Shakes head south including on film. But. People have put big dreams on the big screen. Movie magazine on the w. Welcome to an arts twenty one special. One hundred german must reads we present the definitive list of german must read novels translated into english our ambitious Multimedia Project includes web videos interviews and links. To our Literature Experts read through stacks and stacks of books thousands of pages a complete century was explored from beginning to end. This
is their perspective on major works from klaus money and cost of life to your book follows up. Sounds like men in leather jackets a cliche which is true and not true. Most folks dont require a mouthguard but most folks are about beautiful orange is. Our list for worldly readers and amateurs one hundred books that have and will profoundly shaped our readers view germany and europe german novels that capture the brutality of the nazis and the holocaust stories about the divided city of berlin and the roaring golden twenty. And well show you our hall of fame the Nobel Laureates on our list. All presented for the first time at the Frankfurt Book Fair twenty eighteen Nineteen Hundred One hundred german must reads with care and help. Its been having him started my name is Karen Homestead and its a great pleasure to introduce our Multimedia Project two hundred to. One hundred german must reads in english here at the Frankfurt Book Fair. Yes well and now wed like to know more about this project. Please allow me to introduce my guests first off the project leaders here to my left are g. W. Literature experts sabina keys are back and david eleven. Point one and were particularly thrilled to welcome jenny aplin back Award Winning author and director and one of the authors on our list so congratulations are in order and a warm welcome and. You know the star said you know ill start with you tell us what were the Biggest Challenges you encountered with this project and how long did it take you to get
done what. We spent two years doing the Research Reading and selecting works. Some authors it was easier almost all the books of thomas mann or jenny ephron have been translated. With others only one. We had to find the english title so the research was the first challenge in that once we had decided which books to include on our list the next challenge was to compress say a one thousand page novel into two minutes. Of time we knew to. Actually have a few heated debates just because there was so much we wanted to tell about each book but we couldnt squeeze it all into two minute videos we did argue about how to deal with that fortunately were still friends. Were pleased to hear that here and now to jenny backus one of the most versatile and most successful authors in germany. Or visitation by its english title is your book on the list
a very slim volume that belies the enormous backstory as german history play such a huge role and its illuminated through the story of a house and a property and as a german writer is that a given. Is there any way to get around dealing with germanys. Historical legacy gunjan it home to me in my case isnt it certainly looks like there isnt for others maybe it Wasnt My Original Intention to tell stories about the Twentieth Century. I only started out with private stories and ended up with history. And. Journey back was born to be a writer her father and grandfather were famous authors but at university she study theatre and directing before publishing your first novel in one thousand nine
hundred nine. The old child describes a young girls a scrape from the world of adult responsibility an allegory of life east germany. Blends politics into the lives of our characters her latest novel nominated for the german book prize tells a story of migration and everyday life in germany. And im dynastic and on a thursday at the end of august a group of ten black men gathered outside the Berlin City Hall building. They decided to stage a Hunger Strike three days later they stopped taking liquids. Up and bert fields her work with contemporary history and searches for personal solutions to the Major Political issues over time. If you find them and how did people react when they suddenly have to redefine their identity because their lies have changed drastically. The writer explores similar themes of contemporary German Society in
a Twenty Turn Novel Visitation which is on her list. Its also a very private story being told with your own Family History woven in writing. Yes. Well yes we also lost a property to its former owner after the berlin wall came. Im down. When that happened to many people that do this by including my own family from you know so i was familiar with that one example. But i tried to get away from my own story somebody who is a bit like me does appear but only in the last chapter there are eleven other stories about people who wanted to stay in their homes or couldnt stand each under very different circumstances at various points throughout the century for me it was good to find my place among these different stories some of which seemed much more serious than my own fears. Come its my night. And. Its so quiet here in the german countryside now. Every corner of this country even cute little lake houses have seen some of the darkest chapters of history especially in the last century journey out in bags book visitation is inspired by her grandmothers lake house and its many different owners who displaced each other. A jewish family forced to flee before the nazis murdered their relatives and architect his wife as a raped by a Red Army Soldier and a cause that hes built for her later runs away from the east german communists a pair of writers returning from soviet exile youve heard the expression theres
no place like home but what happens when theres no where you belong. When youve arrived can you still be said to be fleeing and when youre fleeing can you ever arrive. And visitation the characters fates are all tied together by the brutality of the Twentieth Century whether or not they realize it its a quiet little place in germany its not so very quiet history. Before you surprised that this book was chosen for the list. Mutiny because it does not necessarily i was pleased to be on the list but which book i like in particular i think my favorite is visitation the obvious ones are its close to my heart but what should i say its like with parents they love all their children when they leave it is when you feel asleep its definitely close to your heart thats clear
these days he once said its very important for you to make the forgotten and the foreign audible visible and readable what does that mean exactly he isnt the most high stuff going to. Be for what i try to do is see what is beyond my own horizon and think my way into the stories in the minds of other people as we can be as i said this book has twelve chapters and only one of them takes place in my own head. So. In the other eleven i try to see things through the eyes of people who are very far away. And even very alien to me at least at the start with regard to this one house. Question what belongs to you what is my property. And what does it mean to leave a place you love. There are very different ways to love a place and to think about the idea of home and. Im always interested in viewing
the world through other peoples eyes only have two of my own but this is certainly deftly done in visitation thanks jenny i think that. The holocaust was a two events in the last century that in some way affected nearly every Family History here in germany and also in most of europe. Do they cast their shadows in the other books on the list or even through all of modern german literature. Does begin to. Invade started well before the Second World War with the nazis seizing power. Published the opera months as early as one Nine Hundred Thirty Three the very year they took over. There he was a visionary he saw what was going to happen including the Concentration Camps and the war. In crete when. There is a number of such oppression novels. And then there are the great works from after
the war that deal with. And then came the next generation of each with news stories as in europe all. Of the children followed by the grandchildren all writing about the Second World War and the holocaust. A recent example is. A writer from ukraine who lives in berlin she wrote about the fate of her family. When you go from so i dont think it will ever end. Can writers accurately reflect the horrific events of the holocaust some writers have been able to describe the mass murder of European Jews and at the same time create outstanding literature. Maybe esther by catch up a trust begins with a Family Secret that is too awful to talk about. It involves a journey through Eastern Europe and
a search for clues to the fate of the jewish family. I no longer understood how i ever could have imagined that i had been spared somehow i knew my polish relatives had all perished siblings his mothers Sigmund Hilla their family how else could this event did but i had never thought about them. There was aunt lida those recipes for delicious sweet sausages died with her. And grandmother or publish them rosa who had great legs and love to dance to charleston and the great grandmother who was executed by german troops in one Nine Hundred Forty One her name was esther maybe. Writes in german although her native language is ukrainian this linguistic diversity allows her to describe her characters with a certain detachment feel life maybe esther is a very sad story but its not melancholy its an unusual account of the holocaust
the family of cutoffs and the people who come alive again in this novel with a new band this one. W. G. Sebald novel house till its is also filled with Uncertainty Travel and a search for clues but this is not an autobiography it is a semi fictional account of the jewish historian Jacques Austerlitz who is trying to recall memories that he has long since lost. One day at a Train Station also the. Sees a young boy who he realizes is his four year old self being sent by kindertransport to england this vision finally inspires him to go searching for his original family. House to lets us life was saved by a train later his mother was deported to auschwitz by train Train Stations play a key role in this novel ouster lets as a man who has a child lost his homeland language and even his name. Chances are youve seen
heard and read lots of stories about World War Two and the holocaust but you havent read one like alstom lets. Hear it becker was one of the first authors to inject a bit of humor and to an otherwise tragic holocaust novel called the liar it was published in one Nine Hundred Sixty nine the work is set in a polish get over similar to the one that the author himself grew up in. Most of the bottle is fictional. Married to new. York owns a cafe and distributes to his customers fake radio news reports that the ghetto will soon be liberated. Already and when i try to make use of the very last possibility that keeps them from just lying down and dying with words do you understand that i try to do that with words because thats all i have and then you come and tell me its prohibited you know exactly this is a boy. The novel is realistic in its portrayal of life in the ghetto but it also
expresses a sense of human warmth and hope. And no wonderful book that will stay with you. Maybe visit sites on a certain time in a certain distance to the events was needed to actually grapple with these chapters of History David you brought something of an outsider perspective to this project tell us your thoughts you know am i. The outside perspective because im from the us and the english language videos for this project. It was basically we decided to focus on the twentieth and twenty first centuries and a lot of people were quite horrified that we were left out of the list. Fortunately no one is b. M. S. Out yet or sense any threats but i expect a vital system that i dont have anyway we decided to concentrate on more modern literature because we want people who read these books to come away with
a different view of germany and europe our list starts in nineteen zero one with the Boarding Books by thomas mann and ends with philip think last twenty sixteen novel. If i can how could reading these books change the readers view of germany or even of europe. And yemen that hes going to get these books provided deep insights into history. But first and foremost they give us insights into humanity and i recommend that best self esteem readers will better understand who the people of Central Europe are whats their mentality what was their mentality in the past to get to particularly people who shaped history because people know how zico you were born and hes berlin then the former east germany is a big topic in your novels do you think well see a similar phenomenon they are not that as the years go by writers will be able to take a more differentiated view on the countrys communist past that make good saves some friends of mine say all my books are really about the Old East Germany i didnt go
for a very long time i never wanted to write about it. And i find it hard to do and also very hard to talk about. Does all of this but im just now starting to publish texts i have written about that period. I might even write something new about it. Does if i dont know all of us im going to there we go its very odd to experience emotions that are hard to explain in rational terms as if you had. The money. Sometimes twenty or thirty years to understand or depict certain things. There are so many preconceptions about east germany this is theres no style just for the good old days there but also blanket condemnation of the lawless dictatorship minds are made up of i should try to tell
a different story youll encounter a lot of resistance. Also dust and. Thanks for that david you come from the us as weve said which german authors on the list are people in the states familiar with. Them and most nastily news i had first of all in the English Speaking world theres just not that much for militarily with literature written in other languages theres some room for improvement there a few people will know some titles for instance all quiet on the western front. Even people who dont know the book will know the title because its become an expression in english meaning everything is calm nothing new to report is just noise other scoot then there are books on the list that have been turned into Movies Like Jacob The Wire by you like becker or potential costs. People may know the movie is better than the books. And theres another category of. Authors that people have read schoolies you have him on how much has fans kafka but people may have forgotten that those authors actually wrote their books in german. Even though has is a Nobel Prize Winner yeah right but things arent even that different here in germany ok maybe a little bit different but i bet if we asked people on the street here they wouldnt necessarily know even all the Nobel Prize Winners on our list if you know how many Nobel Prize Winners are actually on the list sabina for him and were not good so we just checked there are seven on the list who are for. In german speaking countries which often home. Even could we didnt use that as a criterion for selecting a book. Having a nobel prize was not relevant so also if you show up and have to listen to though of course books by Prize Winners do tend to be better known. Therefore theyre more likely to get translated to these abuses the same with other prizes. Clearly the giants of german literature cannot simply be ignored and many are included on our list our compilation features seven authors who have won the Nobel Prize For Literature their works are set against some of the great historical events of the nineteenth and Twentieth Century. In one such novel we have a prosperous german port city. A society in turmoil and a prominent family of merchants. These are the cornerstones into last months family saga wooden blocks in fact it reflects munns own upbringing he was born into a middle class family in lubec Eight Hundred Seventy Five his father was a green merchant man brought about The Life And Times that he knew well. Society was in the grip of a recession the lives of the middle class were being turned upside down months boudin brooks charts the rise and fall of the merchant family between decadence and
rash consumerism. Months novel was published in one thousand one and is considered one of the earliest examples of modern fiction it was awarded the Nobel Prize For Literature in one thousand twenty nine. Thomas might almost none who also wrote many other novels is one of our most important writers his publisher wanted to