Leipzig Book Fair 2016: Literature Prize for Guntram Vesper – SPIEGEL ONLINE

37 km from Leipzig is Frohburg, the small town in Saxony, in the Guntram Vesper was born 1941st Now the writer has won for its 1008-page novel “Frohburg” the Literature Prize of the Leipzig Book Fair. He was honored on Thursday afternoon at the local book fair.

Guntram Vesper called the book in an author presentation in the morning as “endless dialogue between me and the facts”. Vesper and his family left after the Hungarian uprising in 1957, real Frohburg, lives in Göttingen for years.

30 years ago, he published a volume entitled “Frohburg”, then however rather small forms, which previously typical of become known primarily as a poet Vesper. That he had found it in old age for long form, he owed the email letter, so Vespers at the presentation. In 2009 he had discovered the writing and editing of texts on the computer itself.

The jury Vespers attention to detail in its opulent chronicle of the city Frohburg and its high sensitivity to the East-West phenomena. Associative it jumps from actor Will Quadflieg to Kofferradio his childhood, lays layers of memory free and shrink from very recent references to the Saxon province back. At the fair stage, he found only a few words: “Thank you”

nominated with him were Heinz Strunk with “Golden Glove”, Roland Schimmelpfennig with “On a clear, cold January morning at the beginning of the 21st century. “Nis-Momme Stockmann with” The fox “and Marion Poschmann with” Lent Landscapes “.

Nonfiction Award for Weltumsegler biography

A special feature of the Leipzig Book Fair that he since its launch in 2005 in the categories Fiction / Essays and Translation is awarded.

In the category “Fiction / Essays” the prize went to Jürgen Goldstein. The professor of philosophy at the University of Koblenz-Landau wrote a study of Georg Forster. Forster sailed with James Cook, the world and called 1793 in Mainz, the first republic in Germany. Goldstein’s book deals with concepts of nature in combination with the Revolution. Forster himself moved within his short life – not even 40 years – from euphoria to disillusion.

The nominated titles in the nonfiction category dealt with subjects as varied as the sociology of restaurants (Christoph Ribbat), the relationship between horses and humans (Ulrich Raulff, the price in 2010 won for his Stefan-George-book) the painter Adolph Menzel (Werner Busch) and the climate crisis (John Schellnhuber).

The prize for the best translation won Brigitte Döbert, the “Tutors” by Bora Cosic from Serbian translated the “literary Achttausender” (Presented by Burkhard Müller). Long parts of the novel are written in rhyme, a particular challenge for translators.

This was preceded by two of the three prizes (literature and translation) to the Frankfurter small publishing Schöffling & amp; Co. And the third, the major publishing houses were left empty: The award-winning nonfiction published by Matthes & amp; Seitz, recently awarded for Frank Witzel novel at the Frankfurt Book Fair.