We are there!
revolt Heike Geißler’s “Die Woche” tells the story of two girls who rebel against the standstill
Anyone who suspects that the classic fairy tales have long been outdated has been taught a lesson in recent years. The author Michael Köhler rediscovered the genre in several adaptations and collections, the poets Birgit Kreipe and Ron Winkler have just published an anthology with new poems on the traditional prose pieces about Little Red Riding Hood, Snow White & Co. Sometimes they appear as refuges from an oppressive reality, sometimes they serve to analyze historically grown prejudices in relation to gender, ethnicity and skin color.
Now Heike Geißler, who was born in Riesa in 1977 and now lives in Leipzig, joins the list with her novel nominated for the prize The week joined the ranks of writing fairy tale readers. It tells the story of two proletarian princesses who, by reading the canonical texts, gain the courage to make a new start. Where powerlessness has prevailed so far, they are looking for protest and revolt. “We’ve flown out of time,” the juvenile ladies say of themselves, “we’re charting a course, and when it flies away, we fly/follow. / How it works? / We have a thousand parts and a loud laugh. / We are there and we are possible.” Rarely has one read about the aspired change of time in such a relaxed, funky, ingeniously funny and playful way as in this novel full of fantasy and blaze of colour.
The week Heike Geissler Suhrkamp 2022, 316 S., € 24
On this day
Soviet Union In “Music of the Future”, Katerina Poladjan narrates a turning point in a delicately laconic way
Russia plays a major role in most of the novels by the writer Katerina Poladjan, who was born in Moscow in 1971. Whether as a room from your childhood or in your debut A night somewhere else from 2011 or as polyphonic adventure land as in the report published in 2016 Beyond Siberia – the former and culturally differentiated empire has emphatically inscribed itself in the thoughts and work of the author.
Also in her new work music of the future she leads the readers into the vastness of the former Soviet republic, more precisely: into a kommunalka in Siberia. Four generations, consisting of grandmother, mother, daughter and granddaughter, live very closely together here. Poladjan, who was invited to the Ingeborg Bachmann Prize in 2015 and awarded the Nelly Sachs Prize in 2021, gives us intensive insights into their everyday lives. With subtle laconicism, she tells of the longing for love, of birth, memories and social interaction – until March 11, 1985, an all-encompassing turning point. To trace the great historical lines in the individual, to look again into the interiors behind the crumbling facades of bygone eras, that is the ambition of music of the futurewhich, as the title suggests, goes beyond coming to terms with the past.
music of the future Katerina Poladjan S. Fischer 2022, 192 p., 22 €
frontier worker
escape Emine Sevgi Özdamar writes from a dark past into the here and now
A woman chooses to flee forward, out of a system in Turkey controlled by the military following the 1971 coup and out to the West, where democracy and freedom beckon. After the narrator in Emine Sevgi Özdamar’s novel A space bounded by shadows After leaving her home on the Bosporus, she is aiming to study acting in Germany and over the years has found a space for emancipation and self-realization in theater and art away from totalitarian heteronomy. She immerses herself in the Parisian Nouvelle Vague milieu and the aesthetic universe of a Claus Peymann. At the same time, the past repeatedly casts shadows on an impartial here and now. By processing her own biography, the author, who was born in Istanbul and has become known to a wider audience through numerous stage texts, spans a wide arc, condensing “experiences of a European border crosser into a poetic and formally aesthetic memory space,” according to the jury. This novel – which only appears in German after more than 20 years – goes beyond the demands of migration literature. Rather, it stems from far more existential questions about being human, prompting intense reflection on loneliness and origins.
A space bounded by shadows Emine Sevgi Ozdamar Suhrkamp 2022, 763 S., € 28
Rapid detours
Odyssee “A well-rounded affair” – Tomer Gardi sends artists on a search for their identity. Also present: a shepherd dog
After the 1990s were still called realistic storytelling, a new awareness of the fantastic has prevailed over the past two decades. Authors such as Daniel Kehlmann, Christoph Ransmayr, Georg Klein and most recently Robert Schneider created spaces of reality through which cracks in the magical and surreal run. Why? To show ways out of a reform-weary and sluggish late modern society or to mirror it in a slightly distorted way.
The writer Tomer Gardi, who was born in 1974 and now lives in Berlin, also follows the latter approach. He tells the story with verve in the first part of his fast-paced novel A round thing (see also previous page) of an intricate odyssey, on which he embarks as a literary character, accompanied by a German shepherd and the Erlkönig. Furthermore, the second part, which is translated from the Hebrew, is also dedicated to an artist. This time we take part in the journey of the Indonesian painter Raden Saleh, who is driven to Europe and finally back to Asia. It’s not just the unorthodox plot, bubbling with ideas, that captivates. Above all, Gardi’s ability to develop different styles for two subtly intertwined stories is evidence of high literary class.
A round thing Tomer Gardi Half translated from the Hebrew by Anne Birkenhauer, Literaturverlag Droschl 2021, 256 p., 23 €
Where do we come from?
Welttheater Science fiction author Dietmar Dath whirls the reader through an absurd cosmos of discourses
On the reason for the nomination of the novel Gentzen or: cleaning up drunk. calculus novel The jury states: “From the exciting search for the legacy of the mathematician Gentzen, Dietmar Dath develops a large panorama of our present between autofiction and science fiction.” Having largely been forgotten, Laura and Jan are looking for the man who was born in 1909 and died in Prague in 1945 Logician and mathematician Gerhard Gentzen. Like his other books, the current text by the author and FAZ film editor reaches into the fantastic and surreal. The dead and the living alike have their say in this multifaceted reading journey. In the whirl of discourse, we sometimes encounter Frank Schirrmacher, one of the most important critical commentators on digitization, the Internet mogul Jeff Bezos or the language philosopher Ruth Garrett Millikan. In addition, there is an unreal being that ultimately threatens the future of the planet. In this literary essay, cultural analysis, grotesque, parable and Kafkaesque world theater flow together. Ultimately, what penetrates him are the age-old and always valid questions: Where do we come from? Where are we going? What can and what should we do to achieve a better tomorrow? And of course: What distinguishes us as human beings?
Gentzen or: cleaning up drunk. calculus novel Dietmar Dath Matthes & Seitz 2021, 604 S., 26 €