Tenth German Book Prize awarded to Lutz Seiler
Lutz Seiler has won the 2014 German Book Prize for his debut novel Kruso. The presentation of the most popular German-language literary award kicks off the Book Fair week in Frankfurt am Main.
Lutz Seiler’s Kruso has been awarded the 2014 German Book Prize for the best German-language novel of the year. Born in 1963 in the Thuringian city of Gera, Seiler tells the story of Edgar Bendler, a GDR dropout who ends up on the East German island of Hiddensee in 1989, shortly before the fall of the Berlin Wall. There, he makes the acquaintance of Alexander Krusowitsch (“Kruso”). Both of them are traumatised: Edgar has lost his girlfriend in an accident; Kruso was left behind on the beach by his sister when he was a child – presumably she wanted to escape from East Germany by swimming. During the final days of the GDR, a special friendship develops between Edgar and Kruso. Eventually, the shock waves caused by the autumn of 1989 and the fall of the Berlin Wall reach even the Baltic Sea island of Hiddensee, culminating in a life-and-death struggle.
“Requiem for refugees from the GDR”
“Lutz Seiler uses lyrical, sensuous language with a hint of magic to describe the summer of 1989 on the island of Hiddensee – a ‘gateway to escape’. It was a gathering place for eccentrics, mavericks, freedom seekers, people seeking to flee the GDR. […] The text develops its own unique sense of urgency and serves not least as a requiem for the refugees who lost their lives while attempting to escape across the Baltic Sea. Lutz Seiler’s debut novel impresses with its thoroughly distinctive poetic language, its sensuous intensity and worldliness.” Those are the words of the jury, explaining its decision to award him the prize
After doing an apprenticeship, Seiler began working as a carpenter and bricklayer. He completed his studies of German language and literature in 1990 and has headed the literature programme at the Peter-Huchel-Haus in Wilhelmshorst, Brandenburg since 1997. He has made trips to Central Asia and Eastern Europe, and he was both Writer in Residence in Los Angeles and a scholarship holder in Rome. Seiler has already won a number of awards for his poetry, including the Ingeborg Bachmann Prize, the Bremen Literature Prize and the Fontane Prize. He lives near Berlin and in Stockholm. Kruso is his first novel.
To kick off the Frankfurt Book Fair, since 2005 the German Book Prize has been awarded for the “best German-language novel” by the German Publishers and Booksellers Association. The most successful past prize winners include Julia Franck, 2007 for Die Mittagsfrau (The Blindness of the Heart), and 2008 Uwe Tellkamp for Der Turm (The Tower). Terézia Mora won the 2013 German Book Prize for her novel Das Ungeheuer (Monster).
Frankfurt Book Fair from 8 to 12 October 2014