my discovery of 2008
I had a lot of fun last year translating lots of different German authors for an English language version of the Goethe-Institut website 'Deutschland Erlesen': a great idea - click on a city and you get poems and prose from and about that city by German writers.
Lots of really good pieces, but I was particularly happy to do it because it meant I read some authors I'd not got round to yet, and this Peter Kurzeck's writing blew me away:
http://www.goethe.de/kue/lit/prj/dle/fra/kur/enindex.htm
When Die Zeit’s autumn 2008 literary supplement asked which author should be awarded the Nobel Prize forLiterature he was the first to be mentioned. He is widely regarded as the great, overlooked German author of our times.
A quick browse through the major newspapers’ reviews of his books shows a rare degree of unanimous praise, comparing him to Robert Walser, Marcel Proust and Thomas Bernhard among others.
Précised reviews can be found in German here, for example:
http://www.perlentaucher.de/buch/26585.html
A short summary of the acclaim his last book received can be found on this page in English:
http://www.signandsight.com/features/1319.html
His books appear to be autobiographical. As he says at one point, he decided from an early age not to forget anything, and his books are a flow of memories, sensations and associations. Going beyond autobiography, a poetic story of a time unfolds: whether of his childhood village or the hustle and bustle of a big city. Nor does he change the names of places or people. As he said in an interview, he can’t bear to write in a ‘no man’s land’. Because things will never be as they are now, in this moment and place, he is compelled to capture them.
His amazed, bemused dwelling on the particularities of life is the reason why his books burst with a delight in people, places and foods, and are simultaneously terribly sad, they are the blues. His books are one long song to time passing, things lost, treasured moments here now but soon to be lost. And an immense pleasure and privilege to read.
Lots of really good pieces, but I was particularly happy to do it because it meant I read some authors I'd not got round to yet, and this Peter Kurzeck's writing blew me away:
http://www.goethe.de/kue/lit/prj/dle/fra/kur/enindex.htm
When Die Zeit’s autumn 2008 literary supplement asked which author should be awarded the Nobel Prize forLiterature he was the first to be mentioned. He is widely regarded as the great, overlooked German author of our times.
A quick browse through the major newspapers’ reviews of his books shows a rare degree of unanimous praise, comparing him to Robert Walser, Marcel Proust and Thomas Bernhard among others.
Précised reviews can be found in German here, for example:
http://www.perlentaucher.de/buch/26585.html
A short summary of the acclaim his last book received can be found on this page in English:
http://www.signandsight.com/features/1319.html
His books appear to be autobiographical. As he says at one point, he decided from an early age not to forget anything, and his books are a flow of memories, sensations and associations. Going beyond autobiography, a poetic story of a time unfolds: whether of his childhood village or the hustle and bustle of a big city. Nor does he change the names of places or people. As he said in an interview, he can’t bear to write in a ‘no man’s land’. Because things will never be as they are now, in this moment and place, he is compelled to capture them.
His amazed, bemused dwelling on the particularities of life is the reason why his books burst with a delight in people, places and foods, and are simultaneously terribly sad, they are the blues. His books are one long song to time passing, things lost, treasured moments here now but soon to be lost. And an immense pleasure and privilege to read.
posted by Stefan Tobler at Tuesday, March 10, 2009
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