spend a while searching for Schirach's translator, because neither does the Penguin website. Pretty poor show all round.
Lucas Klein foams at the mouth – justifiably so – about how reviewers need to toughen up and name the translator at Words Without Borders. Awards – and publishers! – need to do the same. The LA Times awards come with a small prize of $500 each, but even that ought to be shared between writer and translator. I've written them a friendly email.
How exciting! An Austrian graphic novelist and a German crime writer, nominated for American book prizes! On the one hand I'm very pleased that the awards don't discriminate between books written in English and books written in other languages, simply singling out good stuff. But then there's the fact that the LA Times website doesn't mention the translators' names, or indeed the fact that the books are translated. And that I had to spend a while searching for Schirach's translator, because neither does the Penguin website. Pretty poor show all round.
Lucas Klein foams at the mouth – justifiably so – about how reviewers need to toughen up and name the translator at Words Without Borders. Awards – and publishers! – need to do the same. The LA Times awards come with a small prize of $500 each, but even that ought to be shared between writer and translator. I've written them a friendly email.
Friday, 24 January 2014
German Crime Prize to Friedrich Ani
The Germans love crime fiction. Probably every culture loves crime fiction, but the Germans love home-grown crime fiction with a passion. There's something about reading a crime novel where the mutilated corpse is found in your local park and the detectives drink strong black coffee on your local station forecourt that makes you happy. There are market stalls and poky little shops that do a roaring trade in used crime paperbacks. There's the TV crime show Tatort, which has been running since 1970 with the same opening theme, which is not unlike Doctor Who in its nation-building ubiquity and which features police detectives in all sorts of German, Austrian and Swiss regions. People meet up to watch it in bars on Sunday nights, and canteens across the country resound with conversation on Monday lunchtime over whether it was a good one or not.
Of course there are several prizes for crime fiction, reflecting just how important it is to the nation's psyche. The longest-running award is the Deutscher Krimi Preis, and this year it has gone to Friedrich Ani for his novel M. Ani is a big name; I can't count the number of times he's been recommended to me. I just looked him up and found he's won an astounding twenty-one prizes for his work. He sets his crime novels in Munich; M features the popular missing-persons private detective Tabor Süden. Not unlike a certain other famous detective, Süden retired for a while but was brought back by popular demand – now in his nineteenth book. Ani also writes young adult novels, poetry and screenplays, including for the Tatort series. A few of the Tabor Süden books have been adapted for the screen too.
So the most amazing thing about this prolific and talented author is that his books have apparently been translated into French, Spanish, Dutch, Danish, Korean, Chinese and Polish – but not English. Publishers! What's the matter with you? M is set in a city Brits and Americans have heard of, has won a big fat prize, and features neo-Nazis. What else do you need? Good grief.
I'm hoping that someone somewhere is actually translating all these books as we speak, and will publish them all at once to surprise us. Wouldn't that be nice?
Of course there are several prizes for crime fiction, reflecting just how important it is to the nation's psyche. The longest-running award is the Deutscher Krimi Preis, and this year it has gone to Friedrich Ani for his novel M. Ani is a big name; I can't count the number of times he's been recommended to me. I just looked him up and found he's won an astounding twenty-one prizes for his work. He sets his crime novels in Munich; M features the popular missing-persons private detective Tabor Süden. Not unlike a certain other famous detective, Süden retired for a while but was brought back by popular demand – now in his nineteenth book. Ani also writes young adult novels, poetry and screenplays, including for the Tatort series. A few of the Tabor Süden books have been adapted for the screen too.
So the most amazing thing about this prolific and talented author is that his books have apparently been translated into French, Spanish, Dutch, Danish, Korean, Chinese and Polish – but not English. Publishers! What's the matter with you? M is set in a city Brits and Americans have heard of, has won a big fat prize, and features neo-Nazis. What else do you need? Good grief.
I'm hoping that someone somewhere is actually translating all these books as we speak, and will publish them all at once to surprise us. Wouldn't that be nice?
Saturday, 29 December 2012
MacLehose and Stone on Crime
My friend Susan Stone has a great piece at PRI's The World today about why German thrillers aren't popular in the States - and one that just might break that mould, Nele Neuhaus's mega-selling (in Germany) Snow White Must Die.
And then there's a long profile in the Guardian (by Nicholas Wroe) of the British editor Christopher MacLehose, now of MacLehose Press, who Susan interviewed in Frankfurt but got edited out in the end. He's the man, they tell us, who brought Stieg Larsson into English, and had "come to the conclusion that he should confine himself to translated works, preferably featuring a policeman with a forensic element – although he did make an exception for Godfather author Mario Puzo."
Both fascinating.
And then there's a long profile in the Guardian (by Nicholas Wroe) of the British editor Christopher MacLehose, now of MacLehose Press, who Susan interviewed in Frankfurt but got edited out in the end. He's the man, they tell us, who brought Stieg Larsson into English, and had "come to the conclusion that he should confine himself to translated works, preferably featuring a policeman with a forensic element – although he did make an exception for Godfather author Mario Puzo."
Both fascinating.
Tuesday, 6 September 2011
Upmarket True Crime Fever!
The news just in is that they're making a mini-series out of Ferdinand von Schirach's debut Verbrechen (published in English as Crime, trans. Carol Brown Janeway). The defence lawyer followed that up with another collection of fictionalised cases, Schuld (Guilt), and has just brought out a brand new novel by the name of Der Fall Collini (The Collini Case). I wouldn't want to be his client, frankly, but then I probably couldn't afford it anyway. Dang, better not commit any heinous crimes this year then. His books are major sellers but critics seem to find them just kinda OK, although those who like their prose plain are generally more enthusiastic. I haven't read them.
Meanwhile, though, there's been a slight rash of other writers working a similar concept. The version being sold as sexier is by Jochen Rausch and is called Trieb (Drive). I don't think the sexy thing applies to the respective writers, though, because if you compare and contrast Schirach with Rausch it's pretty much out of the frying pan into the fire, if you ask me. Think ex-Young Conservative versus spectacularly bespectacled media type trapped in the eighties. Or am I falling into the cliché trap? Anyway, a brief flick through an online sample revealed staccato sentences and pop psychology.
Next up is a collection of craaaa-zy court cases with the title Es juckt so fürchterlich, Herr Richter! (It's So Terribly Itchy, Your Honour!), written by the crime reporter Uta Eisenhardt. Looks rather fun actually, if you like books with exclamation marks in their titles.
And then there's another one just out by the literary critic Ursula März, which just goes to show how terribly posh the whole phenomenon now is. Called Fast schon kriminell (Almost Criminal) - which sounds so utterly twee to me that I'm tempted to think it's all an elaborate hoax - the book's billed as a literary gem. I had a look at the sample from this collection too, and it does seem to be well written and rather clever.
Gone are the days of true crime = trash. I shall miss them as I pay just under €20 for a terribly literary hardback.
Meanwhile, though, there's been a slight rash of other writers working a similar concept. The version being sold as sexier is by Jochen Rausch and is called Trieb (Drive). I don't think the sexy thing applies to the respective writers, though, because if you compare and contrast Schirach with Rausch it's pretty much out of the frying pan into the fire, if you ask me. Think ex-Young Conservative versus spectacularly bespectacled media type trapped in the eighties. Or am I falling into the cliché trap? Anyway, a brief flick through an online sample revealed staccato sentences and pop psychology.
Next up is a collection of craaaa-zy court cases with the title Es juckt so fürchterlich, Herr Richter! (It's So Terribly Itchy, Your Honour!), written by the crime reporter Uta Eisenhardt. Looks rather fun actually, if you like books with exclamation marks in their titles.
And then there's another one just out by the literary critic Ursula März, which just goes to show how terribly posh the whole phenomenon now is. Called Fast schon kriminell (Almost Criminal) - which sounds so utterly twee to me that I'm tempted to think it's all an elaborate hoax - the book's billed as a literary gem. I had a look at the sample from this collection too, and it does seem to be well written and rather clever.
Gone are the days of true crime = trash. I shall miss them as I pay just under €20 for a terribly literary hardback.
Tuesday, 2 August 2011
Simon Urban: Plan D
A book I truly adore is just out now: Simon Urban’s Plan D. It’s a remarkable genre-busting detective novel set in Berlin in October 2011. There’s one slight difference though – the GDR still exists.
Martin Wegener is a detective with the Köpenick branch of the People’s Police, called in to investigate the death of a mystery man found hanging from a gas pipeline in the forest. All the initial clues point to the Stasi, which is still in operation although less powerful than before the ‘Revitalisation’ in the early 1990s. With important economic consultations between the new West German chancellor Oskar Lafontaine and the East German party chairman Egon Krenz coming up, a West German police officer is called in to assist after the news is leaked to Spiegel magazine.
The two men start their investigations, more hindered than helped by the Stasi, uncovering a terrorist opposition organisation and a separate conspiracy to introduce a ‘third way’ in the GDR – the Plan D of the title (D standing for Deutschland, right?). Bombs go off, spirits are drunk, sausages eaten, there are shady trips to secret prisons and conspiratorial meetings in an abandoned fairground.
Meanwhile, Wegener yearns after his ex-girlfriend, now embarking on a career in East Berlin’s key energy export and transit industry ministry, and has imaginary conversations with his former boss, a stubborn non-conformist who disappeared without a trace a few years ago. The plot twists and turns beautifully, with more deaths occurring and plenty of tensions arising between the East and West German detectives. Wegener is betrayed on both the professional and the personal level and the novel ends with a personal defeat for him. We do find out who the mysterious victim is and who killed him, but the whys and wherefores are much more important.
The detective novel – amazingly done in the manner of a modern-day Raymond Chandler – would stand alone just fine, but Simon Urban has combined it with an ingeniously imagined modern-day East Germany. He obviously had great fun coming up with ideas about what might have been – from brand names for electronic devices more advanced than those in the West to oil-powered cars and blockbuster movies titles. And there are laugh-out-loud moments in which we come across genuine people in unusual situations – for instance a senile Margot Honecker singing along to Wolf Biermann records or the politician Sarah Wagenknecht as an action-movie heroine.
In one brilliantly written scene, Wegener stumbles around the labyrinthine underground ‘Molotov’ bar, looking for his workmates but growing increasingly confused and emotional. The place is a den of iniquity that serves rhubarb organic lemonade – the flavour that’s always sold out at the shops – with a shot of vodka, and scallops and chestnut puree and bacon and chutney and the best brand of East German sparkling wine, Rotkäppchen Superb, and offers darkrooms and boudoirs and bathtubs and willing waitresses, all in the name of a corrupt socialism on its last legs. As he wanders the dingy corridors catching sight of opulent scenes, he remembers the last time he was there – and the Russian waitress Magdalena with whom he was caught in flagrante in his cramped Wartburg car afterwards. The entire remembered episode is told in incredibly sexy, breathless long sentences, only for Wegener to wake up from his melancholy reverie and spot his West German colleague apparently flirting with Magdalena. Of course he instantly imagines the two of them stretched out in the other detective’s roomy Mercedes, but can’t find his way into the room they are in and ends up spewed out of the bar and onto the hard pavement.
The whole novel is beautifully written in impeccable and imaginative language. The protagonist Wegener is an impressively painted character, an aging cynic on the surface who is actually powered by love and idealism. But what makes the book so very special is the exuberantly portrayed vision of East Berlin under a collapsing socialist system – pockets of luxury for visitors and functionaries, surrounded by grime and decay and decorated with laughable political slogans. Urban raises questions about German history and about the integrity of our political systems, combining them with a real page-turner of a plot.
The only tricky thing about Plan D is the humour of spotting modern-day celebrities in odd what-might-have-been situations. Obviously it would be difficult to recapture those moments of recognition in translation – perhaps a glossary might be the solution? But actually, Urban doesn’t assume that his readers know a lot about the GDR itself so the book is very accessible.
I eavesdropped on conversations about the novel as long ago as last summer – this is the kind of book people get excited about, and rightly so. Unsurprisingly, it's nominated for the Hotlist indie book prize, which you too can vote on until 15 August. Urban’s mentor is Juli Zeh, already a success with her literary crime fiction in English translation (see my review of Dark Matter/In Free Fall). And I was lucky enough to translate a sample for the publishers Schöffling Verlag, an absolute pleasure. Publishers: please give me a chance to really get my teeth into the novel after that first tempting taste – you know you want to…
Note: this is an adapted version of a report for New Books in German.
Martin Wegener is a detective with the Köpenick branch of the People’s Police, called in to investigate the death of a mystery man found hanging from a gas pipeline in the forest. All the initial clues point to the Stasi, which is still in operation although less powerful than before the ‘Revitalisation’ in the early 1990s. With important economic consultations between the new West German chancellor Oskar Lafontaine and the East German party chairman Egon Krenz coming up, a West German police officer is called in to assist after the news is leaked to Spiegel magazine.
The two men start their investigations, more hindered than helped by the Stasi, uncovering a terrorist opposition organisation and a separate conspiracy to introduce a ‘third way’ in the GDR – the Plan D of the title (D standing for Deutschland, right?). Bombs go off, spirits are drunk, sausages eaten, there are shady trips to secret prisons and conspiratorial meetings in an abandoned fairground.
Meanwhile, Wegener yearns after his ex-girlfriend, now embarking on a career in East Berlin’s key energy export and transit industry ministry, and has imaginary conversations with his former boss, a stubborn non-conformist who disappeared without a trace a few years ago. The plot twists and turns beautifully, with more deaths occurring and plenty of tensions arising between the East and West German detectives. Wegener is betrayed on both the professional and the personal level and the novel ends with a personal defeat for him. We do find out who the mysterious victim is and who killed him, but the whys and wherefores are much more important.
The detective novel – amazingly done in the manner of a modern-day Raymond Chandler – would stand alone just fine, but Simon Urban has combined it with an ingeniously imagined modern-day East Germany. He obviously had great fun coming up with ideas about what might have been – from brand names for electronic devices more advanced than those in the West to oil-powered cars and blockbuster movies titles. And there are laugh-out-loud moments in which we come across genuine people in unusual situations – for instance a senile Margot Honecker singing along to Wolf Biermann records or the politician Sarah Wagenknecht as an action-movie heroine.
In one brilliantly written scene, Wegener stumbles around the labyrinthine underground ‘Molotov’ bar, looking for his workmates but growing increasingly confused and emotional. The place is a den of iniquity that serves rhubarb organic lemonade – the flavour that’s always sold out at the shops – with a shot of vodka, and scallops and chestnut puree and bacon and chutney and the best brand of East German sparkling wine, Rotkäppchen Superb, and offers darkrooms and boudoirs and bathtubs and willing waitresses, all in the name of a corrupt socialism on its last legs. As he wanders the dingy corridors catching sight of opulent scenes, he remembers the last time he was there – and the Russian waitress Magdalena with whom he was caught in flagrante in his cramped Wartburg car afterwards. The entire remembered episode is told in incredibly sexy, breathless long sentences, only for Wegener to wake up from his melancholy reverie and spot his West German colleague apparently flirting with Magdalena. Of course he instantly imagines the two of them stretched out in the other detective’s roomy Mercedes, but can’t find his way into the room they are in and ends up spewed out of the bar and onto the hard pavement.
The whole novel is beautifully written in impeccable and imaginative language. The protagonist Wegener is an impressively painted character, an aging cynic on the surface who is actually powered by love and idealism. But what makes the book so very special is the exuberantly portrayed vision of East Berlin under a collapsing socialist system – pockets of luxury for visitors and functionaries, surrounded by grime and decay and decorated with laughable political slogans. Urban raises questions about German history and about the integrity of our political systems, combining them with a real page-turner of a plot.
The only tricky thing about Plan D is the humour of spotting modern-day celebrities in odd what-might-have-been situations. Obviously it would be difficult to recapture those moments of recognition in translation – perhaps a glossary might be the solution? But actually, Urban doesn’t assume that his readers know a lot about the GDR itself so the book is very accessible.
I eavesdropped on conversations about the novel as long ago as last summer – this is the kind of book people get excited about, and rightly so. Unsurprisingly, it's nominated for the Hotlist indie book prize, which you too can vote on until 15 August. Urban’s mentor is Juli Zeh, already a success with her literary crime fiction in English translation (see my review of Dark Matter/In Free Fall). And I was lucky enough to translate a sample for the publishers Schöffling Verlag, an absolute pleasure. Publishers: please give me a chance to really get my teeth into the novel after that first tempting taste – you know you want to…
Note: this is an adapted version of a report for New Books in German.
Tuesday, 18 January 2011
German Crime Fiction Prize to Bernhard Jaumann
They announced yesterday that this year's Deutscher Krimi-Preis has gone to Namibia-based Bernhard Jaumann for his novel Die Stunde des Schakals (The Hour of the Jackal).
Namibia is a former German colony, where the colonists committed genocide against the local Herero and Nama people in 1904-1907.
The book is set in modern-day Namibia though, and features a "loveable" female detective in a thriller-type setting revisiting the last years of Apartheid. Sounds interesting, huh?
The prize is pretty cool too - there's no award ceremony and the winner gets not one cent.
Namibia is a former German colony, where the colonists committed genocide against the local Herero and Nama people in 1904-1907.
The book is set in modern-day Namibia though, and features a "loveable" female detective in a thriller-type setting revisiting the last years of Apartheid. Sounds interesting, huh?
The prize is pretty cool too - there's no award ceremony and the winner gets not one cent.
Monday, 13 September 2010
Friedrich Glauser Prize to Zoran Dvrenkar
This year's top German-language crime writing prize - the Friedrich Glauser Prize - goes to Zoran Drvenkar for his incredibly tough thriller Sorry. I reviewed it here; it made me feel a bit sick in a good way. Drvenkar gets €5000 in cash with non-consecutive serial numbers - but he has to go to the North Eifel to pick it up. Presumably in a transit van with tinted windows.
Wednesday, 1 September 2010
Win Oliver Bottini and Strike a Blow for Feminism
You may remember I was interviewed by Annina Luzie Schmid for GIRLS CAN BLOG a while back. And Annina's been thinking about how women bloggers can strengthen their networks and promote each other. Plus she also has access to several packages of audiobooks - not actually written by a woman, but narrated by one - the actress Martina Gedeck - and featuring a female detective.
So here's your chance to win three audiobooks by Oliver Bottini and in a slightly obscure way strengthen women bloggers' networks at the same time. The books are Mord im Zeichen des Zen, Im Sommer der Mörder, and Im Auftrag der Väter, all featuring the workaholic detective Louise Boni. They've won all sorts of prizes and I'm told they're fantastic reading. Bottini's new crime novel Das verborgene Netz comes out this October.
Just drop me a line in the comments section by 15 September, and I'll pick a name out of a hat and get back to you.
You can also win audiobooks at girls can blog, Klappentexterin, Janasworld and Tschautschüssi. All of which are blogs written by women, proving that yes, it is possible for women to concentrate for more than two minutes at a time and operate a computer. At the same time.
Good luck!
So here's your chance to win three audiobooks by Oliver Bottini and in a slightly obscure way strengthen women bloggers' networks at the same time. The books are Mord im Zeichen des Zen, Im Sommer der Mörder, and Im Auftrag der Väter, all featuring the workaholic detective Louise Boni. They've won all sorts of prizes and I'm told they're fantastic reading. Bottini's new crime novel Das verborgene Netz comes out this October.
Just drop me a line in the comments section by 15 September, and I'll pick a name out of a hat and get back to you.
You can also win audiobooks at girls can blog, Klappentexterin, Janasworld and Tschautschüssi. All of which are blogs written by women, proving that yes, it is possible for women to concentrate for more than two minutes at a time and operate a computer. At the same time.
Good luck!
Friday, 15 January 2010
German Crime Writing Prize 2010
The "oldest award for German language crime writing" goes to Ulrich Ritzel for Beifang, followed by Friedrich Ani for Totsein verjährt nicht and Jörg Juretzka for Alles total groovy hier.
The "international" awards go to David Peace, Roger Smith and Ken Bruen.
The "international" awards go to David Peace, Roger Smith and Ken Bruen.
Thursday, 14 May 2009
Friedrich Glauser Prize to Gisa Klönne
The delightful and very talented writer Gisa Klönne has been awarded one of German-language crime literature's greatest honours - the Friedrich Glauser Prize. The award is for her novel Nacht ohne Schatten, the third in a series featuring the poorly matched Cologne detectives Judith Krieger and Manni Korzilius. In fact, the first won Klönne the Glauser Prize for best crime debut in 2006.
I've read the first two novels and they're probably the books I most frequently lend to friends. Excellent intelligent crime fiction with a social conscience, magnificent characters, well written in general - and tense throughout.
The lifetime achievement-type award went to Hans-Werner Kettenbach, whose Black Ice and David's Revenge are published in English by Bitter Lemon Press. And Lucie Klassen scooped best debut for Der 13. Brief.
I've read the first two novels and they're probably the books I most frequently lend to friends. Excellent intelligent crime fiction with a social conscience, magnificent characters, well written in general - and tense throughout.
The lifetime achievement-type award went to Hans-Werner Kettenbach, whose Black Ice and David's Revenge are published in English by Bitter Lemon Press. And Lucie Klassen scooped best debut for Der 13. Brief.
Friday, 27 February 2009
The Power of German Crime Fiction
The German and Italian papers have seized on a fascinating story. The German crime writer Veit Heinichen lives in Triest, Italy, where he also sets his Commisssario Laurenti detective novels. These are hugely popular in Germany, even being televised, and are also translated into Italian. His latest is just out, entitled Die Ruhe des Stärkeren. I only know this one (as I've seen it on TV), but they seem to be all about murder and corruption and involvement with eastern European gangsters. And they're generally very well received, with Heinichen considered a great intellectual and clever writer.
But that's not what the press is excited about. At some point last week, Heinichen published an open letter in his local left-leaning paper, Il Piccolo. My Italian isn't good enough to find said letter online, but apparently it exposes an unknown serial letter-writer who is attempting to ruin the author's reputation. Over 100 anonymous letters to various people in Triest and elsewhere accuse Heinichen of child abuse, and of political corruption back in Germany. The police have cleared him of all suspicion but have not been able to find the letter-writer over the past year.
Heinichen himself suspects he has angered the nationalist right-wing in Triest, as some of his books explore actual unsolved cases and he has openly supported the city's former liberal government. He is also a vocal contributor to local debates, according to the Süddeutsche Zeitung.
Must be a rather strange feeling - a threat but at the same time confirmation that you're at least doing something right. And what a coincidence that the author revealed the case just days after his book came out.
But that's not what the press is excited about. At some point last week, Heinichen published an open letter in his local left-leaning paper, Il Piccolo. My Italian isn't good enough to find said letter online, but apparently it exposes an unknown serial letter-writer who is attempting to ruin the author's reputation. Over 100 anonymous letters to various people in Triest and elsewhere accuse Heinichen of child abuse, and of political corruption back in Germany. The police have cleared him of all suspicion but have not been able to find the letter-writer over the past year.
Heinichen himself suspects he has angered the nationalist right-wing in Triest, as some of his books explore actual unsolved cases and he has openly supported the city's former liberal government. He is also a vocal contributor to local debates, according to the Süddeutsche Zeitung.
Must be a rather strange feeling - a threat but at the same time confirmation that you're at least doing something right. And what a coincidence that the author revealed the case just days after his book came out.
Wednesday, 21 January 2009
German Crime Writing Prize
They announced the winners of the German Crime Writing Prize the other day. In the German category, the winners are:
1. Linus Reichlin, Die Sehnsucht der Atome (allegedly the spring's most original crime novel in German)
2. Bernhard Jaumann, Die Augen der Medusa (the third in a series)
3. Heinrich Steinfest, Mariaschwarz (which Denis Scheck also recommended at the Helen & Kurt Wolff Symposium in the USA)
And the international winners are:
1. Richard Stark, Ask the Parrot
2. Jerome Charyn, Citizen Sidel
3. Deon Meyer, Onsigbaar/Blood Safari.
The winners don't get anything at all and there is no awards ceremony. But the people who choose the top crime novels are a very impressive collection of critics and booksellers, so I assume one can trust their judgement to some extent.
1. Linus Reichlin, Die Sehnsucht der Atome (allegedly the spring's most original crime novel in German)
2. Bernhard Jaumann, Die Augen der Medusa (the third in a series)
3. Heinrich Steinfest, Mariaschwarz (which Denis Scheck also recommended at the Helen & Kurt Wolff Symposium in the USA)
And the international winners are:
1. Richard Stark, Ask the Parrot
2. Jerome Charyn, Citizen Sidel
3. Deon Meyer, Onsigbaar/Blood Safari.
The winners don't get anything at all and there is no awards ceremony. But the people who choose the top crime novels are a very impressive collection of critics and booksellers, so I assume one can trust their judgement to some extent.
Tuesday, 26 February 2008
The Crime Shoe Horn
As Lawrence Venuti points out in an interview on Words without Borders, English-language publishing has embraced foreign crime writing. So monolingual readers can enjoy the delights of Henning Mankell, Fred Vargas and numerous others I can't think of the names of - thus proving people wrong who claim nobody wants to read translations...
Venuti writes:
"This genre is especially fascinating because anglophone readers are likely to regard it as originating in English literary traditions (although there’s a concurrent French tradition as well). As a result, what happens to it abroad can make a difference when it comes back home, can signal a cultural difference for anglophone readers (something that is not amiss in a translation, but crucial, insofar as translation traffics in the foreign). And the fact is that readers are appreciating foreign crime novels against the native ones, partly because they know little or nothing about possible traditions of the genre in the foreign cultures..."
So, if I understand him rightly, Venuti is saying that crime fiction might be a shoe-horn for slipping foreignness into English-language reading habits. We all know what to expect from a detective story and that makes them comforting to read, so we swallow the bitter pill of the book being set in Stockholm or Bogotá and written slightly differently down with the sugar of the genre. At least I think that's what he's saying.
German crime fiction hasn't made all that much of a dent in the British consciousness yet, I suspect. Ingrid Noll and Friedrich Glauser are both high-ranking German crime writers available in English. And the top bestseller Tannöd will be out under the title The Murder Village in June of this year (Quercus). I didn't enjoy it but it's very good. And it won tons of awards, as has the writer's second book. And she's sold half a million copies and knocked Harry Potter off the top of the pops.
Instead of that, I'm going to tell you about a German crime book I did like. It's called Aussortiert by Titus Keller, and you can find a really negative review of it here. Someone really didn't like it. But I did. I'm a sucker for anything set in Berlin, and this is set in Berlin. I loved the attention to detail in the settings - the grungy bits of Berlin with drug dealers and prostitutes. And they get bumped off, and the fucked-up detective has to find out whodunnit. But you probably guessed that - that's because you're familiar with the genre you know.
Anyway, I liked the overtly moralising contrasts between rich and poor, I liked the characters, I even enjoyed the allegedly wooden dialogue. And I liked the end that turns the genre on its head. I liked the fact that the publisher didn't reveal who Titus Keller really is - apparently it's a pseudonym for the writer Helmut Krausser, who I haven't read. But I do appreciate the criticism that a lot of people wouldn't have read it if it weren't for the tagline "famous author writing incognito". Because that's probably what made me buy it, too. I don't regret it though.
But I'm no expert on crime writing, although I enjoy reading it. For excellent reviews go to International Noir.
So here's to translated crime fiction as the shoe-horn for foreignising our reading habits. Long may she reign!
Venuti writes:
"This genre is especially fascinating because anglophone readers are likely to regard it as originating in English literary traditions (although there’s a concurrent French tradition as well). As a result, what happens to it abroad can make a difference when it comes back home, can signal a cultural difference for anglophone readers (something that is not amiss in a translation, but crucial, insofar as translation traffics in the foreign). And the fact is that readers are appreciating foreign crime novels against the native ones, partly because they know little or nothing about possible traditions of the genre in the foreign cultures..."
So, if I understand him rightly, Venuti is saying that crime fiction might be a shoe-horn for slipping foreignness into English-language reading habits. We all know what to expect from a detective story and that makes them comforting to read, so we swallow the bitter pill of the book being set in Stockholm or Bogotá and written slightly differently down with the sugar of the genre. At least I think that's what he's saying.
German crime fiction hasn't made all that much of a dent in the British consciousness yet, I suspect. Ingrid Noll and Friedrich Glauser are both high-ranking German crime writers available in English. And the top bestseller Tannöd will be out under the title The Murder Village in June of this year (Quercus). I didn't enjoy it but it's very good. And it won tons of awards, as has the writer's second book. And she's sold half a million copies and knocked Harry Potter off the top of the pops.
Instead of that, I'm going to tell you about a German crime book I did like. It's called Aussortiert by Titus Keller, and you can find a really negative review of it here. Someone really didn't like it. But I did. I'm a sucker for anything set in Berlin, and this is set in Berlin. I loved the attention to detail in the settings - the grungy bits of Berlin with drug dealers and prostitutes. And they get bumped off, and the fucked-up detective has to find out whodunnit. But you probably guessed that - that's because you're familiar with the genre you know.
Anyway, I liked the overtly moralising contrasts between rich and poor, I liked the characters, I even enjoyed the allegedly wooden dialogue. And I liked the end that turns the genre on its head. I liked the fact that the publisher didn't reveal who Titus Keller really is - apparently it's a pseudonym for the writer Helmut Krausser, who I haven't read. But I do appreciate the criticism that a lot of people wouldn't have read it if it weren't for the tagline "famous author writing incognito". Because that's probably what made me buy it, too. I don't regret it though.
But I'm no expert on crime writing, although I enjoy reading it. For excellent reviews go to International Noir.
So here's to translated crime fiction as the shoe-horn for foreignising our reading habits. Long may she reign!
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