Two New Magazine Kids on the Block

20 February 2024

The Delfi editorial team: Miryam Schellbach, Enrico Ippolito, Hengameh Yaghoobifarah, Fatma Aydemir

The German-language literary magazine landscape is beset by similar challenges as the Anglophone one: funding is hard to find, energy is finite, so projects tend to peter out after a while. I took a trawl through the German-language litmags listed at Literaturport and noticed that a good few of them have folded since Covid, sadly. Most of the longstanding journals here have an affiliation to either a creative writing school – like Edit from Leipzig and BELLA Triste from Hildesheim, both great places for discovering new writers – or larger publishing houses. Some of them go back decades, and many don’t see the need to change things that worked fine in 1968, thank you. Which means not only keeping that old-school design, but also publishing only in print.

A couple of exceptions do offer a tiny bit of online content, perfect for translators looking for short material, for instance. Glitter is the only queer German literary magazine, and offers sneak peaks online, as does Swiss mag Das Narr, doing interesting things with narrative. Two magazines focus on essays and reportage and also offer digital subscriptions for readers further afield: check out Merkur for classic stuff and Reportagen, which does what it says on the tin and has easily the most glamorous website. Speaking of glam, Das Wetter is the glossiest of lit-related mags, chock-full of young writers, visuals and music.

But there are two newcomers shaking things up a little. The first is a twist on the traditional model, Delfi – print-only, but gorgeously done and edited by a hip young team. They pack the power of the large Berlin publisher Ullstein, which means they attract interesting writers in German (Olivia Wenzel, Deniz Utlu, Evan Tepest, Senthuran Varatharajah…), combined with international contributors like Eileen Myles and Ocean Vuong. I semi-sneaked into their semi-private launch party but they were very sweet and cool about it. Definitely one to watch when issue two comes out on 29 February, and it’s easily available via booksellers.

Kicking up dust right now is the newly launched Berlin Review. I’m not the only one excited about it – their mix of essays, LRB-style-only-younger reviews and what they call “memos” is getting all the cool kids hot under the collar. What I’m most impressed by is their international ambition, with pieces in German and in English. That means they’re somewhat of an exception to the widespread “don’t mention the war” attitude towards Israel and Palestine in Germany right now. Their first issue features a text by Adania Shibli on the fallout of her disinvitation from the Frankfurt Book Fair and an essay on the history of Palestinian migration to Germany by Joseph Ben Prestel, French anthropologist Didier Fassin on “The Inequality of Palestinian Lives” and Israeli philosopher Elad Lapidot on the work of David Grossmann and the Middle Eastern peace process. They’ve been doing some great events pre- and post-launch here in Berlin – and you can get a digital subscription and read some of the work for free.

It feels like a good time in some ways, it feels like things are picking up again after Covid, and people are willing to take new risks on writing. Long may they continue!

Dilek Güngör: A wie Ada

14 February 2024

A review by Katy Derbyshire

Dilek Güngör’s latest book launched a fortnight ago at a packed Berlin event, where the love flowing back and forth between the stage and the audience was palpable. Dilek – full disclosure: I think we’re friends, we’ve definitely been for a coffee together and I’ve translated an essay she wrote, as yet unpublished – talked about how her latest protagonist Ada is once again very like her but not identical. The audience swooned at that, since Dilek is eminently likeable. But as she read and talked, we learned that Ada wants everyone to like her and then yet again, she doesn’t.

Though it has the word novel on the cover, the book is a collection of miniatures telling tiny stories about Ada in the third person. At times they’re reminiscent of a picture book for children, especially when they’re about Ada as a child. Unspectacular things happen and the language and content are pared right back as we read about Ada’s view of life. But that tone holds firm, regardless of Ada’s age. Part of the fun is that we never know, at the start of each page, whether we’re reading about a grown woman or a little girl. While the book dips in and out with blithe disregard for chronology, I get a sense of whimsy, of Ada retaining the questioning outlook of her younger self. As a journalist, Güngör knows how to write concisely, and she uses that skill to fine effect here.

What’s it about? I suppose it might be about growing up in Germany with Turkish parents, and existing as an adult here on that basis. There are scenes where we meet a stubborn child who wants things other children have but won’t share her own belongings. We get miniatures about hospitality; remember that Twitter moment when people remembered the awkwardness of never being fed by their (German) schoolfriends’ families? That comes up a few times. There are times when Ada helps a friend, presumably another Turkish girl, to meet a boyfriend in secret – though the paring back goes so far that it reads at times as if Ada only ever has one friend, over a space of fifty years or more, the word friend almost a mask donned by different actors.

Friendship is an important topic in the book, touched upon many times at different life stages. Ada’s friend, we read, is kind and good and never sees Ada as a foreigner or an outsider, assures her repeatedly that we’re all the same. What I got here was a sense of reluctance to tell that friend to her face that no, actually, she and Ada are not the same. Ada wants to be liked, after all. Maybe it’s just me, but I found a sadly relatable streak of envy and anger beneath the surface. Another thing I enjoyed is the author’s refusal to explain; this is not an ethnological study, it’s literary fiction, and she’s not going to waste space elucidating Turkish (diaspora) customs if you haven’t worked them out by now.

What else? Thoughts about language and multilingualism, sweet but never saccharine relationships to her children, her parents and grandparents – the subjects of some of Güngör’s previous novels – and perhaps a portrait of a life as it is now. My favourite miniature is about Ada tipping out the carrier bag of her life:

‘Ada’s bag contains her childhood and teenage years and the now and soon also old age. You could take a look at it all, dust it off and put it on the windowsill. On the dresser, if you had one.’

This one page takes us from that image all the way to Ada’s grandmother poking her great-grandchildren with her walking stick. I’m reminded of Ursula LeGuin’s “Carrier Bag Theory of Fiction” – A wie Ada too is packed full of unheroic tales, a book to be dipped into, moments from a woman’s life gathered up and brought home for sustenance. In its apparent simplicity, it contains vast depth and emotion. I may well read it multiple times – I recommend you do too.

Announcing… Birgit Weyhe’s New Graphic Novel RUDE GIRL

23 January 2024

You know when a character in a comic wears a band T-shirt and you know the musicians personally? Maybe not – I guess it doesn’t come up all that often. But that’s what happened to me when I first read RUDE GIRL, Birgit Weyhe’s graphic novel telling Priscilla Layne’s story. There it is, on page 264 – a Mother’s Pride T-shirt. The first thing I did was take a photo and send it to the former singer, who went out and bought a couple of copies of the German original. The second was to think: Would people want to read this in English?

Back to the comic itself: the author and artist Birgit Weyhe likes telling people’s stories in her work. She’s often drawn to outsiders, or people who have moved between continents like herself, after a childhood in Germany, Uganda and Kenya (as detailed at the beginning of MADGERMANES). Over the years, a number of her fictionalised characters have been Black. But when US academics accused her of appropriating those stories, she was offended.

Then along came the Black German studies professor Priscilla Layne, visiting from the States. What if Weyhe tried to tell her story – but in closer collaboration than usual? The upshot is RUDE GIRL, a graphic novel about growing up feeling different, and finding – at least for a time – a like-minded community through music.

We get Birgit Weyhe’s take on what Priscilla Layne described to her, followed by sections where Layne gives her feedback; perhaps on the choice of colours, perhaps adding more detail or defending a character. In the process, Weyhe takes on her comments and changes things. It’s a fascinating insight into the writing and drawing of a graphic novel. And Layne’s life makes a very interesting subject.

A childhood in Chicago with a single mother from Barbados, a fairly absent Jamaican father, challenges fitting in at school and trouble in the extended family. First discovering German through Indiana Jones, and later discovering ska, reggae and punk. Pursuing an academic career originally inspired by Kafka while battling imposter syndrome – and achieving a whole lot in life. And who better to translate the book of that life than Priscilla Layne herself?

In the meantime, having commissioned and edited that translation, I’ve met Priscilla in person. Our years on the Berlin ska scene didn’t quite overlap, sadly; but our encounter was still warm and friendly, since I felt like I knew her already. It takes guts to tell a story like this, and both Weyhe and Layne have guts aplenty. For music fans, there are album covers, haircuts, outfits, hangovers, and Birgit Weyhe manages to capture the thrill of dancing in an ecstatic crowd in a single image. For everyone else, there’s a fascinating life told in pictures, a tale of how a sense of community buoys us up and gives us joy and confidence.

RUDE GIRL is published on 29 April, but you can pre-order now.

Dublin Literary Award: 6 German Books Nominated

16 January 2024

The Dublin Literary Award today announced its 70-strong longlist of titles nominated by 80 libraries around the world for the 2024 prize. Honouring excellence in world literature, it is one of very few awards that covers both translated and original English fiction. And we’re delighted that V&Q Books’ very own Identitti, written by Mithu Sanyal and translated by Alta L. Price, is in the running! With a big fat purse of €100,000 for the winning team or sole writer, the prize is highly coveted. Last year’s winners were the German author Katja Oskamp and her translator Jo Heinrich, who were deliriously happy about the whole thing – especially given that it was Katja’s first book to be translated into English and Jo’s first published translation.

This year once again sees a strong German presence among the nominees, with a whole six books translated out of German. The one we didn’t publish are:

Olivia Wenzel: 1000 Coils of Fear, translated by Priscilla Layne (Dialogue Books)

Sharon Dodua Otoo: Ada’s Realm, translated by Jon Cho-Polizzi (MacLehose Press)

Ulrike Almut Sandig: Monsters Like Us, translated by Karen Leeder (Seagull Books)

Esther Kinsky: Rombo, translated by Caroline Schmidt (Fitzcarraldo Editions)

Daniela Krien: The Fire, translated by Jamie Bulloch (MacLehose Press)

I once judged this prize, which was hugely rewarding but also very difficult. I don’t envy this year’s judges – even picking an unbiased favourite out of these six feels hard to me, but they have another 64 books in the mix.

The shortlist is announced on 26 March, and the winner on 23 May. May the best book win!

Irina Liebmann: Berliner Mietshaus

15 January 2024

A review by Katy Derbyshire

I’m a major fan of the writer Irina Liebmann, especially her dogged devotion to one particular street in Berlin, about which more in a later post. The very first of her books that I read, however, was Berliner Mietshaus. It has been extremely cold in Berlin lately, the kind of weather that requires you to curl up near a heat source with a familiar book, and this was that old favourite.

The premise is simple enough: In 1979, Irina Liebmann chose one building in the East Berlin borough of Prenzlauer Berg and interviewed everybody living in it, then wrote down what they told her about their lives, their homes and their jobs. It opens up a detailed doll’s house, a portrait of a particular place at a particular time painted by its inhabitants, climbing the stairs from one flat to the next, crossing the yard and doing the same in the rear building.

Housing stock in Prenzlauer Berg, 1984; Bundesarchiv

Liebmann describes her work since 1988, when she left East Germany for the West, as ‘non-fictional prose that is always also lyrical and dramatic.’ And we can see the seeds of that style here in her first book. It was originally planned as a reportage series for the GDR’s Wochenpost, but the newspaper ended up not printing several of the pieces (too negative) and then discontinuing the feature entirely. And so it was first published in East Germany in 1982 by a small publisher in Halle – to not much acclaim, as Liebmann explains in an afterword. The book, she writes, was not affirmative enough for the politicians and not critical enough for the critics. Now, however, it serves as a unique and revealing monument to that time and place.

Each chapter loosely follows the same pattern, starting with the writer’s approach to the tenants in the flat. She knocks on their doors, explains what she’s doing, and usually they invite her in quite willingly and talk freely. They offer her drinks – coffee, vodka, beer, wine – and sometimes food, often cigarettes. The TV might be on, half-watched ice skating or science fiction. Children eat their tea, wash up in the bathroom or the kitchen and are brought in to say good night to the visitor. We don’t get a sense that anyone feels threatened; they’re clearly comfortable airing all sorts of gripes about life in the GDR. When the conversation turned to politics, however, Liebmann writes, ‘I put down my pencil,’ and she was at pains to protect everyone’s anonymity by keeping the address to herself, shuffling the residents around the flats and borrowing the shops on the ground floor (lingerie and haberdashery; a bakery) from a different building.

In the GDR (unlike today), Prenzlauer Berg was a working-class neighbourhood with a fairly bad reputation; in the early 80s, many people moved out to new tower blocks in the outskirts, complete with lifts and central heating. The tenants are largely workers, some of them in jobs that no longer exist, but there are also students, a photographer, a couple who make marionettes for a living and a copy editor eager to share his literary preferences and mental health history. We meet elderly women who experienced the 1918 revolution, for example, and of course the Nazis. One claims her father can’t have been a true believer since everyone had to join the party; Liebmann lets this clearly untrue statement stand without editorialising. One woman’s sister used to be a cleaner for the writer Alfred Döblin’s brother; she’s lost the two paintings of his that she inherited. Or perhaps they never existed – who can say? Liebmann writes that she never questioned what people told her, was more interested in what they’d tell a stranger spontaneously.

Another long-term tenant, Frau N., remembers receiving a note from her family’s Jewish doctor:

‘We have to fall in with kit and caboodle tomorrow morning. Dr Neihoff. […] On Metzer Strasse, opposite his practice, the N.s stood and watched the next morning as the old doctor carried his suitcase out of the building and climbed onto a truck. It was a last farewell. There was nothing we could do, says Frau N.’

Like Walter Kempowski or Svetlana Alexievich, Irina Liebmann collages other people’s statements but lends them structure and context – and like Alexievich, she has an unusual gift for getting people to tell their stories. The book’s literary quality lies partly in its keen eye for tragedy and comedy.

We meet a number of confident young women and learn the strategic ins and outs of marriage, divorce, child benefit and housing policy in the GDR. They seem very wise for their years, often working mothers in their early twenties, independent whether they’re in a relationship or not. Here’s Liebmann’s touching farewell from Sylvia S., who works behind the counter at a butcher’s shop. When she had her son Stephan, her employer couldn’t arrange childcare to start with so she didn’t marry his dad, because single mothers get more benefits that allowed her to stay at home. Now she gets up at 4:30, takes her boy to nursery for 6 and starts work at 6:30. She’s on leave when Liebmann visits; her partner’s off sick.

‘Sylvia puts her pale-blue anorak back on and she and I leave the flat, down the dark corridor, open the wooden door of the front building – the passage is damp so you don’t hear the plaster crumbling – say goodbye on the street, head in different directions; I pause after three steps and turn around. Far ahead, the pale-blue anorak turns too, and Sylvia waves at me for a long time. She’s 22 years old.’

I could go on; the tenants feel genuine, some funny and positive, some dull or irritating. The moments of friction are fascinating too, particularly the encounter with two theology students, an academic discipline often frowned upon in East Germany. It’s hard to say whether the book’s poignancy stems entirely from the fact that these people’s world has disappeared. I think Liebmann’s melancholy style, nascent here but already recognisable in passages like the one above, also plays a part. I’m sure I’ll be re-reading Berliner Mietshaus for years to come.

Alexandra Roesch’s German Books of the Year

5 January 2024

Translator Alex Roesch looking happy — Alex Rosch © Farideh Diehl

Next up in our series of translators’ tips from the wealth of German books in 2023 is the translator and literary scout Alex Roesch.

German literature in 2023 has proven to be a year dominated by the distinct voices of talented women. My top picks offer up a trio of perspectives on life, identity and resilience written by women, and a fourth rather unusual title for good measure by a male author.

First up is Maike Wetzel’s Schwebende Brücken (Schöffling), a story that captivated me from the first page and stuck with me as the most poignant read of the year. The story, set in contemporary Berlin, unfolds during a family outing to a local lake that takes a tragic turn, leaving a grieving woman alone with two children. Wetzel’s writing skillfully captures the rollercoaster of emotions that life throws at us, with death lingering in the background. Her prose is a masterclass in revealing the extraordinary in the everyday, making it a deep dive into beauty, love and resilience. A beautifully crafted read.

Next on the list is Deborah Feldman’s Judenfetisch (PRH), a memoir from the New York-born author renowned for her autobiographical work, Unorthodox, which has been adapted into a popular Netflix series. This latest memoir extends Feldman’s introspective journey, tracing her evolution from a rigid religious Chassidic community in Williamsburg to a renewed connection with Judaism in the vibrant landscape of Berlin. Navigating the complex terrain of Jewish identity in Germany, the memoir explores profound themes of authenticity, power dynamics, and the pervasive influence of societal perceptions on individuals and communities, always accompanied by the author’s distinct voice. The narrative offers keen insights into the challenges Jews face in Germany, unravelling intricate nuances that shape their experience. Feldman’s critical view of financial support to Jewish communities in Germany peels back nuanced layers, questioning its impact on authentic community development. ‘Judenfetisch’ isn’t just a personal narrative; it’s a no-nonsense exploration of modern identity and belief systems.

My third choice is a historical fiction novel set in the landscape of Theodor Storm’s Schimmelreiter in North Germany. This one is perfectly aligned with the current season with its themes of witchcraft, storm surges and the formidable power of nature. Jarka Kubsova’s Marschlande (Fischer Verlag) tells the intertwined stories of two women – Abelke Bleken in 1580 and modern-day geographer Britta Stoever. Set against the backdrop of the Hamburg marshlands, the novel weaves the tapestry of these women’s lives, reflecting on the evolution of feminism and persistent challenges across centuries. Abelke, who manages a farm on her own in the 1580s, stands as a symbol of resilience; this is mirrored by Britta’s contemporary struggles as she leaves her career for domestic life in the same marshlands and faces challenges that resonate with the struggles of her historical counterpart. Marschlande is a fascinating exploration of history, nature and female empowerment, which also touches upon some deep emotions.

A final rather unusual recommendation is the astonishing, comic and unparalleled novel Der Vorweiner (Ullstein) by Bov Bjerg, which depicts life in the remnants of Europe in the late 21^st century. This is a bold, unconventional novel that makes a riveting read. The world we once knew has ceased to exist, leaving behind parts of Europe shielded by a colossal concrete barrier. Resettlement camps house migrants from all corners of the globe, strictly prohibited from entering the continent unless selected. The story revolves around two main characters, A for Anna and B for Berta, a mother-daughter duo. It all begins with A for Anna’s decision to hire a ‘Crier,’ a professional mourner who will lament her death. In a society where tears have become a lost art, people employ migrant workers to live with them and assume the role of mourners, as shedding tears is considered prestigious and carries social status.

This novel really is an extraordinary and intriguing piece of literature. The dystopian backdrop, characterised by extreme climate conditions and a soulless society, is juxtaposed with a darkly humorous depiction of events, offering a refreshing break from the current overly sensitive cultural climate. Der Vorweiner is a captivating read that shocks and delights in equal measure.

Ruth Martin’s German Books of the Year

3 January 2024

Ruth Martin © Cemanthe McKenzie

Continuing our series of translators’ recommendations from 2023 is Ruth Martin with two top reads.

Drifter by Ulrike Sterblich, Rowohlt 2023

Drifter was a surprise inclusion on the shortlist for this year’s Deutscher Buchpreis. It’s a joyous, genre-defying novel in which two ordinary friends have their lives turned upside down by the mysterious and possibly magical Ludovica Malabene, a woman in a gold dress who travels with a small entourage and a huge dog. Who is she? Where has she come from? How does she know so much about them? Spoiler: we never really find out, but that doesn’t seem to matter. It’s the journey that’s important – and the journey takes us to all kinds of unexpected places, including hypnotic performance art, an online fan community dedicated to an anonymous cult author, and a piece of wearable tech that seems able to access the user’s dreams and memories. The critics’ response can be summarised as: “I don’t know what the hell I just read, but I really liked it”. I will be seeking out Sterblich’s other books immediately.

The Wall by Marlen Haushofer, tr. Shaun Whiteside, Vintage 2022

Written in 1968 and translated in 1990, The Wall has recently been reissued as a Vintage Classic with a very stylish cover and a nice afterword by Claire-Louise Bennett. (So, hard to say it was a book of 2023, but this was the year I first read it, which means it still counts, right?) A kind of post-apocalyptic story, it is distinguished by its sole-survivor protagonist being a middle-aged woman. She is on holiday at her cousin’s hunting lodge when an impenetrable transparent wall appears overnight, cutting her off from the world. Every living creature on the other side seems to have died. After the initial shock of finding herself isolated and trapped in the mountains, she pulls herself together and gets on with the practical business of survival, foraging and growing meagre crops, surprised by her own mental and physical resources. It’s a satisfying and at times emotional read (TW: some bad things happen to animals), in a beautiful translation by Shaun Whiteside.

Tess Lewis’s German Books of the Year

21 December 2023

Translator Tess Lewis in smiling front of well-stocked bookshelves — Tess Lewis © Sarah Shatz

Moving on with our translators’ books of the year featurette, here comes Tess Lewis.

2023 was an especially strong year for women writing in German, so narrowing down my favorites to a few titles was an almost impossible task (and an unfair ask—Katy!). I’ve neglected many of my darlings and chosen one book from each German-speaking country. All three of these books, I’m glad to say, will be appearing in English in the next year.

From Germany 🇩🇪: Judith Hermann’s latest book, Wir hätten uns alles gesagt (We Would Have Told Each Other Everything), is a collection of her Büchner Prize lectures that reads like a psychological page-turner. Hermann delivers acute an exploration of how life becomes fiction—or not—and how the unsaid counterbalances what is said—in person and on the page. I guess you could call it ‘narrative auto-nonfiction.’ For a preview, check out the excerpt in Katy’s translation in Granta magazine’s recent Germany issue and enjoy the whole book when Mercier Press and Granta Books publish it next year.

From Austria 🇦🇹: I’ve already recommended Teresa Präauer’s satire of 21^st century manners, Kochen im falschen Jahrhundert (Cooking in the Wrong Century) elsewhere and don’t mind if I do again.

There’s no accounting for taste, we’re told, but this witty, kaleidoscopic novel shows that it’s a very contentious topic, indeed. In the age of influencers and Instagram, the aspirational lifestyle has become an overinflated balloon, which Präauer punctures repeatedly over the course of two dozen overlapping, sometimes contradictory vignettes of a dinner party teetering on disaster. All the right elements are there—luxury brands mixed with flea-market finds, a star chef’s sumptuous cookbooks, the expensive dishtowel from Copenhagen—but the moving boxes are still unpacked long after the move and the guests show up late, having already eaten and tracking mud in. In one of the author’s many deft touches, the slyly sensuous episodes unfold to a subversive Spotify playlist: when one guest burns a hole through the Copenhagen dish towel, the Oscar Peter Trio plays Close Your Eyes, when another complains that there no more utopias, Miles Davis plays So What.

One way or another, we’re all cooking in the wrong century and out of that disconnect—the gap between the lives we imagine (or that are imagined for us) and the way we live now— Teresa Präauer has created a feast. Pull up a chair when Pushkin Press publishes it next year.

From Switzerland 🇨🇭: The Romansh poet Leta Semadeni’s first novel, Tamangur, is a gem with many facets. This childhood idyll in a remote alpine valley full of shadows throbs with a dark undercurrent of loss. Tamangur is an old stone pine forest in the Engadin but in this book it is also a mysterious realm of the dead, a kind of Valhalla for hunters and their families.

Like Cooking in the Wrong Century, Tamangur unfolds in vignettes. Eighty-four overlapping and intersecting episodes and flashbacks follow an unnamed young girl, simply called ‘the child’, and her grandmother as they navigate their grief at the loss of the girl’s beloved grandfather and her younger brother. It gradually becomes clear that the child believes she is responsible for her brother’s death, as a result of which her parents have abandoned her with her grandmother.

The small village has its share of oddballs and cranks, more or less harmless, including Elsa, whose passionate affair with Elvis is somewhat complicated by his absence, a seamstress who steals the memories of others, a louring chimney sweep, and a rude goat. They form a makeshift family of misfits that take some edge off the sharper corners of fate. Semadeni’s prose is crystalline, evocative and highly attuned to the faintly absurd. A joy to read for all its heartbreak. Seagull had the good sense to snap up the rights.

Jamie Bulloch’s German Books of the Year

19 December 2023

Translator Jamie Bulloch, smiling — Translator and historian Jamie Bulloch

…and a couple to look out for in 2024

By Jamie Bulloch

We’re rounding out the year with a few different translators’ recommendations. Here comes the first, by the historian and translator Jamie Bulloch – enjoy!

Those who know my tepid enthusiasm for autofiction might raise an eyebrow at my choice of German books for 2023, all three of which belong to this genre. Have I, perhaps, become a convert?

The first of these is Wolf Haas’s Eigentum (Hanser). With the narrator’s ninety-five-year-old mother on her deathbed, he sets himself the task of writing her life story before her funeral. The ‘property’ of the book’s title refers to his mother’s obsession with the amount of square metres she owns, having been born into poverty. The novel contrasts the hard rural life of the mother, consisting of nothing but ‘work, work, work’, with the middle-class existence of the educated narrator born into a completely different generation. I suspect that there’s as much fiction as auto in this title – surely Haas’s father didn’t really die from drinking nettle tea? – and the author laces his subject with a great deal of humour: this is one of the funniest books I’ve read in ages. Wolf Haas has crossed my path as a name several times before, mainly in connection with his crime novels. His writing is crisp and concise, and I’m now keen to seek out the rest of his work.

Sylvie Schenk’s Maman (Hanser), a shortlisted title for this year’s German Book Prize, is similarly succinct. This is another portrait of a mother and one where the narrator has to fill in huge gaps in her family history. Of her maternal grandmother who died in childbirth, having perhaps become pregnant through prostitution, there are no more than a handful of details. The way Schenk reimagines this grandmother’s complicated life, giving her a personality and dignity, reminded me of Monika Helfer’s Die Bagage, another of my favourite reads from the last few years. The scenes describing the narrator’s orphaned mother, as she moves from one rejection to another, are heartbreaking. Schenk is uncompromising as she scrutinises her family members; there is plenty of wit here, but when the writer unleashes her arrows nobody is spared.

Anne Rabe: *The Possibility of Happiness*

The third of my top books for 2023 was also on the German Book Prize shortlist. At the heart of Anne Rabe’s Die Möglichkeit von Glück (Klett-Cotta) is the topic of violence and how this is perpetuated from generation to generation. What is at once fascinating and disturbing about this novel is the chain of continuity that it establishes, linking the Nazi period to the East German dictatorship and the far-right scene of the neue Bundesländer in post-reunification Germany. In the narrator’s own life, the most immediate manifestation of violence is from her mother (another book about a mother!), perhaps confounding the reader’s expectations. The scene where this mother forces her two small children to take a scalding bath is unbearable, but Rabe navigates the brutality with deftness and offers some hope, at least, for the future. You are left desperately hoping that the narrator, with small children herself, will be able to break the cycle of violence and draw a line under the sins of the past.

Mareike Fallwickl’s forthcoming *And Everything So Silent*

Two novels I’m very much looking forward to next year are by two Austrians: Mareike Fallwickl and Arno Geiger. Fallwickl’s last novel, Die Wut, die bleibt (Rowohlt), tells the story of a group of young women who, sick of toxic male behaviour, form a vigilante group to exact revenge on the perpetrators. The chocolate-box setting of Salzburg offers a sharp and ironic contrast to the brutality of the narrative, which is leavened by the tenderness of friendship. A brilliant read. Her next book, Und alle so still, will be coming out in April, also with Rowohlt. About Geiger’s next book, which is likewise due at some point in 2024, there are as of yet no details. But if it’s anywhere near as good as Unter der Drachenwand or Das glückliche Geheimnis, it will be another compelling read.

A Good Person’s Guide to Book Shopping

14 December 2023

Our books at The Book Hive, Norwich — V&Q Books at the Book Hive, Norwich

The best ways to order books online with a clear conscience

Do you like buying books – but don’t always have time for a leisurely stroll around your local independent bookshop? Do you need to send book gifts around the country? Do you sometimes need a specific book really, really urgently?

You might think your main option is to shove yet more mammon into the drooling maw of online commerce’s worst offender. The book will be picked by a robot, packed by a stressed non-unionised worker, and delivered by a driver who has to pee in a bottle because their schedule’s so tight. Then the online company’s bazillionaire owner will spend your money on a rocket-ride into space. All while hastening the demise of high-street shopping… Oh, and tax-dodging, let’s not forget the tax-dodging. And yet – they have everything in stock, and it’s so quick and convenient. Surely there’s nothing else a harried person can do?

But no! There are a range of alternatives. Here’s the V&Q Books guide to ethical book-buying.

1. Go to a shop, lazybones!

To best benefit yourself and your environment, put on some outdoor clothes and walk to your local independent bookshop. If they don’t have the book you want in stock, ask them to order it in for you – then you get the pleasure of going to the shop again and possibly forging a lasting relationship with the bookseller, most of whom are charming and intelligent and extremely well-read. Admittedly, this solution requires you to be non-disabled and live in a buzzing metropolis replete with bijou bookstores and pedestrian infrastructure, so we’ll allow other modes of transport besides your feet.

2. Order online from a bookshop!

You probably have a favourite bookshop, whether it’s a chain or an indie. Now it’s time to check: Do they have a website? Can you order directly from them? That’s what I do when I discover a book I absolutely have to have as soon as humanly possible – in my case via Berlin’s ocelot bookstore. You can usually pick up the object of your burning desire in person, or get it delivered to your door. And the bookshop makes its usual margin on the book, which is great news for them (even though they’ll only get to see your eager face once, or not at all).

3. Order directly from the publisher!

If you know exactly what you want, many publishers will sell it to you online and send it out personally. Work out who published the book, then go to their website and check if they take direct orders, right now! They might even give you a discount – like our three-for-two offer on the Anatolian Blues trilogy (but only in the UK and Ireland). They’ll certainly sigh with delight to know that a real human being wants to read their book, or gift it to a friend. Plus, they’ll save the percentage of the price they usually spend on distribution.

4. Order online from bookshop.org!

If you’re in the UK, head over to the alternative to Amazon, bookshop.org. The website is run by a small team and powered by the book wholesaler Gardners – but the ethical thing about it is you choose which bookshop profits from your purchase. To get started, choose a bookshop from their enormous map, by zooming in or entering an address or name. A 30% chunk of your money goes to that bookstore – and I’m fairly sure they won’t spend it on cage fighting, expensive divorces or space travel. Bookshop.org also features really useful lists put together by all sorts of experts. Why, you could even head over to the V&Q Books recommendations page for tips on other great books from Germany, Austria & Switzerland, cool English books set in Berlin, or our translators’ recommended reading.

5. In Germany, you can order online from various other providers.

We recommend autorenwelt shop (where writers receive double their usual share of your money) buch7 (75% of profits go to social, ecological and cultural projects) or ecobookstore (sends money to rainforests). All of them are more ethical options!

What are you waiting for? Slip on that famous blue raincoat, pull on your boots made for walking, or flex those fingertips – as Geier Sturzflug sang in 1984, it’s time to spit on your hands and raise the Bruttosozialprodukt. (With apologies for the awful mainland-European clapping-on-the-one in the video!)