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1. Nina George
2. Marc-Uwe Kling
3. Daniel Kehlmann
4. Romy Hausmann
5. Robert Seethaler
6. Juli Zeh

1. Nina George

Nina George is a German writer who has published books, short stories, and columns for renowed newspapers like Das Hamburger Abendblatt and Die Zeit. Under the name Jean Bagnol she writes, together with her husband Jo Kramer, mysteries set in the Provence, France. She is involved in authors’ protest against Amazon and Jeff Bezos and in 2015 founded the Initiative Fair Book Market. Since June 2019 she is serving as the President of the European Writers’ Council. You can read more about her here: http://www.nina-george.com/ or http://www.ninageorge.de/

The following novels have been translated into English: The Little Paris Bookshop was published under the German title Das Lavendelzimmer (The lavender room), The Little French Bistro is called Die Mondspielerin (The moon player) in German, and her novel The Book of Dreams (Das Traumbuch – The dream book) was published in 2016 in Germany and in 2019 in the US. In 2018, she published Die Schönheit der Nacht (The Beauty of the Night) which is set to be released in the UK and US in 2020/21, and her novel Südlichter (Southern lights) came out in Germany in 2019 and is a spin-off of The Little Paris Bookshop.

I read The Little Paris Bookshop and really enjoyed it. Jean Perdu lives in Paris and has a bookshop on a boat. He sees books as medicine and recommends books to his customers according to what they need in their lives. However, he can’t heal himself and still suffers from the loss of his lover who left him 21 years ago. But maybe traveling in his boat with new found friends down the Seine will help him to come to terms with his life.

2. Marc-Uwe Kling

My brother recommended Marc-Uwe Kling’s QualityLand (QualityLand) to me back in 2019 and I thoroughly enjoyed it. It’s a scifi novel meet social criticism meet dry, dark humor. It’s funny and absurd but saddening because many things already feel so familiar in our society. It’s going to be an HBO show.

The Kangaroo Chronicles (Die Känguru-Chroniken) is available as an ebook that you can read on any device with the Nook app from Barnes & Noble. I had the pleasure to listen to all the Kangaroo books (4 in total) as a live performance audio recording. Since I haven’t lived in Germany for over 15 years and haven’t kept up with the details of German politics some references were lost on me. I am not sure how well it can be received and understood outside of Germany though if you know some philosophy and political theory you might be good. And the ebook is only $3.99, so try it.

Kling also writes children’s books which I haven’t read but my nieces have, and they liked them: Der Tag, an dem die Oma das Internet kaputt gemacht hat (German Edition) (The day when Grandma broke the internet), Der Tag, an dem der Opa den Wasserkocher auf den Herd gestellt hat (The day when Grandpa put the electric kettle on the stove), Das NEINhorn (German Edition) which has been translated with “The unicorn that said No”. He also makes music and does poetry slams. Check out his website where you can also buy Falsche Kalender (incorrect calendars) with quotes matched to the wrong people.

3. Daniel Kehlmann

Whenever Austrian-German writer Daniel Kehlmann publishes a new book, I’m on it. Or at least I will try to get one way or another. My favorites are Die Vermessung der Welt (Measuring the World) in which we follow naturalist Alexander von Humboldt to South America and where we get to know mathematician Carl Friedrich Gauß. In his latest novel Tyll (Tyll), Kehlmann moves the folk hero and jester Till Eulenspiegel from the 14th century to the Thirty Years’ War (1618-1648). Many Germans know the stories of Till Eulenspiegel and the pranks he played on his fellow citizens, like when he taught a donkey to “read” or when he “cures” all the sick people in a hospital. While you will find the stories in Tyll you don’t need to know the Schelmengeschichten (picaresque novel or stories) to enjoy the novel. Though I have to warn you the story is way darker than the funny pranks that we associate with Till Eulenspiegel. It is a dark, fascinating and suspenseful book which apparently is being made into a Netflix show. I cannot wait! Find more information here: https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/authors/72118/daniel-kehlmann.

4. Romy Hausmann

In July 2019, I read Romy Hausmann’s thriller Liebes Kind (Dear Child) and I absolutely devoured it. I posted on instagram about it and said somebody should really translate it. And someone did, Jamie Bulloch to be exact. The book is now available in paperback, and “Sleepless” (Marta schläft) comes out in the US in October 2021.

A woman and a girl escape from a windowless house in the woods. Is it Lena the woman who vanished 14 years ago? And who is the girl with her and what does she know that she isn’t telling? The nightmare seems to be over but the mystery is only beginning to unravel.

More about Romy Hausmann and Dear Child: https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250768537 and https://www.dtv.de/autor/romy-hausmann-21937/

5. Robert Seethaler

So far I have only read one book by Austrian writer and actor Robert Seethaler: Der Trafikant (The Tobacconist). It’s the coming-of-age story of teenager Franz who is sent to Vienna to start an apprenticeship at a tobacco and newspaper store owned by Otto Trsnjek. Franz falls in love with Anezka who doesn’t love him back, meets Sigmund Freud, and this being the 1930s has to decide if he wants to and can take a stand against the Nazis and for his boss Otto. I have included here the trailer (with English subtitles) of the The Tobacconist [Blu-ray], released in 2018.

The book that Seethaler is most known for is Ein ganzes Leben (A Whole Life) the story of Andreas Egger who lived his whole life in the Austrian Alps, interspersed with personal tragedy and World War II. A Whole Life was nominated for the Man Booker Price in 2017. Right now Seethaler’s novel about Mahler Der letzte Satz (The last movement) is on the German Spiegel Bestseller list.

Find out more about the author and his books here: https://www.hanser-literaturverlage.de/themen/robert-seethaler

6. Juli Zeh

I read my first Juli Zeh book many many years ago, Adler und Engel, and have been a fan ever since. The three books I most recently read (or listened to) are: Unterleuten (it means amongst people but is also the name of the village where most of the plot takes place), Neujahr (New Year’s Day), and Corpus delicti. Ein Prozess (The Method, translated by Sally-Ann Spencer).

However, I will still recommend the books that have been translated even though I haven’t read them. Juli Zeh is such a skilled writer and storyteller, I can’t imagine any of her books falling short. You might not always like everything she writes because she looks deep into the psyche of her protagonists revealing the dark and unsettling side of the human condition. And it is not always pleasant what we see in her characters and in ourselves. But all her books have left a deep impression on me.

Juli Zeh is not only a writer of novels, essays, and plays but also a lawyer, and it shows in her fictional books like The Method and her non-fiction books on democracy and politics. She has won many literary prizes, among them the Deutscher Bücherpreis for best debut novel (Adler und Engel), the Thomas-Mann-Preis, and the Heinrich-Böll-Preis. For a complete list see: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juli_Zeh and https://rhspecials.randomhouse.de/microsites/julizeh7/.

For more books from German speaking authors see the following list: https://www.dw.com/en/top-stories/100-must-reads/s-43415865 (also includes links to other articles about German books)

There is also a Goodreads Book Group called “Reading German Books in 2020”, and I am sure there is going to be a group for 2021. For every quarter one of the two administrators pick a group read that then can be discussed. It is always a book that has been translated into English. Our first read was Am Fluß (River) by Esther Kinsky, translated by Iain Galbraith. Let’s just say that I didn’t finish it and most people in the group didn’t care for it. The second quarter read was Käsebier erobert den Kurfürstendamm (Käsebier Takes Berlin) by Gabriele Tergit, translated by Sophie Duvernoy which I enjoyed very much. I’d better get on our third quarter read Die Mittagsfrau (The Blindness of the Heart) by Julia Franck, translated by Anthea Bell because I only have a month left to finish it. If you want to join just find the group or me (Annix) on goodreads.