Literature

BookTube
Achtung Buch!

Are you interested in German literature but don't really know where to start? As part of our "Achtung Buch!" series, Marie-Pierre would like to share with you her favorites from our e-library. Whether it's contemporary literature, comics or children's books, she is happy to share her recommendations with you.

Contemporary Literature
Brave New Utopias

Interstellar warfare, climate collapse, dangerous mutants: science fiction narratives frequently conjure up a dystopian future. Some writers have made it their business to counteract this – and create positive utopias.
 

Cherrypicker
Crime scene Berlin

Drugs, guns, murders in a multistorey car park: there’s plenty going on in Kim Koplin’s debut crime novel. We are taken on a hectic trip through Berlin, where somebody is always on the run. And in amongst it all we have a detective with problems at home and a night watchman with a daughter and a past.

Cherrypicker
Strong anti-hero

Charlotte Gneuss’s everyday drama set in East Germany is surprising for its oppressive intensity and extraordinary, ordinary protagonist.

Cherrypicker
Fishing in Troubled Waters

A Frankfurt customs investigator finds an eel head on his doorstep. The next day, he doesn’t survive his fishing trip. The police say it was an accident. The public prosecutor thinks otherwise.

Cherrypicker
Anti-Heroes Everywhere

Hardly any other author writes as bluntly about the misery of the everyday as Heinz Strunk. His new collection of stories is no exception.

Cherrypicker
The wonderful world of wasps

The moment they come near us, we swat them away. We regard them as the scourge of summer – yet they have almost only benefits to offer. Michael Ohl on wasps and the invaluable role they play in our ecosystem.

Martin Walser
A 20th-century literary luminary

Impulsive, stubborn and unforgiving – this was all part of Martin Walser’s character. He was a man of the 20th century and one of the greatest writers of his time.
 

Cherrypicker
Inherited Misfortune

In his new novel, Lukas Bärfuss again focuses on the existential hardships of people in modern, capitalist society. Here he tells of the fate of a single mother.

Benjamin von Stuckrad-Barre
Utmost Attention

The publication of Benjamin von Stuckrad-Barre’s new novel was a major event for the feuilletonists. What will remain after the excitement has died down? A lot of unanswered questions and, one hopes, a lot of attention for an important social topic.

Cherrypicker
A Detour to the Sea

In her second novel, Annika Büsing takes us on a fast-paced journey. To Leipzig, the flooded Ahr valley, a town on the Baltic Sea – a short trip turns into a road trip.

Austrain Book Prize 2023
A Tragic Contrarian

In Clemens J. Setz’s new novel, the main character believes that people do not live on, but inside the earth.

Cherrypicker
A Small-Town Youth

Matthias Matschke’s debut novel is ostensibly about growing up in a small West German town in the 1980s. But much more so, it tells the more universal story of what it’s like to search for one’s own place in the world.

Andreas Dorau & Sven Regener
Hypnosis and other crackpot ideas

Sven Regener and Andreas Dorau have written a second book about the life of the one-time New German Wave star. It demonstrates that it’s not just success that’s fun.

Cherrypicker
Unpleasant Remains

The only thing Lukas Bärfuss inherited from his father is a banana crate with unknown contents. Using his own family history, he reflects on inherited injustice in general and on how it could be eliminated.

Cherrypicker
Twelve months of crisis

Our times are marked by crisis. Looking back a hundred years, we realise 1923 was no better.

Cherrypicker
No One is an Island

Dörte Hansen’s new novel is a farewell to the everyday life of the native population of a small island in the North Sea. If we take a closer look, though, slivers of hope glow from among the dark waves again and again.

Cherrypicker

The literature blog “Cherrypicker” presents selected novels and non-fiction, graphic novels and stories, audio books and literature for children and teenagers. And it gathers concise voices from the world of literature. Every week a new recommendation, every week the chance to discover remarkable texts, images and opinions.

German Book Prize 2023
Coming-of-age novel about a gamer

Awarding the German Book Prize to Tonio Schachinger is a very good decision. His novel “Echtzeitalter” is narratively mature, entertaining and full of esprit. A commentary.

Frankfurt Book Fair 2022
German Book Prize 2022 goes to Kim de l'Horizon

How do you write about people who are neither male nor female? Kim de l’Horizon showed how in “Blutbuch” (Blood Book). At the award ceremony in Frankfurt, Kim shaved their head bald – and thanked their mother.

Black German literature
Asking the right questions

Being Black should be completely unremarkable in today’s multicultural Germany. Yet many people still struggle with everyday discrimination and sometimes even blatant racism. Their stories are increasingly finding their way into German literature.

For Translators
Translation funding

Our translation grant programme supports the publication of books by German authors in another language.

Young Translator’s Prize New York
Gutekunst Prize of the Friends of Goethe New York

In 2010, the Goethe-Institut New York received a generous donation in memory of Frederick and Grace Gutekunst. A prize was created to identify outstanding young translators of German literature into English and assist them in establishing contact with the translation and publishing communities.

Translator’s Prize New York
Helen & Kurt Wolff Translator's Prize

The annual Helen and Kurt Wolff Translator's Prize is awarded each summer to honor an outstanding literary translation from German into English published in the USA the previous year. The translator of the winning translation receives $10,000.

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