My plans for #germanlitmonth are not at all fixed, changing from day to day, but I notice that there is some incredibly advanced planning going on in the blogosphere. Well, here I am to mess those plans up a little ….. in the nicest possible way …. with giveaways from some generous publishers.
Pushkin Press is kicking off this year’s #germanlitmonth giveaway season, and I’m quite envious of the eventual recipients of this one. You see I’ve been looking at the Pushkin Press Autumn catalogue and there are no less than 5 German literature titles in it (and yes, I want to read them all). However, I’ve told myself that I mustn’t start on them until I’ve read the 3 from the Spring catalogue in my TBR. You, however, need show no such restraint because Pushkin Press has made 3 copies of Saša Stanišić’s Before The Feast available to #germanlitmonth participants. The book will be published on 22nd October, so this is your chance to bag a hot off the press edition.
Cue blurb from the publisher’s website.
It’s the night before the feast in the village of Fürstenfelde (population: an odd number). The village is asleep. Except for the ferryman – he’s dead. And Mrs Kranz, the night-blind painter, who wants to depict her village for the first time at night. A bell-ringer and his apprentice want to ring the bells – the only problem is that the bells have gone. A vixen is looking for eggs for her young, and Mr Schramm is discovering more reasons to quit life than smoking. Someone has opened the doors to the Village Archive, but what drives the sleepless out of their houses is not that which was stolen, but that which has escaped. Old stories, myths and fairy tales are wandering about the streets with the people. They come together in a novel about a long night, a mosaic of village life, in which the long-established and newcomers, the dead and the living, craftsmen, pensioners and noble robbers in football shirts bump into each other. They all want to bring something to a close, in this night before the feast.
Stanišić’s debut novel, How The Soldier Repairs the Gramophone, won the Adalbert von Chamisso Prize, and the English translation by Anthea Bell took the Oxford-Weidenfeld translation prize. This second novel won the Leipzig Book Prize in 2014, and has also been translated by Anthea Bell.
To enter the giveaway, which is open internationally, simply leave a comment with a German (-language) literature recommendation of your own. Winners will be chosen randomly and notified on Sunday 11th October.
Good luck I’ve read three books this week to get ready not time to fit this in so I’ll pass plenty more great german books out there
For anyone looking to increase numbers with a short read (or balance out a long one) I cannot recommend A Sorrow Beyond Dreams by Peter Handke highly enough. I read and reviewed it this past weekend. This a spare memoir to his mother written in 1972, shortly after her death by suicide at the age of 51. He attempts to capture the truth of her life and the lives of other women like her who were defined and restricted by circumstance and expectation in rural Austria during the early and mid 20th century.
And the writing is quite simply stunning.
Thank you, I would welcome this chance to be introduced to a new author! My German-language picks would include The Glass Bead Game by Hermann Hesse, The Neverending Story and Momo by Michael Ende, and the stories of ETA Hoffmann.
I’m ready to have my reading plans for German Lit Month thrown off! 🙂 A lot of people have read Bernhard Schlink’s The Reader, but I like to recommend his short story collections Flights of Love and Summer Lies.
I really like the work of Swiss writer Martin Suter – he was one of the first contemporary authors I read for fun in German, but his works have been translated as well.
I would recommend The Bread of those Early Years by Heinrich Böll.
I am going to read a classics that has been on my shelf forever: Narcissus and Goldmund by Hesse. I am also going to read Zbinden’s Progress, published by And Other Stories in 2014.
This is so wonderful, Lizzy! Thanks for hosting this giveaway. Please include me in the list. Saša Stanišić’s book sounds so fascinating! In fact from your description, all his books sound fascinating! My German Literature recommendation – ‘The Wall’ by Marlen Haushofer. Probably my alltime favourite novel. I think everyone should read it 🙂 Also, ‘Night Train to Lisbon’ by Pascal Mercier – such beautiful, gorgeous prose.
Giveaway closed.
Random.org has chosen the winners. They are: 2,6,7.
Congratulations Lory, Melissa and Vishy. i’ll be in touch.
Gosh, I’ve got to look up all five as well! Thanks for writing about this.
So far I’m reading (already, as it’s very long) Christa Wolf’s Patterns of Childhood and I’m hoping to read the Remarque novel. But, maybe I’ll look into these five, and who knows?
Judith (Reader in the Wilderness)