Having become known as a literary critic, Ijoma Mangold presented his literary debut in 2018 with the memoir »Das deutsche Krokodil« [tr: The German Crocodile]: »Much more than a personal story: it is at the same time a portrait of society and epoch en miniature.« [SZ] His memoir was followed
In her family saga, the author touches on German colonial history. Before World War I, her grandparents had left Bavaria for New Guinea as Christian missionaries with a sense of duty in order to convert the »heathens« and thus experience self-valorization in a hierarchically constructed world. »Historically enlightening and emotionally
Algeria at the beginning of the 19th century: the country was under Ottoman rule when the French occupation began. The novel, awarded the International Prize for Arabic Fiction in 2020, sheds light on the period from the perspectives of five characters ― a French journalist, a former Napoleonic soldier, an
Helga Schubert writes an »aesthetically suggestive autobiography« [FAZ] in the almost thirty artfully crafted prose pieces »Vom Aufstehen« [tr: On Rising], and in snapshots, meditations, confessions, and protocols, she allows the familial and historical-political upheavals of a German-German life to emerge. Literature as a »current of warmth« [FAZ], as reconciliation
In this »traditionconscious and at the same time highly modern novel« [DLF Kultur], a young woman embarks on a search for herself. Raised as the daughter of a single mother on an island off Kenya, her path takes her to China and Turkey. Ayaana’s fate shows how complexly interwoven Islamic
After her highly acclaimed debut »Sommerhaus, später« [tr: Summer House, Later], Judith Hermann published several volumes of short stories and novels, for which she was honoured with numerous awards, including the Kleist Prize and the Friedrich Hölderlin Prize. For her, writing means facing the void all over again each time:
In Hervé Le Tellier’s 2020 Prix Goncourtwinning bestseller »The Anomaly«, a Boeing 787 on its way from Paris to New York gets caught in an electromagnetic whirlwind. Three months later, the same plane lands again in New York, and the doppelgänger game begins. »A pageturner and an exercise in style
Edem Awumey’s second novel tells the story of Askia, a Parisian cab driver who was forced to flee Africa for Europe with his family as a child. Driven by the mysterious absence of his father, who came to Europe before him and disappeared, Askia believes he can track him down
Together with his father, psychiatrist Otto Kadoke travels to a distant relative in the West Bank: Anat lives there as a staunch Zionist in a Jewish settlement ― and Otto, an atheist and antiZionist, falls in love with her. With his fifteenth novel, Arnon Grunberg presents a tragicomic love story
In her first novel, the daughter of Chinese immigrants recounts the flight of two orphans across the prairies. In the final stages of the American gold rush, they search for a home in a strange world and are filled with longing for an identity that transcends the boundaries of origin
In her family saga, the author touches on German colonial history. Before World War I, her grandparents had left Bava ria for New Guinea as Christian missionaries with a sense of duty in order to convert the »heathens« and thus experience selfvalorization in a hierarchically constructed world. »His torically enlightening
1935: Ethiopia is about to be invaded by Italy. Orphaned Hirut works as a maid for an officer in Haile Selassie’s army. When the emperor goes into exile, Hirut hatches a plan: With the help of a peasant disguised as the emperor, she plans to boost morale ― but then
