German Book Prize 2023
These six books are on the shortlist
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Who will receive the German Book Prize 2023? It hasn’t been decided yet, but these six novels are on the shortlist.
On October 16, 2023, the German Book Trade Association will award the German Book Prize, which is one of the most important awards in the industry applies and is endowed with 25,000 euros. Back in August, the jury announced the so-called longlist of twenty titles that made it into the selection. Now the six finalists have been selected for the shortlist. These novels are on the list:
1. Terézia Mora: Muna or Half of Life
What happens to a life that you lead dependent on someone else? Terézia Mora explores this question in her latest book. In “Muna or Half of Life“The young Muna meets a man with whom she spends a night and who disappears from her life when the Berlin Wall falls. A few years later she meets Magnus again and they become a couple. Muna believes she has found the man of her life But cracks soon appear in the relationship and Magnus becomes cold, unpredictable and violent over the years. Muna doesn’t want to give up the relationship and pays a high price for it.
2. Necati Öziri: Fathermark
In his debut novel “Fathermark” Necati Öziri immerses us in the history of the German-Turkish Arda. The twenty-year-old is seriously ill and writes a farewell letter to his father, whom he never met because he went back to Turkey when Arda was still a baby. In the letter he says He reviews his life so far: conflicts with his alcoholic mother, a sister who disappears from home, endless hours at the immigration office, first love and time together with friends, all of whom are looking for orientation, identity and belonging a society that doesn’t make it easy for them.
3. Anne Rabe: The possibility of happiness
Anne Rabe tells in “The possibility of happiness” an emotional family story that represents a traumatized generation after reunification. Protagonist Stine was born in the GDR in the mid-80s and grew up in reunified Germany. Her parents find it difficult to adapt to the new reality and the wounds of the past are gone clearly noticeable, although hidden under a cloak of silence. As an adult, Stine begins to research her family’s past and comes across involvement in the SED regime.
4. Tonio Schachinger: Real-time age
In “Real time age” high school student Till Kokorda attends an elite Viennese boarding school. The class teacher is conservative and authoritarian and his classmates are snobby. Till escapes this world by immersing himself in the video game “Age of Empires”. There he is one of the best players and is… of the community. The outbreak of a pandemic suddenly presents Till and the graduating class of 2020 with unforeseen challenges… The contemporary novel takes readers behind the facades of Viennese society and into the world of gaming, without pitting the two against each other. Instead, the coming -of-age story told with a lot of empathy and humor.
5. Sylvie Schenk: Maman
In the autofictional novel “Maman“, the German-French writer Sylvie Schenk explores the life story of her late mother. Why was she so closed and aloof throughout her life? As she finds out, her mother is the child of a prostitute who died during childbirth. Her father is unknown. The girl is growing in the home and later with an adoptive family, for whom the child is actually a burden. At school the girl becomes an outsider and her later marriage is more of a relationship of convenience than love. In the novel, Sylvie Schenk artfully weaves facts and fiction and tells the story a woman who never felt loved.
6. Ulrike Sterblich: Drifter
Wenzel and Killer have been friends for ages and are in the middle of life. Killer is the head of PR for a company and Wenzel looks after the social media channels of a TV station. Everything changes when the mysterious Vica comes into her life, a woman in a golden dress who is always accompanied by a large dog and who seems to know everything about Wenzel and killers. The world of the two friends becomes increasingly unstable. In “Drifters” Reality and fiction blur into a fairytale-like and, in the best sense, absurd story that tells a lot about friendship and change.