The nominees for the Leipzig Book Fair Prize
From more than 400 entries, a jury has nominated 15 authors and translators for the Leipzig Book Fair Prize.
Nominees, publishers, readers and media representatives are all excitedly wondering: Who will be awarded the Leipzig Book Fair Prize 2016, which carries prize money of 60,000 euros? A jury has selected 15 outstanding and highly differing newly published works from a total of 401. The authors and translators are nominated for the renowned prize in the following categories: Fiction, Non-fiction and Translation. It will be bestowed on 17 March 2016 at the Leipzig Book Fair.
The nominated works of fiction
In her poetry volume “Geliehene Landschaften. Lehrgedichte und Elegien” author Marion Poschmann examines various places with regard to longings or political implications. The jury praised the “bold metaphors” in the work. “This extraordinary collection of poems jumps from the garden to the city, from childhood memory to the present day, from the former East Germany to Japan, from didactic poem to elegy”, we read in the jury’s statement explaining the nomination.
In Roland Schimmelpfennig’s “An einem klaren, eiskalten Januarmorgen zu Beginn des 21. Jahrhunderts” the author links his figures with the trail of a wolf in the wilderness. In his highly atmospheric debut novel, he tells of loneliness and longing. “This author can write about the freezing cold – and about people whose lives have become too constricted in the present”, said the jury.
Also nominated for the prize, now in its 12th year, is Nis-Momme Stockmann’s “Der Fuchs”. Taken by surprise when a flood hits, protagonist Finn Schliemann manages to save himself by climbing onto a roof. The flood washes various objects onto the roof that stir memories from his childhood: growing up without a father, living with a disabled brother, life as an outsider. “Der Fuchs” is the debut novel by the dramatist, who has been writing plays at Schauspiel Frankfurt since 2009.
Author Heinz Strunk tells the authentic story of Fritz Honka, who murdered several women in Hamburg in the 1970s, in “Der goldene Handschuh”. In his novel, the jury wrote in praise, Strunk finds “an artful language for telling the story of the social outcast”.
With the novel “Frohburg” by Guntram Vesper, the jury nominated “a museum, an archive, a lifework”, it noted in its justification. In “Frohburg” Vesper tells of German life in the 20th century, of culture, politics, war and the post-war era, and in so doing creates a (hi)story panorama. A highly important novel: “With great sensitivity for East/West phenomena, this opulent novel animates things and events that are in danger of disappearing from the collective memory.”
Leipzig Book Fair Prize award ceremony on 17 March 2016
