World literature tour: Germany
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We asked you to tell us about your favourite books and authors from or about Germany. Here are the results
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the Guardian
Germany Sasa Stanisic How the Soldier Repairs the Gramophone RichardLea Anthea Bell Striking evocation of childhood among the chaos of the Bosnian war Germany Thomas Pletzinger Funeral for a Dog RichardLea Ross Benjamin Deft and moving portrait of characters struggling with the realisation that life is not entirely under their control Austria Joseph Roth Radetzkymarsch NieWiederLeagueOne A wonderful evocation of Austria/Hungary before the First World War Germany Hans Fallada Every Man Dies Alone Incredibly compelling inside view of life in Germany during WW2. Germany Herta Müller Atemschaukel/Everything I possess, I carry with me Nilpferd English version due 2011? An extraordinarily poetic examination of a German-Romanian's attempt to survive a post-war Russian labour camp, and a discourse on how humans behave when one group is given absolute power over another. Through its exploration of conflicting national loyalties as well as themes of reparation/exorcism of guilt, the novel also contains valuable insights into contemporary Germany. Germany Patrick Süskind Das Parfum dholliday The original German is the only read I can recall which successfully transferred taste and smell from its pages to your senses. I never saw that skill in Creative Writing class! Germany Wolfgang Herrndorf Tschick cantchoose ? Herrndorf probably hates to hear that comparison by now - but TSCHICK is better than CATCHER IN THE RYE! Germany Hermann Hesse Siddhartha Zenimo Hilda Rosner One of the usual suspects but that doesn't make it any less of a wonderful novel. Its limpid beauty is created with stylistic grace and a deep understanding of eastern philosophy. Germany Frank Schätzing Der Schwarm dholliday Deep, vivid, epic blockbuster sci-fi action. If you know your American movies & TV, then it's a bit like The Abyss meets SeaQuest DSV meets The Day After Tomorrow... ...but far superior, obviously. Germany Andreas Steinhöfel Die Mitte der Welt into English: Alisa Jaffa; edited by Jonas Sachwitz; Centre of my World und die Neuauflage: The Center of the World. Germany Theodor Storm Der Schimmelreiter JaneH Denis Jackson Quiet and simple prose that is creeping with tension and gathers momentum to an inevitable end; the themes of nature vs. man and struggle to act upon scientific/technical foresight against prevailing atitude of the masses is all the more relevant in the era of rapid climate change -- flooding of inadequately designed/maintained structures sound familiar to anyone? Germany Ian McEwan The Innocent Paul Baron An excellent book based in post-WWII Berlin of an inexperienced and sensitive Brit thrown in at the deep end of a damaged and war torn city that has no real sense of individuality and is a muddle of different nationalities. Germany Andreas Steinhöfel Die Mitte der Welt MsGellhorn into English: Alisa Jaffa; edited by Jonas Sachwitz; Centre of my World; new edition: The Center of the World. It's emotional - its language is simply yet alluring - it is (in my opinion) completely 'out of the box'. Yes, it is being described as a 'how-to-cope-with-puperty' novel but for me it is more. It is magical and disturbing at times. United Kingdom Knut Hamsun Hunger Nick Craske Alfred A. Knopf, c. 1899. Written after Hamsun's return from an ill-fated tour of America, Hunger is loosely based on the author's own impoverished life before his breakthrough in 1890. Set in late 19th century Kristiania, the novel recounts the adventures of a starving young man whose sense of reality is giving way to a delusionary existence on the darker side of a modern metropolis. While he vainly tries to maintain an outer shell of respectability, his mental and physical decay are recounted in detail. His ordeal, enhanced by his inability or unwillingness to pursue a professional career, which he deems unfit for someone of his abilities, is pictured in a series of encounters which Hamsun himself described as 'a series of analyses.' In many ways, the protagonist of the novel displays traits reminiscent of Raskolnikov[citation needed], whose creator, Fyodor Dostoevsky, was one of Hamsun's main influences. The influence of naturalist authors such as Emile Zola is apparent in the novel, as is his rejection of the realist tradition. Germany/Austria Ingeborg Bachmann Darkness Spoken ELIJAH JOON - Author of TEMPORAL: a Novel of Consciousness and Time; Screenwriter of Indie FIlm FOCAL POINT (2010) Peter Filkins Ingeborg Bachmann is one of the most influential German language writers and poets of post WWII. Her writings convey power and intense emotion even when diluted through translation into other languages. Her poems retain an immediate, rhythmic quality that is simply captivating. A true contemporary of Sylvia Plath in themes and feminist power and class struggles, it is a shame Ingeborg is not as well known the world over, especially among American poetry enthusiasts. Germany Marta Hillers - Published as anonymous A woman in Berlin - Eine Frau in Berlin FrancescaBrazzorotto Philip Boehm A touching account of a woman's life in Berlin during the occupation of the city by the Red Army (post WWII). The author's cruel and straight-forward style is equally poetic. The experience of women in war-occupied zones, is a page of history which is not often dealt with, and which should not be ignored. Germany Georg Christoph Lichtenberg The Waste Books southeast R. J. Hollingdale Because it is extremely funny but also deep and philosophical. It contents a lot of brilliant aphorisms and apothegms. A classic. Germany Lion Feuchtwanger Die Geschwister Oppermann (The Oppermann Siblings) Urchinette Written in 1933, this is an astonishingly powerful novel about the effects of Nazism on one upper-middle-class Jewish German family. The action starts a few months (I think) before Hitler comes to power and ends about a year later, by which time the family, and its comfortable place in Berlin society, has been utterly destroyed (one member of the family, an idealistic schoolboy, is eventually driven to suicide by the Nazification of his school, which is immediately forced to teach subjects like history and German literature through a Nazi filter; another ends up in an early concentration camp). Feuchtwanger started writing it in January '33, so as he wrote he was only a few months ahead of his characters, giving the book an extraordinarily immediate feel. I read it as a German-studying university undergraduate as part of a course devoted to novels published outside of Germany during the Nazi period by anti-Nazi German writers and it made a huge impression on me - I've only read it in German so I have no idea how good (or bad) the current American translation of it is. But the original is fantastic. Germany Josef von Eichendorff Aus Dem Leben Eines Taugenichts Spursgirl It's a fun, picaresque novel about a young man travelling through Italy in the early 1800s. It's reminiscent of Tom Jones or Joseph Andrews. United States Heinrich Boll Ansichten eines Clowns, ("The Clown") koolieman Leila Vennewitz Sobs of a clown left meandering through Bonn with no religion and the ability to identify smells through the telephone. With this, the novel mixes social, religious, and political commentary about the era during and after The War. Boll's critique of the Roman Catholic Church and the role it played in Europe at the time is significant. Germany Hans Keilson Comedy in a Minor Key Literary Spy Wonderfully witty book with a serious subject by a man who knew his subject. The book is about how a Dutch couple hide a Jewish man, what it's like to have a stranger in your house and what they do when he dies and they have a corpse to dispose of. Germany Franz Kafka Metamorphosis AlBranson Project Gutenberg's David Wyllie Kafka's "Metamorphosis" was the "work of the day" on Project Gutenberg's site. I thought the title sounded interesting enough and admittedly, I knew it would be about an individual's change of heart. I looked forward to reading the story. Sadly, I had only heard about Kafka - that he was a writer. Nothing about his personal life or his writings. Kafka's words were so defining and real. The thought process to create such a work left me in awe and empathetic to his person. I was so concerned for how he must have grown up that it encouraged me read biographies of his life and his works. I now make it my business to read whatever he has written. "Metamorphosis" was such a powerful work for me that I had to read it twice, and I find myself recommending it to others. The online version is a standard part of my e-reader, and I am searching for the book (in its rare form) for my collection. I have been reading for such a long time. John Steinbeck's "Of Mice and Men" has been my favorite work since my teenage years. "Metamorphosis" is now added to that list. By the way, I was not sure which country you were requesting - my country or the country of the work. My country is the United States. Germany Matthias Politycki Next World Novella Dan Holloway Anthea Bell It's easy to forget just how skilful, approachable and dazzling contemporary German fiction can be when we look at the great works of the past. Germanu Michael Ende The Neverending Story johnsturm1610 Ralph Manheim What's not to love about this book? Not only is it a fantastic fantasy read it's also a statement/warning about the loss of imagination and reading. In this world of reality TV this theme is even more relevant today than it was 32 years ago. Germany Maikw Wetzel Long Days (Lange Tage) short stuff Lyn Marven A wonderful young short story writer, Wetzel is incredibly skilled at taking us into the complex internal worlds of her characters. They're often troubled teenagers, tasting love or disappointment or anger for the first time. Several of the stories are set against the backdrop of the late 80s and early 90s (the time of Wetzel's own childhood), with the fall of the Wall ubiquitous behind the personal rifts and reunifications of Wetzel's teenage characters. Germany Pascal Mercier Night Train to Lisbon You have to read it yourself. This book refreshed my mind. Germany Daniel Kehlmann Measuring the World woku Carol Brown Janeway Germans have humour! Apart from its literary value the book is about an important epoch of German culture, covering science and humanities. What more to expect?! Germany Michael Ende Momo dislocatedmartian Francis Lobb as The Grey Gentlemen, and by J. Maxwell Brownjohn as Momo The list of my favourite German writers is long, and I was recently reminded of this book I had read as a child. It is the most frightening thing I have ever read: that such people could actually exist, people who steal time. And as I grew up, turns out, Ende was not far from the terrifying truth: they do exist, time is being stolen. There is something about childrens books that speak with much more terror to the grown up reader. UK Heinrich Böll Die verlorene Ehre der Katharina Blum KleineKlasse Böll's Die verlorene Ehre der Katharina Blum is a prescient novella about the sensationalist and immoral methods of the tabloid press. It also has historical interest as a commentary on 1970s West German society. USA Heinrich Böll Die Verlorene Ehre der Katharina Blum Roach read in German Absolutely fantastic. Each time I see a story where the media are lampooning a person or celebrity I am reminded of this story. If only everybody could get their revenge..... Germany Siegfried Lenz German Lesson woku Ernest Kaiser & Eithne Wilkins An account of the political sensitivities after WW II using the art scene as a framework (expressionism which was defamed art - Entartete Kunst - during the Third Reich). A book not to put away until finished. Germany Kurt Tucholsky Schloss Gripsholm schribaere ?? Kurt Tucholsky is one of Germany's wittiest writers. He was a poet, novelist, songwriter, critic, publisher, satirist and political writer in the Weimar republic. He constantly warned against the Nazi threat and his works were later banned in the Theird Reich. His sharp and witty writing style is among the best in German literature. Unfortunately, he's hardly known outside Germany. Germany E.T.A. Hoffmann Der Sandmann Nilpferd Classic novella of the romantic period. A gothic horror exploring ideas of hubris and human/machine interaction at the dawn of the industrial age. Germany Herman Hesse Siddhartha Inspired The journey of Siddhartha -from birth to 'enlightenment'- with all its trials and tribulations, joys and heartaches, achievemments and losses, discoveries and learnings is described in the most concise, eloquent, precise and deep way imaginable. Most authors would need to write a few books to convey what Hesse conveys within this short novel. An absolute classic. Germany Hans Fallada Little Man, What Now? johu Susan Bennett One of the modernist greats of the Weimar era, Fallada wrote powerful, but accessible and popular prose. His most famous novel 'Kleiner Mann, was nun?' – a 'Grapes of Wrath'-style story about the downfall of a young family during the Great Depression, published in 1932 – is still a tremendous and relevant read, especially in today's credit crisis. A modern classic. Germany Gert Hoffmann The Parable of the Blind kushti Christopher Middleton A modernist interpretation of the Pieter Brueghel painting. Six blind men are taken to the artist's studio, and attempt to make some kind of sense of what is going on. Sparse, haunting, and at times painfully funny in the kind of desperate way that Beckett can be funny. Germany Erich Kästner Als ich ein kleiner Junge war (When I was a little boy) Fran McHugh Kästner was born and grew up in Dresden/ Germany, and this city was basically his first and everlasting love. He describes his childhood and youth in the city and is thus reflecting on the huge changes the city and the whole country was undergoing from the year of his birth 1899 onwards. He was a critic, a pacifist and a journalist who also wrote plays and peotry but is best known for hs childrens books. I read the book first when I was seven, then at fourteen. I reread it at the age of 19 and 22 - it's been a different experience every time, but always great. It's an emotional recollection of Käsnters memories, half a century old but incredibly captivating. Never met anyone who didn't enjoy it. Germany Jakob Arjouni Happy Birthday, Turk! Paul4Jags Anselm Hollo Kayankaya, the detective of this crime novel is, like the author, a German of Turkish descent so as well as the typical detective noir story you get to experience the racism immigrants are facing in the German city he works through his eyes. Germany Hermann Hesse Peter Camenzind znin W.J.Strachan I've read books by Thomas Mann, Patrick Suskind, Gunter Grass, Theodor Storm, Joseph Roth and Heinrich Boll, the first and last of which particularly impressed me. Hermann Hesse, however, became one of the few writers who's books, after reading one, I wanted to read all of. They're acheingly beautiful; deeply lyrical and melancholic, evoking a very personalized and nostalgic sense of lost youth. They're also full of tenderness; these stories don't leave you feeling pessimistic despite the often bittersweet content. 'Peter Camenzind' might just about be my favourite, but I could equally have chosen 'Knulp', 'Klingsor's Last Summer', 'Narziss and Goldmund' or 'Steppenwolf'. Turkey Stendhal Lucien Leuwen whatcoulditbe Just read it please. USA Franz Kafka The Metamorphosis ggb Turkey Franz Kafka The Trial ggb germany theodor fontane frau jenny treibel ibartsch Fontane (1819-1898) was an author, who was great on portraying women- especially those, who were under pressure. tThe circumstances in late 19th century were not easy for women, they had scarce opprtunities like education, voting rights, freedom of choosing her partner. Fontane portrayed those women, if they were bourgeois or aristocrats, with humor, sympathy and intelligence. One of these is corinna, intelligent and educated, daughter of Professor Schmidt. She has her own plans about her future and wants to seduce rich Leopold Treibel, although her dad wants her to marry her cousin. Two families meet, that have already -and also romantic-relationships in the past. Loads of funny dialogues! Fontane is best known for "Effie Briest" and "Der Stechlin". He also wrote ballads and poems. Another author who followed him in terms of literarily technics and who admired Fontane, was Nobel Prize Winner Thomas Mann (1875 - 1955). Turkey Thomas Mann Death in Venice bbg Germany Jenny Erpenbeck Visitation AggieH Exquisite writing, and remarkable that any author can find a new and relevant way to tell stories based on (relatively speaking) recent German history. Just when you thought there was no new way to present events and evoke lives in (and around) Germany in the first half of the 20th century, just when you fretted that constant Holocaust-based references were giving us an emotional free pass not to bother our heads thinking of all the other horrors in the world - the ones we do nothing about in our own lifetimes - along comes Erpenbeck with something that makes you react and understand in a new way. United Kingdom Klaus Mann The Turning Point Dr John S. Partington This autobiography of the author of 'Mephisto' portrays the hopes of Weimar Germany followed by its collapse into Nazism - and the end of Germany as Mann knew it. Indeed, during his exile in the USA, Mann joined the US Army and contributed to the liberation of his country, whilst also reporting on postwar Germany for the American press. Such was his sense of rootlessness in the society devastated by Nazism and war that he felt alone and adrift in postwar Germany. The readers' knowledge of Mann's suicide in 1949 adds to the sombre mood of this text, which spirals into an abyss and shows no recovery despite the end of the war in a liberated - albeit fractured - Germany. A truly great account of socio-moral collapse and the irreparable loss to one man. Germany Wolfgang Schorlau Das München-Komplott Stuttgarter "Das München-Komplott" by Wolfgang Schorlau is a thriller which re-examines the bomb attack at the Oktoberfest in Munich in 1980. This was the worst act of terrorism in post-war Germany and Schorlau makes a convincing case for it being state-sponsored. His other thrillers with the same central figure, Georg Dengler, a former Bundeskriminalamt investigator turned private eye, also look at the darker side of Germany, past and present. I don't think any of these are available in English. Bosnia Ivo Andric The Damned Yard and other stories Jelica Gavrilovic Svetozar Koljevic, Joseph Schallert, Ronelle Alexander, Felicity Rosslyn, Lenore Grenoble It tells the story of the essence of imagination, its importance to our survival and enjoyment of life in in the face of political and social stupidity. That imagination saves us from ourselves, along with organisation, and can lead us in to a more positive future. Ivo deals with the former Yugoslavia republics and states with a vast visionary approach and makes us realise how important it is to hear everyone's story -all stories are important in the making of humanity. Ivo Andric was made literary laureate in 1961 for his incredible understanding of the area he lived in. Germany Rafik Schami Das Letzte Wort der Wanderratte Feodor Any New Europe literature tour that cannot place Kafka will be fatally taken. However, before that bitter end, I'd like to recommend Rafik Schami. Unlike his novels - set mostly in Syria - his stories narrate migration and immigration in Germany. Like his novels, though, his volume, Das Letzte Wort der Wanderratte, draws on oral storytelling and fantastic plots. The best story of the lot would be Als der Meister auftrat, where the migrant takes the skin of a modern day Siegfried only to rue the effort at assimilation. Germany Hermann Hesse Demian Fragezeichen ? Demian is not just a book - it's a revelation. Hesse is one of the few authors whose books have a certain magic to it. A magic of style and of depth. The famous psychologist C.G. Jung once called this rather short (less than 200 pages) and accessible book "a beacon of light in a stormy sea". Why did he do that? Because there is a malaise at the heart of modern time. A malaise of superficiality and a general feeling of incompleteness. This book is not a cure, but it gives names to thing that are so far away from the normal discourse of the media that they can be considered largely forgotten. It's an awakening of the subconscious; breathing life into facets of the human mind one did not even entirely knew existed, but whose abscence - while not being understood - is felt clearly. Germany Michael Ende Jim Knopf und Lukas der Lokomotivführer ltho Uruguay Juan Carlos Onetti The Shipyard Laurita Nick Caistor Onetti is great at conjuring worlds out of imagination. After a long absence, Larsen (a middle-aged former brothel-owner) is back in his fictional hometown of Santa María, a backwater place where nothing happens (on the surface at least), with a scheme for getting his hands on the fortune of the town's entrepreneur, the shipyard's owner. Uruguayan Juan Carlos Onetti, who has been compared to William Faulkner and Graham Greene, is a great author to begin for those of you who are tired of magical realism --- and even more so for those who think that Latin American literature has nothing to offer but luxuriant vegetation and family sagas involving magic-working grandmothers. If you want to set stereotypes aside and embark on a strange journey through a bleak landscape, Onetti is your man. Germany Christa Wolf Cassandra Katherine Govier Germany Walter Moers Rumo lgottli1 The characters are colorful and unlike the normal "how the hero developed" stories, the hero also gets hit with reality that there are others like him. The book takes its time to get to its point, but it's not dull. Moers allows the characters to develop, while the plot stews. Germany Goethe Selected Poems IanC David Luke Goethe is of Shakespearean stature and is as fertile and hard to pin down as our own greatest writer. He reinvented himself several times as an artist over a long lifetime, and wrote great novels and plays as well as magnificent poetry. But the glory of Goethe is his poetry. David Luke's recent dual-language Penguin Classics translation is a great achievement by one of our best scholars of classic German literature. Germany Alfred Neumann Six of Them Marleen Anatol Murad Book details: Original Title: Es Waren Ihrer Sechs The book tells the story about the White Rose "movement" in Germany during WW II. It's the fictionalised story of the six "members" of the White Rose in a gripping tale. What makes the book extra special is that Neumann was in America during WW II and read about the arrest of the six in a newspaper there. He wrote the whole book based on the little information that article contained. It turned out later that he had been far more acurate than he could have hoped for. See this site for more information: http://neglectedbooks.com/?p=147 It's not only the best German book I ever read, it is also one of the best books overall I've had the pleasure of coming across. It's a huge shame that as far as I know, this book is no longer available. Another favourite of mine is Die Neuen Leiden Des Jungen W by Ulrich Plenzdorf. Since I haven't been able to find an English translation of this book I won't expand on this title. germany heinrich böll fürsorgliche belagerung bonnie don't know read it and you will know. Germany Wolfgang Herrndorf Tschick Besteckfach It's a book you don't forget, at least when you get to know the story behind it. It's a getaway story of two Berlin youngsters driving an old Lada southwards, written in vivid languague. There were few critics who didn't mention Salinger... It's not too elaborate, but at the same time very gripping. The author restarted the book when he got diagnosed with a brain tumor. He wrote a blog about his illness and struggle to stay alive which was widely recognised as a very sophisticated read. So you get two in one if you read both, the book and the blog. The book is shortlisted for the The Leipzig Book Fair Prize on thursday. Germany Theodor Fontane "Effi Briest" Yankreader Penguin edition: Rorrison and Chambers Fontane is a great German writer who didn't publish his first novel until he was 58 in 1878. He deserves to be better known by English speakers. Thomas Mann in 1919 said Fontane's "Effi Briest" belonged to the six most significant novels ever written. Fassbinder filmed it. Angel Books in the UK has come out with English translations of several Fontane novels. Recently read Angel Books' translation of Fontane's "On Tangled Paths" (German: "Irrungen, Wirrungen"), a short but also great novel. Germany Hermann Hesse The Glass Bead Game phollando Richard and Clara Winston It is a book, for which Hesse rightly won the Nobel Prize, of startling complexity and unbelievably audacious in concept. A utopian novel set in a society at whose zenith lies the eponymous game. From what started as a device aimed at teaching students the principles of counterpoint it developed in a literally all-encompassing contest the aim of which is the synthesis the totality of all human knowledge. In some ways it is typical of the bildungsroman of Goethe but Joseph Knecht's lifelong passion isn't for any old Bavarian Fraulein, it is for learning itself. I shall always be in awe of this book. Germany Judith Hermann Sommerhaus, später (Summerhouse, later) Lily_D "Nichts als Gespenster"(2004) and "Sommerhaus, später"(2000) are collections of short stories (which is very rare in Germany at the moment). I would recommend both those books. Judith Hermann writes really beautifully about little fractures in peoples lifes. Germany WG Sebald The Rings of Saturn phollando Michael Hulse Perhaps the greatest book by the greatest author of the last twenty years. It is a work of melancholic meta-fiction where the authors meditations on the past mixed in with Michael Hamburgers exquisite pictures of the present leave one in a Proustian world of dreamy remembrance. Quite unlike anything else you will ever read. Germany Gunter GRass Tin Drum PaulOnBooks Breon Mitchell Magnificen sweeping tale allegorising Nazi germany and the ages old battle between art and war. The main protagonist lives life from asylum to the madness of the Nazi regime, back to the asylum. The beauty of the prose, the ideas flooding forth, all render this a glorious oiece of fiction. Germany Thomas Mann Death in Venice britthebohemian This is such a introspective and existential book that I could not help myself to think over and over again on every sentence that Mann wrote. It tells me. It tells you. It tells everybody. Germany Emine Sevgi Özdamar Sonne auf halbem Weg Lily_D This book is unusual and interesting on a lot of levels. "Sonne auf halbem Weg" (2006) is also called the Belrin-Istanbul triology (it includes: "Das Leben ist eine Karawanserei, hat zwei Türen, aus einer kam ich rein, aus der anderen ging ich raus", "Die Brücke vom Goldenen Horn" and "Seltsame Sterne starren zur Erde"). The novel has autobiographical elements and manages to use the difference between Berlin and Istanbul not only in its story but also its style. Imagine 1001 Nights meets the Blechtrommel. It's a bit like that, but totally different... Germany Victor Klemperer The diaries of Victor Klemperer AggieH Unusual in being a contemporaneous account of daily life in Germany (by a secular Jew converted to Protestantism to marry) from '33-'45, the language, intelligence and insight are brilliant. Paradoxically, the tiny, pedantic, terrible details of daily life have the effect of emphasising the potential universality of it all. You are left in no doubt as to the fact that any ordinary people in any ordinary society anywhere can contribute to a society's wrongs, if by nothing else than keeping silent as teeny tiny steps are taken in the wrong direction, one after the other after the other. Germany Daniel Kehlman Die Vermessung Der Welt AggieH Historical fiction that thinks big and small at the same time. Equally sharp on the provincial life of the Germany of the time and on the opening up of new geographical and intellectual horizons across the world. The author handles the shifts in perspective extremely well. And it's a fairly gripping read. All in all, a story - or rather, several stories - well told. Germany Hans-Jurgen Massaquoi Destined to Witness georgia89 Brilliant autobiography of a half-German half-Liberian boy growing up in Nazi Germany, facing the prejudices against him because of his skin colour. At times very sad but also very funny, this book shows an insight into Germany under the Nazis from a completely different perspective from that which you normally see. Germany Sven Regener Neue Vahr Süd Lily_D Sven Regener is the singer of the band Element of Crime. His songs and his novels as well, manage to be sentimental (more the songs) and funny (more the novels) at the same time (without getting on your nerves). Neue Vahr Süd is the prequel to Herr Lehmann (translated as "Berlin Blues") and the second of three novels focusing on Herr Lehmann. To me it is even more amusing than the first part. The novel tells us about the time that Frank Lehmann is still in Bremen, lives in a flatshare and goes to the Bundeswehr (armed forces) at the same time. Germany Sebastian Haffner Defying Hitler annaroxelana Oliver Pretzel Like many 16 year olds doing History for GCSE, the hardest hitting topic was Nazi Germany. As the cornerstone of the UK history curriculum (along with the Tudors), it's not easy to deal with at 8am every week. You learn to resent the period and have a superfical sense there must have been something wrong with the Germans. I digress, this book is simply the best human perspective I've ever read on Nazi Germany. It's not only beautifully written and translated, but a really humbling book about making assertions or sterotyping people. It really explains why people were persuaded by Nazism, including the authors friends and colleagues. Definitely a great book to read if you want a better understanding and a more enjoyable read than a textbook could give you! Germany Herman Hesse Demian Picotee Most people hear Hesse and immediately think of Steppenwolf, but this is well worth a look. Contains a brilliant description of drinking for no particular reason that was strangely resonant at the time I first read this. One of my all time favourites. Germany Cornelia Funke Tintenherz sarah_dorra Anthea Bell The exotic adventure tour makes me forget about the world and, ironically enough, I do enter the world of Inkheart. Germany Markus Zusak The Book Thief sarah_dorra Zusak finds a skillfull way to link the life of individuals to the political current issues of Nazi Germany in a way that engages readers, including those not interested in political issues. I even read it during 25th Revolution here in Egypt, which was very ironic. Enjoyed it very very much. Germany Friedrich Durrenmatt Der Besuch der Alten dame jennyf Great story with morals - read it for german a level germany hans fallada every man dies alone dalstonjunction michael hoffman the best book i've read in a decade – and i've covered some ground. this is a book that delves through classes, religion, politics – lives. every character – and there are dozens in this novel – gets his due from the brilliant author. it's a long book but it flies by. i wished it never ended – and i still wish that, one year later. germany Clemens Meyer Als wir träumten Malte don't know of any translation "Als wir träumten" is the debut novel of Clemens Meyer. It shows the life of the youth in a district of Leipzig just after the political changes of 1989. It transports the atmosphere of the time and also shares the hopes, dreams but also desilluision of the protagonist as he and some of his friends and their families are struggling in the changing setting. In my opinion Meyer has a brilliantly dense style, which makes the book a gem. Germany Erich Maria Remarque Im Westen nichts Neues (All Quiet on the Western Front) dannydear I enjoyed Faulks' 'Birdsong', but this book is in an altogether different league! Germany Christa Wolf Medea [and/or] Kassandra library_pirate dont' know History just repeats itself. You don't believe? Read Christa Wolf's books (not only, but especially for understanding GDR history). Power distorts people. People having power become weak - weak, angry and militant. Truth will be threaten like the few, that tell it. The powerful will win, but everything will be lost. The writing of Christa Wolf is magical and full of clarity at the same time. Literally classical, by form and content. And - for me really crucial - in a short distance. Enjoy! And think. Germany Hans Fallada Every Man Dies Alone poyma I don't know what Nazi Germany was like to live in, I was born 16 years after WWII ended. But I have a sneaking suspicion ordinary life was alot like how Hans Fallada describes it. Tension, pettiness, feeling scared and worried all the time. Surrounded by pompous big mouths repeating empty Nazi slogans and propaganda. Vivid descriptions. Every book that really grabs me seems to create the same reaction for me: I can't wait to devour each page, but at the same time, I want to read slowly and stretch out the experience as long as possible. Germany Hermann Hesse Steppenwolf Silverhawk Basil Creighton I first read this in my “angst filled” teens. The angst bit mainly meant stepping back from everyone else and sneering at a world I found difficult to be reconciled with. I could identify with Harry Haller even though the character was written as a middle aged man. It goes far beyond an appeal to the angst filled, as it sat well along side the Camus and Sartre I was reading at the time in philosophical enquiry. Croatia Slavenka Drakulić "Frida`s Bed" Hrvoje21 Christina Pribichevich-Zoric It`s a superb story about the pain and the fight of famous mexican artist Frida Kahlo. Drakulić has captured her emotions just like camera, and that is great about her book! Germany Friedrich Hölderlin Hyperion Germany Helmut Krausser Eros Kanikay-reader Mike Mitchell With the vast majority of Anglo-American literature of the present time refusing to tackle the big issues of serious love, country, moral choices and more, it was great to discover a book that stands like a cathedral amongst pygmies. It is large in scope, philosophical and contemporary, even though it is set in the Germany of the Second World War and soon after. There are few books of the recent past that deal so beautifully with unrequited love and commitment to a cause. A splendid work of literature. USA Arno Schmidt Brand's Heath Old Scratch John E. Woods Every line is an often hilarious explosion. If much is lost in translation what makes it through is more than enough to jar and refresh the reader. Makes Pynchon look like Carver. Germany Benno von Archimboldi Mitzi's Treasure RobertoB. Piero Morini This is Archimboldi's finest novel, even if it is his slimmest. Archimboldi's vision is like no other living writer in its darkness, which reaches levels of misanthropy that Celine would have found shocking, but it is a misanthropy tempered by hope and love and occasionally, if I may be permitted to say so, the soft grasp of affirmative friendship, the kind of friendship one finds only later in life, surrounded by the headstones. Germany Friedrich Hoelderlin Selected Poems Eloha David Constantine In its breathlessly extending sentences and urgent rhythms Hoelderlin's poetry makes you feel what it would be like to be gathered into a new age of open, loving solidarity and beauty; it also makes you feel the total dejection and brokenness of the failure of that new age to materialize. Hoelderlin is the ultmate utopian romantic poet and a modernist avant la lettre, especially in his intensifying translations of Sophocles and Pindar. Netherlands Joseph Roth What I Saw fanshawe Michael Hoffman Journalism par excellence. Roth walks around and writes about what he sees in Weimar Berlin. Yes, yes, he captures the spirit of the age, as if it needed saying. Germany Goethe Faust zinaida David Constantine major new translation of this classic appeared last year in Penguin classics translated by the poet and translator David Constantine. Very little fanfare around its arrival but it must count as one of the great works of translation: formally perfect, epic, moving, funny. Read this and you might finally understand what makes it such a great book in German. Constantine is working on The Sorrows of Young Werther, the book that thrilled a generation of young Europeans upon its arrival in print. Watch out for it! Germany Germany has, more so than any other country, always punished its most individual and (believe it or not) genuinely funny authors with neglect and oblivion. There's a forgotten genius for every century: Johann Fischart, Jean Paul Friedrich Richter, Wilhelm Raabe and Arno Schmidt. Unfortunately, translations may be somewhat hard to come by. Hungary Tandori Dezsö Az Evidenciatörténetek cru-jean ? With great erudition & imaginative sketches Mr Tandori shows, that live is not so very beauriful, Germany Bernhard Schlink The Reader bluewhisky Carol Brown Janeway Sparse, poignant description; fantastic narrative skill; extremely well contextualised. Germany Walter Kempowski Echolot, Part 2, "Fuga Furiosa" An Avid Reader none A collection of diary entries, letters, postcards, personal memories etc. of famous people as well as ordinary citizens in Europe (mostly Germans, but also British, French, Russians, etc.) during the time of WWII. The entries / contributions are sorted by days (the entire series of ten volumes is entitled "A collective diary"), and Part II deals with the winter of 1945. The contributions by ordinary citizens fleeing before the advances of the Red Army, or those of concentration camp inmates on the death marches are absolutely harrowing and an education. Walter Kempowski collected and arranged all these texts, but added no comments of his own. Germany united Kingdom Alexander Kluge The Devil's Blind Spot Ofenheizung Michael Hulse/Martin Chalmers Kluge is fantastic and should be much better known in English. He mixes fact and fiction in a way that Sebald did. His films are pretty good, too. Germany Ingo Schulze New Lives Andrew Hewitt A moving and vivid account of life before, during and after re-unification. WIth Schulze, German literature moves on from the traumas of World War Two; instead we experience the trauma that follows the forcible re-joining of Siamese twins, separated long ago. Germany Marlen Haushofer Die Wand marjpeyer@bluewin.ch I don't say this book is great but it is memorable. Germany Peter Weiss The Aesthetics of Resistance Marcus Speh Frederic Jameson Weiss, a member of Gruppe 47, the influential German post war writers group, is better known to baby boomers as the author of the play Marat/Sade. It's a great book of literary fiction, anchored in German history that helps us understand ourselves, but not necessarily an easy read. As one review says: "...feels like an endless soliloquy on a bare stage, but one that takes the audience on the most amazingly imaginative time-and-space journey, with the narrative perspective cutting like a movie director's camera from one intensely rendered visual detail to the next." (for more raving reviews, see here: http://amzn.to/hxLDH8). This book (in three volumes) is, in my view, altogether more accessible than Peter Handke and less accessible than Günter Grass or Herta Müller but also much less in love with itself than any of these writers, thank god. This is modern writing that is also moral fiction in the sense of John Gardner. Highly recommended and perhaps too little known. Germany Friedrich Schiller Don Carlos Agelster R.D. Boylan The first "Classical" play by Germany's greatest playwright, about power and its price, hubris, love and the making of choices, and about what they do to the human soul. Breaks your heart with its inevitability and still leaves you with a soaring pride in humanity. Makes blank verse sound like the most natural form of expression imaginable, and the translation by the otherwise strangely obscure R.D. Boylan is congenial in every respect – a feat in itself. Germany Jan Swafford Johannes Brahms RichardLea Partly because it's brilliant, and partly because it throws a fascinating light on German cultural life as well as conjuring up a marvellous portrait of the man himself. This biography looks beyond the prophetic, biblical image of his later years - the traditionalist resisting the assault of the Wagnerians - to rediscover a young, hotheaded, Romantic Brahms, or as Swafford puts it, a Brahms ohne Bart - Brahms behind the beard. Germany Nothing for Ungood Austria Heimito von Doderer Die Strudlhofstiege (The Strudelhof Steps) wine_snob Vincent Kling (partial transl.) One of the best "long-haul" novelists of the 20th century. Up there with Proust, Musil, and Thomas Mann, but a lot more accessible. The book is a meticulous reconstruction of life in Vienna before the 1st world war. This theme is shared with Musil and Joseph Roth, but the texture is much richer. The feeling for time and place it conveys is almost uncanny. At the same time, a great coming-of-age novel about the book's central character, a Lieutenant Melzer. Written in realist style on the surface, but radical at the core. Great sense of rhythm. Germany Günter Grass The Tin Drum puddles Breon Mitchell The book is a historical satire that spans the end of Weimar Republic to the Nazi era.In a funny and highly ironic text and it is also a critique towards the general style of books about that time. A boy who refused to grow up but with the mind of an adult. Dark humour even about the cooking of spaghetti. Some chapters read like stand-up comedy but while extremely funny the theme of the book is cruelty. As is all the "Danzig Trilogy" The Flounder by Grass is also a good read but a very fragmented and sometimes confusing book or maybe it is the translation. Germany Siegfried Lenz Deutschstunde Cleptop ? siegfried Lenz's ability to sketch characters without judging them or patronizing them has been acknowledged by various literates. On the one hand he stands for the subtle and plain storytelling of the north and on the other hand he thus proposes a great contradiction to the southern blunt stereotype. Germany Cornelia Funke Inkheart radicallib A wonderful fantasy adventure on the power of the book Germany Sarah Kuttner Mängelexemplar Urchinette It's very funny, it's very sad, and it's a totally convincing portrayal of a young woman with a relatively mild but still debilitating mental illness. The heroine is a young, hipsterish Berliner with a job in TV who starts experiencing serious anxiety, and Kuttner, a TV presenter, describes her experiences without sentimentality and with a sense of humour. I really loved it and keep hoping she'll write another novel. I genuinely can't understand why it hasn't been translated into English - it seems like a potential big seller in any language. Germany Katharina Hagena Der Geschmack von Apfelkernen Liburuak Book Blog Unfortunately, no translation yet "Der Geschmack von Apfelkernen" (The Taste of Apple Seeds) will bring you a summery feeling of lightness, with a wonderful dose of melancholy mixed in. There is already a French translation, and the book is highly deserving of an English one. Germany Walter Moers Die Stadt der träumenden Bücher BodLover John Brownjohn A really good fun children's book in a fantasy world in which books and reading are the be all and end all of everything in life; plenty of pictures (also by Moers, who is originally a cartoonist and did an (very definitely) adult cartoon series, 'Kleines Arschloch'), plenty of adventure, lots of mystery. Moers does this sort of thing extraordinarily well - in terms of structure, this book is not so very different from his better-known children's episodic novel 'The 13 1/2 lives of Captain Bluebear' (also excellent fun, by the way). Germany Akif Pirinçci Felidae, and its sequel felidae on the Road frustrated artist It's a thoroughly entertaining satire of the 'hard-boiled ' detective genre, narrated by a cat. All the humans are shown as rather stupid ineffectual background characters, with the heroes, villains and victims all being cats. Great fun- I'd happily read the rest of the series if they were translated into English. German Georg Büchner Lenz njm Büchner is an incredible author and achieved a lot in his short life. Though perhaps better known as a playwright, this short prose fragment is my favourite of all of his works. Written in 1835, it shows a shockingly modern insight into mental illness and schizophrenia in particular. The language is dense and beautiful. The opening page is perhaps one of the greatest examples of prose in German, if not World literature. Germany Christa Wolf Kassandra njm Jan Van Heurck Wolf is one of my favourite German authors. Her books frequently deal with questions about memory, identity and her concept of 'subjective authenticity' which are of course still relevant today and to those living outside Germany, but which also provide an important insight into the task faced by those living in the GDR of coming to terms with their Nazi past in the face of their Communist present. Wolf's texts ask how people were supposed to have any true sense of identity when the world surrounding them and the ideas they were expected to adopt kept changing so drastically. In Kassandra she addresses these problems against the backdrop of the Trojan war and asks questions about what it means to have a voice and to stay true to this voice even in the face of great adversity. The book is also interesting when considered as part of the tendency of German authors to go back to ancient Greek culture and is an interesting counterpoint to authors such as Goethe who admired Greek culture for its harmony and close relationship to nature. It's also a prime example of Wolf's feminist writing as she goes back to the defeat of the Trojans as the point at which patriarchy, as transmitted by Greek values, started to take over the world in order to see how these structures might be changed for the better in a post-patriarchal society. The book's accompanying essays are also well worth a look and also provide another reading of the story - that is of 'male' aggression and the fear she and her generation lived in of nuclear war. Austria Peter Handke Kindergeschichte/Child Story LaLaetti ? Peter Handke is rather known as the one bashing everyone for everything, literally in his "Publikumsbeschimpfung" (public bashing), and later even more ferociously during and after the Balkan war. In "Kindergeschichte" he allows a look at an almost innocent part of his soul. Really touching. Germany Walter Moers Die Stadt der traeumenden Buecher (The city of the dreaming Books) JRGZ John Brownjohn The book breaches all frontiers. As the Detroit News put it for one of his earlier novels "Moers' creative mind is like J.K. Rowling's on extacy", and this is to be taken literally. The book combines an extraordinary imagination with a brilliant style of writing. Based in the fictional continent of Zamonia the book follows the footsteps a young dinosaur Optimus Yarnspinner, on his search of the author of the maybe best piece of literature ever written. On his journey he will realise that books are much more than just bound paper. Like in all his novels Moers is not bound by the ties of cliché, stereotype or even genre. Furthermore this book is a love letter to literature and the reader will soon discover that many of the books characters names are anagrams of real existing authors. The author is well known in Germany. He invented on Germany's most famous children character Captain Bluebear, but also contributed many politically very incorrect cartoons to Germany's biggest satire magazine Titanic. Recently he has mainly worked on his novels which have become international bestsellers. Germany Friedrich Schiller Wallenstein Hibernese F. J. Lamport At 300 pages one of the longest theatrical works ever written, Wallenstein is a chronicle play to rival anything Shakespeare produced. (Though the play was written over two centuries ago, it was only staged in a single performance for the first time in 2007 - by Peter Stein in Berlin.) The tragic, ambiguously motivated figure of Albrecht von Wallenstein - the warlord and powerbroker who might well have brought the appalling Thirty Years War to an early close, is here immortalised by Schiller's astounding command of stagecraft and dialogue. The man's hamartia is his integrity: because he truly believes in honour, he cannot see his betrayal coming. An absolutely compelling play, seething with political intrigue and Schiller's thorough knowledge of the era and his subject. Every other page has a quotable passage or a shimmering insight into human nature and how we are all threatened by inner and outer foes. Quite simply, it's hard to imagine a more gripping drama. Germany W.G. Sebald (all of his novels) jlr Michael Hulse, Anthea Bell Hypnotic melancholy prose that crosses boundaries, both physical and psychological ones, you follow the prose wherever it takes you, not caring a wit about plot or traditional structure, just being led by his sure hand into deeper and deeper layers of meaning. Germany Heinrich von Kleist Selected Prose jlr Peter Wortsman What strikes me about his stories in general is how he tends to put his otherwise rather normal characters in these extremely tumultuous situations, and he shows you how they are almost moved by larger forces into becoming either monsters or angels. Many times his characters act with such mercilessness and violence that it is hard to stomach, but also seemingly inevitable, like watching a chain reaction that you cannot turn away from. Germany Hans Henny Jahnn The Ship jlr Catherine Hutter The book alternates between mysterious goings-on aboard a ship carrying coffin shaped cargo and circuitous thoughts within the characters' heads... "agonizing exertions" as Gustave puts it himself, full of paranoia, self doubt, moments of clarity, touching vulnerabilities, childish naivete, emotional outpourings, formal and/or ornate declarations, etc. etc. The prose style is so unique, often the sentences are notable for their handsome bone structure, alternating between vague unknowns and specificity. I felt sea-sick the whole time. Germany Heinrich Böll The Bread of Those Early Years LadyV Leila Vennewitz Heinrich Böll’s The Bread of Those Early Years perfectly depicts the struggles of post-war German society. The title says it all: it explores the hunger, not just to survive and succeed but to regain meaning and purpose. It explores the ferociousness of the war-torn and downtrodden German people to get back on their feet again. The story is so powerful, so beautifully written and dripping with striking images and turns of phrase. The symbolism of bread works incredibly well to highlight the social issues Böll was trying to explore in the framework of the story. The narration is so simple, so understated, so matter-of-fact and it really works. Even 56 years after the novella was first published you are in the thick of this desperate society, walking the streets with Walter, meeting Hedwig, seeing the poverty through their eyes, even experiencing it with them. There is the added dimension of a tentative love story between Walter and Hedwig. The strength of emotion between them is not explicit; the reader is allowed to experience it developing as the characters experience it themselves. The most striking moment of the book is Hedwig’s description of her encounter with a stranger who ‘accosted’ her while Walter was not there. She describes with such desperation how she imagined her life with him: ‘I didn’t have much time: one minute, and I lived a whole lifetime at his side...’ She goes on to describe in poignant detail how she had his children, how she watched him swap his suits, how they celebrated a pay rise, how she became his widow. It is the most striking piece of dialogue I have read. Certainly, Böll and The Bread of Those Early Years deserve to be recommended as one of Germany’s literary greats. Germany Inka Parei The Shadow-Boxing Woman lovegermanbooks Katy Derbyshire I translated it and love this short novel about a woman in late '80s/early '90s Berlin. Full of loving details, it really captures a lost time and place. Germany Theodor Storm Der Schimmelreiter eiskalt A superb evocation of a small town (Husum) on Germany's bleak North Sea coast sometime in the 19th century and the battle to save it from the ever-present threat of a breach of the dykes. The eponymous white horse and rider add to the spine-tingling atmosphere. USA Theodor Fontane IRRETRIEVABLE Peter Foges Douglas Parmee Theodor Fontane -- surely one of the finest European novelists of the nineteenth century -- is nowadays mostly unknown in the English -speaking world. At least as good as Flaubert in my view, his resurrection in the often provincial (and persistently anti-German) Anglo Saxon literary world is long overdue. "Irretrievable" ("Unwiederbringlich", 1891), in a wonderful translation by Douglas Parmee, is a short historical love story about the decline of a once happy marriage. Fontane sets this beautiful bitter-sweet tale on the Baltic coast and in Copenhagen in the 1840s at a time of crisis and war between Germans and Danes -- the famously obscure "Schleswig Holstein Question" which he renders with great accuracy and fascinating insight. A little gem. Germany Michael Ende Die Unendliche Geschichte garym It's a great adventure story, a journey of self-discovery, and a commentary on fantasy literature all combined recursively. Germany Thomas Mann Der Zauberberg hertfordbridge It contains everything ever thought, ever said, ever discussed - either before its time or after. Germany Isherwood Berlin Stories -darnit- I love "Berlin Stories" because it gets the atmosphere of the "between-the-wars"-time in Berlin so well - It's the time of the expressionists, Dix, Mendelsohn... its an easy read, but very well worth it! Germany Hans Christoph Buch Haiti Cherie ravotins Amazingly vivid description of the trials and tribulations of those living in this poor country. Germany Walter Moers Die Stadt der Träumenden Bücher/The City of Dreaming Books Berend John Brownjohn Not only does this book put paid to the stale notion that Germans lack a sense of humour, it is also one of the few books that does not merely claim to bridge the gap between fantasy and high literature, but actually manages it. It is set in the metropolitan city of Buchhaim/Bookholm, a place where everything revolves around literature. It is dominated by publishing firms, second-hand bookstores, writer's groups, and so forth. This does not mean that it a place for the meek: Bookholm is a place where literature actually matters, and as a consequence, the book trade in Bookholm is roughly as violent as the crack trade in the Baltimore of The Wire. In this city, dinosaur and aspiring author Hildegunst von Mythenmetz must go on a quest for the writer of what are probably the greatest two pages of fiction ever written. The brilliance of this book is that it is at once a fantasy and adventure novel, and a parody on the world of literature. To me, it is the greatest crossover novel ever written. Germany Franz Kafka Der Prozess Paulfr The individual in an alien world. This is a major theme in Kafka's work and probably the major theme of this novel. That's why he's such an influential author today. Another of his great works is the short story Metamorphosis. Germany Christa Wolf Accident StanPersky An innovative book about the aftermath of a nuclear power plant catastrophe. Germany "Bonaventura", presumably Ernst August Friedrich Klingemann Nachtwachen don't know One of the maddest books ever. The passionately misanthropic night watchman Kreuzgang leads us through his cabinet of human existence, all the while pretending to fulfill literary conventions whilst secretly sneering at them. Anger and eloquence have seldom complemented each other in such an entertaining way. The book is both a masterpiece of dark romanticism and a satire of its own genre. Furthermore, its poignant humour has aged remarkably well; most parts of it still make for an utterly hilarious read. Perhaps unsurprisingly, German critics have been slow to acknowledge this and preferred to shrug it off as nihilism, instead devoting themselves fervently (and at long last successfully) to the exposure of the author's identity. Germany Pascal Mercier Nachtzug nach Lissabon (Night Train to Lisbon) Liburuak Book Blog Barbara Harshav This is something like the German version of Carlos Ruiz Zafón's "The Shadow of the Wind" - it's all about diving deeper and deeper into someone else's literature. A seemingly normal teacher suddenly decides to leave his classroom and travels to Lisbon in order to follow up on the stories of Amadeo de Prado. Exciting and deeply intellectual. (The author is originally Swiss but I believe he lives in Berlin, does that make him German?) Germany Heinrich Böll The Lost Honour of Katharina Blum, or: how violence develops and where it can lead StAndrewsReads While the book was in a way a child of it's generation, the issues it deals with are just as real for us today. Böll wrote the book after the German BILD-Zeitung had started a smear campaign against him for 'sympathising with terrorists' (i.e. writing a critical article). Re-reading this book last summer made me wonder whether today's Europe is that different from 1970s Germany. Germany Cornelia Funke Inkheart Artemisia No idea Just because the lack of German fantasy was brought up - she's a must. She's been called the German J.K. Rowling, and while the latter remains unsurpassed, Funke considers this a compliment and is definitely offering similar quality. Germany Rebecca Gablé Das Spiel der Könige Meli84 I don't even know wether a translation for Gablé's books exists but it definitely should. She writes about England during the 100 Years' War and the War of the Roses, much better than any other historical writer I've discovered so far. Germany Daniel Kehlmann Die Vermessung der Welt Caroline Cook ? It' s funny and interesting and informative and very well- written. It's about Alexander von Humboldt and Carl Friedrich Gauss.It sounds heavy but it isn't. Kehlmann's other books are all good. Germany Hans Keilson Comedy in a Minor Key Milanova Stunningly written, subtle and measured, it's an intimate depiction of the domestic life of a Dutch couple who take in a Jewish man during the holocaust. Outside events only filter through brief references and the miniutiae of everyday life is detailed increasingly as tensions grow- both of the couple, and of their 'guest' who is increasingly plagued by the worries, the boredom and claustrophobia of being in hiding. It twists and turns from the farcical, to the mundane, then ironic and tragic. UK Leo Perutz The Swedish Cavalier fabelhaftem Perutz, whilst not a German himself is hugely popular in Germany. This particlar tale plays out with eye-popping twists that leave you in disbelief (in a postive way) by the end of the book. Perutz is massively overlooked in English literature but his works really delve into metaphysics but in a way that makes you want to follow him. Both The Swedish Cavalier and By Night Under The Stone Bridge are well worth designating a day to and devouring in all their glory. germany Sweden Jenny Erpenbeck Die Geschichte vom alten Kind Linnéa Germany? Joseph Roth Radetzky March effibriest Michael Hofmann Everyone seems to know what a great book this is but I just wanted to put in a word for Michael Hofmann's translation. It seems to me to be perfectly judged, just a miracle of taste and irony and humour and a pure pleasure to read. I found there were many passages in the German that I could make no sense of at all in literal translation and I'm so grateful to Michael Hofmann for clearing things up and even making me laugh when I could finally see what Roth meant. Germany W. G. Sebald The Emigrants Germany Heinrich Boll Lost Honour Of Katharina Blum AFictionHabit unknown Awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1972. Brilliant satirist and commentator of post war Germany. Unfortunately very little of his work is available in translation. Some of his short stories are hilarious and incredibly sharp witted. I originally discovered him while studying German at A level 20 years ago, but he is still rewarding to read in the original and in translation. Germany Christian Morgenstern Galgenlieder und andere Gedichte (Gallows songs and other poems) AS Max Knight Can we translate poetry? Obviously Morgensterns poems are beautiful, smart, extremly funny and include some of the most original and hilarious wordplay in German literature - but this translation really is a work of art in itself: it actually manages to adapt both content and rhyme whilst staying true to the wisdom as well as the cheeky charm of the original. So apparently: Yes we can! Germany Andrea Maria Schenkel Murder Farm (original: Tannöd) Liburuak Book Blog liburuak.wordpress.com Anthea Bell One of the most gripping crime novels I've read in a long time, yet so short you can devour it in one afternoon. Schenkel has an amazing ability to laconically describe the narrow-mindedness of a 1950s rural German community in which a terrible crime has occurred. An entire family of poor farmers has been cruelly slayed. They weren't popular, but what else lurks behind everyone's appearances? The little novel's structure keeps your eyes glued to the page as gradually, the horrific details of what happened are revealed.