Six books are still in the running for the International prize for literature. The selection leads to the focal points of our time. And in order for the Trend to the long novel: Short texts, and linguistic challenges.
The Syrian author Hamed Abboud is on the Shortlist
In 2017, the house of the cultures of the world and the Foundation of the elementary particles awarded the International literary prize for the ninth Time. It is translated contemporary literature, or, more precisely, as it stresses the competition, “contemporary literature” – literary texts from all over the world in an outstanding Translation. A Longlist it is not published, unlike the German book prize or the Man Booker Prize, and, in any case, no. Known the a narrow selection of six titles, the seven members of the Jury for the International literary award from 150 submitted titles will be given in the first place.
This is a shame, because you’d like to know more of the literary World, who were up for debate. The six titles of this year’s Shortlist offer a Wealth of references to the events of the day. Two of them are not novels, but narrative volumes, the kaleidoscope still manages to design a new universe in the classical understanding. And a book, all texts owe their German existence of small publishers – entrepreneurial ventures, which were now rewarded with the Shortlist nomination.
Hamed Abboud: The death bakes a birthday cake
The universe in Hamed Abbouds short prose texts, is a broken, between Syria and Europe, in many parts fragmented. It is held in place by Spite and sarcasm – and the image of strong, associative language of the author. In 1987, in the Syrian Deir ez-Zor-born Abboud escaped at the end of 2012 from his native country, came, via Egypt, Dubai and Turkey to Austria. He now lives in Vienna. But the death of many of his friends and colleagues found in Syria or on the run, is more alive: “The death has found many new friends. The must of the death celebrations, and that’s why he bakes a birthday cake.”
Abboud, who first emerged as a poet, combines in his texts an absurd reality as it appears with the perspectives that make life bearable – the enormity of the war with the defiant-naughty beauty emotional images. “The young people died as they tried to throw with great professionalism, a crumpled poem into the target, so that an open window or an open handbag or a by a deep breath, the resulting Opening between the breast and cotton blouse it snaps.” Deep black, a life-affirming sense of humour enables him, in the Isolation of an Austrian village to Survive. The story of “What happened to the birds?” and told, heart-wrenching cooling, from the “beginning of the new world, until I get my first world back to think, my world, the one-room inventory, which is only a few meters from my family.”
Alberto Barrera Tyszka: the last days of The Comandante
Alberto Barrera Tyszka
“Maybe this was the special Talent of Chávez: The people listened to him stirred, cried. What he said was the truth, the truth of feeling. This relationship was his Charisma.” For one, Hugo Chavez is a liberator, perhaps, Would the poor and oppressed, finally, for the other a populist dictator, of Venezuela into Chaos. Also by the family of the retired cancer doctor Miguel Sanabria runs a deep moat. As the “Lider MAXIMO” of the year at the end of 2012 in Cuba to have surgery, it seems that the presidency of Hugo Chávez to come to an end. The Rich smell of the morning air, and return to Caracas, but the country is on the verge of the Apocalypse.
Alberto Barrera Tyszkas novel about the Venezuelan Regents of Hugo Chávez shows an inside view of the company being divided of Venezuela. But in his home country, very popular, and with several awards, considered the author avoids, on one side of the trench. Partisanship is far from the 57-Year-old. But the stories from a torn country, tells the time of the novel, is highly topical, find their continuation in the present, dramatic social and political events.
Amanda Lee Koe: Ministry of public arousal
Amanda Lee Koe
The 29-year-old Amanda Lee Koe was the Shooting Star of the literary scene, as 2013 in Singapore her Debut volume appeared. The young author and editor who lives in Singapore and New York, she writes in English and works as a literary editor for Esquire. Your story-telling band with the strange title “Ministry of public arousal”, in the Original “Ministry of Moral Panic”, was often chosen to be awarded, and even among the ten best English books in Singapore for the last 50 years.
The city-state is its cleanliness-famous, less for its literature. This is certainly also due to the authoritarian political conditions, the media are subject to strict censorship. The moral boundaries are tight, revealing depictions of taboo. Amanda Lee Koe understands it in their narratives, to expand the invisible borders. Deddy Haikel may be old, but he still remembers earlier, when he fell in love with Ling Ko Mui, and not the laws cared, with the Singapore government, the multi-ethnic live together, want to rules. Lee Koes stories are naughty and yet delicate, cooling, and emphatic, imaginative, full of oblique types and yet relevant to everyday life – a stunning literary debut.
Han Kang: The Vegetarian
Han Kang
Han Kang’s disturbing book about a woman who is committed to transform itself into a Plant that appeared in the Original ten years ago. In Korea, however, it was only a best-seller, after the English Translation of 2016 had been given the Man Booker International Prize.
A woman wants to get to the tree. You, in the eyes of her husband, never something Special, stop eating meat, beyond by Disembodiment. “Yeong-Hye will no longer belong to the human species,” explained the author in an Interview with the German wave of its enigmatic protagonist. It is viewed from different perspectives, in rolls urged: as a raped wife, a divorced daughter, pitied sister and beloved, who is sought after for the sake of art. “It is their Suffering and their determination that are at the core of this book.” A novel about Power and Obsession, equally Kafka and traditional Korean Ghost stories related to it.
Fiston Mwanza Mujila: Tram 83
“Actually, nothing Special, of this Tram 83. All black as in the cave of Lascaux. Men, women, kids with cigarettes in Hand. Further back, a Band, the “break in” uninhibited, a piece of Coltrane, most likely Summertime.” But the wicked jazz locally, a magnetic place, a private universe, in a world in which “government to fight army and Apostates from morning to night”. City of the country has seceded from the Hinterland, and “people of all stock exchanges in the world,” storm “, the smallest capital in the world”, which consists of only the Tram 83 and the train station. Prostitutes, students, organ dealers and child soldiers, dancing on the volcano, and with you, Lucien, the would-be playwright with France ambitions, and his one-time friend of the Requiem.
Fiston Mwanza Mujila
Fiston Mwanza Mujilas novel is set in a Congolese mining town, reminiscent of Lubumbashi, the capital of a resource-rich Region. Diamonds and cobalt is also available in the city, country, and Gangster, with a passion for French cinema. Mwanza Mujilas was born in 1981 in Lubumbashi, and from there, he had to flee, when he began publishing. Now he lives in Graz, writes poetry, prose, and plays and teaches African literature at the University. With his first, already award-winning novel, a moreover, expect views of the neo-colonialism and a weird, surreal, virtuosic Improvisation of late-night debauchery linguistically managed.
Ziemowit Szczerek: Mordor comes and eats us
Ziemowit Szczerek is a historian specializing in the post-Soviet East. In 1978, Polish-born author and Journalist has traveled to many times over the years back to the Ukraine. “Mordor comes and eats us,” is the report of the author on these trips he has made in the last 20 years. A report which, with the conventional reports and narrative comments has nothing in common. Szczereks unconventional report is a parody on the ordinary methods of representation of the “wild East” and the post-Soviet jungle, from personal experiences and impressions, drug visions, and dangerous adventures.
Szczereks book is considered the first Polish Gozo-Reportage is a radically subjective Form of narrative journalism. His travel stories are fake, he has disfigured the Ukrainian reality, ugly, exaggerated, soaked in alcohol and deserts given to excesses invited – monstrous like the “Mordor” of the title. Szczereks records appeared in the Original 2013. His grotesque Mystifications have proved to be prophetic.
The Jury in 2017, Verena auffermann, Jens Bisky, Frank Heibert, Jens Hillje, Michael Krüger, Marko Martin and Sabine Scholl. The Feast of the Shortlist and the award ceremony on 6. July 2017 with readings, materials, conversations, discussions, and literary studies in Berlin house of the cultures of the world. Under the Motto “Reclaim Your Fictions”. In this framework, the prizes will be awarded: € 20,000, will go to the author or the author, the Translator or the Translator receives 15,000 euros.
The titles selected for the Shortlist at a Glance
Abboud, Hamed | Bender, Larissa: The death bakes a birthday cake
edition pudelundpinscher, March 2017
Arabic: داليملا ديع ةكعك عنصي توملا
edition pudelundpinscher, 2017 (bilingual Original)
Barrera Tyszka, Alberto | Strobel, Matthias: the last days of The Comandante
Nagel & Kimche, August 2016
Spanish: Patria o muerte
Tusquets Editores, 2015
Han Kang | Lee, Ki-Hyang: The Vegetarian
Aufbau Verlag, August 2016
Korean: 채식주의자
Ch’angbi, 2007
Koe, Amanda Lee | Beck, Zoë: Ministry of public arousal
Culture Books Publishing House, October 2016
English: Ministry of Moral Panic
Epigram Books, 2013
Mwanza Mujila, Fiston | Müller, Lena | Meyer, Katharina: Tram 83
Paul Zsolney Verlag, July 2016
French: Tram 83
Éditions Métailié, 2014
Szczerek, Ziemowit | hamlet, Thomas: shadow of Mordor comes and eats us
Voland & Quist, March 2017
Polish: Przyjdzie Mordor i nas zje
czyli tajna historia Słowian Korporacja Ha!type, 2013
For more information about the nominees below: hkw.de/literaturpreis multimedia, backgrounds and News at: epitext.hkw.de