German Book Prize 2023 Longlist

When a giant squid docks onto a deep-sea cable, his eight arms start telling their own stories. They explain what...

When a giant squid docks onto a deep-sea cable, his eight arms start telling their own stories. They explain what it is like to live in complete darkness and be considered monstrous by humans. They tell the story of Sanja and Dagmar, who both work aboard a freezer trawler in Antarctica taking care of a captivated squid. They map out a family’s history over centuries, they take us to rural Swabia, Disneyland and New Jersey. They talk about Jules Verne, Peter Benchley and Robert Mattey. Eventually, they show how difficult it is for humans to write about animals, and why we do it anyways.

Siberia, 1908. An explosion flattens the taiga at Tunguska. Two decades later, Stalin has plans for Jewish socialist autonomy on...

Siberia, 1908. An explosion flattens the taiga at Tunguska. Two decades later, Stalin has plans for Jewish socialist autonomy on the border to China: in Birobidzhan. What fails as a Stalinist experiment in the 1930s becomes the lynchpin of Tomer Dotan-Dreyfus’ debut novel, as literary sparks fly. We meet Alex and Rachel, in love since pre-school days. Boris Klayn, fisherman and Birobidzhan original. Close friends Gregory and Sasha, one of whom suffers from depression while the other takes him along on a road trip to Tunguska. Dmitriy, who’s afraid of wolves.Life in Birobidzhan wends its way, the locals’ worries great and small far removed from world events – until things start happening thick and fast: two strangers and a mute girl blow the idyllic community to pieces.

Arda does not know how much time he has left. He is lying in a hospital in his hometown with...

Arda does not know how much time he has left. He is lying in a hospital in his hometown with organ failure. His mother Ümran and his sister Aylin take turns sitting at his bedside, careful never to meet. The two have not spoken a word to each other for ten years.In a long farewell letter, Arda turns to his father, whom he has never met. He came to Germany escaping a politically motivated trial. Years later, he snuck out of his pregnant wife’s bed to return to Turkey and be arrested at the airport. Arda tells the stranger about growing up in Germany without citizenship, without a passport and without a father, of birthdays at the foreign nationals’ office, and about the last summer before all his friends disappear: Bojan is deported, Danny becomes a father much too early, and Savaș returns to Turkey after losing his mother.This is also the story of Ümran whose parents came to Germany after losing their house to an earthquake, leaving their children behind. And it is Aylin’s story. The big sister who ran away from a home that held few childhood memories of their father and a complicated relationship to their mother, and struggled to find her place in the world.In the most urgent yet almost musical language, Necati Öziri paints the portrait of a family whose lives and bodies are marked by social and political circumstances.

A daughter has disappeared. She has travelled to Syria to marry a jihadist she met online. Her father Murad blames...

A daughter has disappeared. She has travelled to Syria to marry a jihadist she met online. Her father Murad blames himself. If he had only told Naima more about his old homeland, which he has left behind mentally, as well as physically; if only he had paid more attention to her feelings of alienation – perhaps then she wouldn’t have gone to a strange country in the name of religion. Murad knows he must find Naima. He contacts human traffickers and travels to the Kurdish territory on the Turkish-Syrian border, where he comes face to face with his past. When the traffickers play him an audio diary recorded by a woman in Raqqa – probably Naima – Murad sets out on a perilous journey into ISIS territory…

Vienna, July 31, 1914: In frenetic excitement, the inhabitants of the capital of the Austro-Hungarian empire await the expiration of...

Vienna, July 31, 1914: In frenetic excitement, the inhabitants of the capital of the Austro-Hungarian empire await the expiration of the German ultimatum. Thirty-six hours to go. The city is a raging torrent; the war enthusiasm of the young generation pervades every last corner of Vienna.In the middle of this war frenzy, Hans, an inquisitive and bright farmhand from Tyrol, arrives in the capital to see the famous psychoanalyst and dream interpreter Helene Cheresch. Once there, he meets Adam, a musically gifted aristocrat, whose prestigious family has, however, already chosen a military career for him. The unequal trio is completed by Klara, one of the first women to earn a doctorate in mathematics at the University of Vienna, supported by the suffragettes as well as by her opportunistic lover who is no one less than Helene Cheresch. The three young people are worlds apart – divided by social classes, and shaped by gender roles that they do not fit in – but all three are facing the collapse of the world as they know it. Together, Hans, Adam and Klara spend thelast night before mobilization in the vibrant city that increasingly threatens to elude their grasp. Their paths will lead them underground, into a whole new world beneath the actual city, where they embark on morphineinduced dream journeys, and participate in a séance in the city's canal system until they finally unmask Helene as an ingenious puppet master who manipulates her patients including the three protagonists.

Stine is born in the mid-1980s in a small town on the East German Baltic coast, a child of reunification....

Stine is born in the mid-1980s in a small town on the East German Baltic coast, a child of reunification. She is too young to understand the change of system in the GDR, but her family's complex ideological views have animpact on the next generation. As her relatives hide the lost world behind an impenetrable silence, Stine finds herself asking questions she can no longer repress. Anne Rabe has written a clear-sighted and unsettling book with great literary power - a mixture of non-fiction and literature, knowledgeably researched and at the same time captivatingly beautiful. She traces the wounds of a generation that grew up between dictatorship and democracy, and explores the origins of racism and violence.

A (tyre) blowout. First, the boccia balls are hurled through the car, then Mum and Dad. The son, left unharmed,...

A (tyre) blowout. First, the boccia balls are hurled through the car, then Mum and Dad. The son, left unharmed, is sent to live with his grandparents in Frankenhayn – nothing to do with Frankenstein, of course … although the Austrian village, partial to its wine, turns out to house some quite grisly characters. In Frankenhayn, a moustache is found more often on women than on men. For the grandparents, who sleep in lidless coffins, it seems the most normal thing in the world to eat the heart of a pig which, only moments previously, had been happily squealing. They wash it down with wine, showing a reverence reminiscent of the priest at Sunday Mass. Actually, here Catholicism has an intimate bond with the pleasures of alcohol – and of the diabolical: the two cousins, real monsters who miss no opportunity to maltreat their fellow humans or animals. The monstrous two-litre flagons (Doppler) on the table are emblematic for this summer of 1970, after which nothing is the same as before …

Wenzel and Killer have been friends for ages and are well-established in their lives. Killer works as a PR chief...

Wenzel and Killer have been friends for ages and are well-established in their lives. Killer works as a PR chief for a large company, while Wenzel manages social media channels for a TV network. However, everything changes when Vica enters their lives: a woman in a golden dress, often accompanied by two loyal aides and a huge shaggy dog. With each encounter, new questions arise: How does she know so much about Wenzel and Killer? Why does she possess a copy of the new book by Drifter, an enigmatic fictional character, even before its release? And where did her dog learn to dance? As Vica takes over the apartment building of their childhood, the world of these two friends begins to shake.

An elite boarding school in Vienna, housed within what used to be the Hapsburgs’ summer residence. The form tutor is...

An elite boarding school in Vienna, housed within what used to be the Hapsburgs’ summer residence. The form tutor is an old-fashioned and despotic man. What could anyone hope to learn here that they could actually use in real life? Till Kokorda has no time for the canon or for this snobbish environment. His passion is gaming – specifically the real-time strategy game “Age of Empires 2”. After his father dies, Till’s hobby becomes a financial imperative. Although nobody at the school knows it, Till is an online celebrity at the age of 15 – the youngest Top-10 player in the world. But how real is this kind of happiness? In 2020, his final year at the school, nothing goes the way Till had expected it to, either at school or in life.

A family from South Tyrol decides to emigrate to the German Reich in 1942 in the course of the "Option"....

A family from South Tyrol decides to emigrate to the German Reich in 1942 in the course of the "Option". The 11-year-old Ludi tells of the last days in the village and the first stop in the German Reich: Innsbruck. On the orders of the doctors, his disabled brother Hanno has to be taken to an asylum near Hall. The rest of the family moves on to Upper Austria.The father is drafted into the Wehrmacht and Hanno does not return either. A letter from a "sanatorium and nursing home" of the Reich is all that the family has left of him. Sepp Mall is considered one of the most important writers in South Tyrol, whose work deals with complex themes of recent contemporary history. How can the incomprehensible be understood and how does one survive a collective trauma?

The year is 1976 in the GDR. Karin, 16, lives in Dresden’s working-class suburb of Gittersee, where she looks after...

The year is 1976 in the GDR. Karin, 16, lives in Dresden’s working-class suburb of Gittersee, where she looks after her toddler sister and helps her obstinate grandmother around the house, who is still lamenting the end of her time in the Wehrmacht. Karin’s father is struggling to keep his Skoda and family life running, while her mother wishes she had a different existence altogether. Karin’s only confidante is her friend Marie, a girl with big dreams: she wants to be the first woman on the moon. Karin is also head over heels in love with her boyfriend Paul, who aspires to be an artist but works in the mines. When Paul takes off on a weekend outing and doesn’t come back, two policemen turn up at Karin’s door asking his whereabouts. Her world is turned upside down and in her confusion, she seeks support from the attractive policeman Wickwalz. He in turn persuades her to inform on her family and friends as an unofficial collaborator. When she realises she’s been betrayed by Wickwalz, she takes drastic measures to break free again.

To be able to be a hostess actually means: to have grown up.The novel of an evening and an invitation...

To be able to be a hostess actually means: to have grown up.The novel of an evening and an invitation to dinner. Full of recipes for a successful life and an unsuccessful evening, which always starts anew, clever, funny, cheerful, at the same time accompanied by the sometimes subliminal and sometimes quite openly articulated aggressions of the people involved. In conversations, the host couple and their guests discuss very big and small issues, covering the range from “foodporn” images on the internet to cooking, shopping and living as social practices.Increasingly, the evening becomes more comical, more tragic, more erotic – negotiating individual “current” terms, while the hostess is not a particularly talented hostess and repeatedly feels transported to the wrong century. Along the way, a history of goods, food and cooking is told anecdotally.

The trial of the members of the National Socialist Underground was described by observers as the most important trial since...

The trial of the members of the National Socialist Underground was described by observers as the most important trial since reunification and a glimpse into the abyss of German society. 9 murders and 58 other racist acts were tried in Munich over a period of 438 days. Resolution, justice, punishment and redemption; the expectations for the trial and the resulting verdict could hardly be met. “No closing the book on this!” That was the demand of many voices from the civil suitafter the verdict from the NSU trials. Too little had been explained, while too much had been promised politically. But what exactly happens with a trial whose limits are so vehemently disputed? Who monitors the third estate in its work when it concerns racist terror and the attack on our democracy? Kathrin Röggla doesn't talk about a closed case in the past tense (as is customary), and she adopts the deliberately unprofessional perspective of a “we” sitting at the top of seating for the general public. But who exactly are “we” when every “we” is called into question by the trial? With great accuracy, but also with astonishing comedy and musicality, Röggla’s novel tells of the roles and rules of the ongoing trial in order to arrive at a radically open, polyphonic form of resolution. It is a book about the active participation of all the people that make the court a vibrant place of democracy.

Sylvie Schenk’s mother was born in Lyon in 1916, and her grandmother died during her mother’s birth. Allegedly she was...

Sylvie Schenk’s mother was born in Lyon in 1916, and her grandmother died during her mother’s birth. Allegedly she was a silk worker, like her great-grandmother. But was this true? And what family history will be passed on to the next generation? As a child, Sylvie Schenk suffered from this lack of clarity, which still affects her today – a writer tormented by restlessness. With lyrical precision, she retraces the questions that her family history has left open.

Worms in the early twenties of the last century. Peter Bender, a former lieutenant pilot in the German Army, makes...

Worms in the early twenties of the last century. Peter Bender, a former lieutenant pilot in the German Army, makes a name for himself as the founder of a new religious community and with the proclamation of the so-called Hollow World Theory: according to this theory, humanity does not live on, but inside a sphere, outside of which nothing exists. Bender’s flock stays small, but nevertheless he is sentenced to several months in prison for distributing inflammatory and blasphemous pamphlets. When word gets out that his wife was Jewish after the Nazis seize power, even his closest followers turn their backs on him. The Benders fall into poverty and the repressions against his wife become unbearable until the family is arrested and deported in 1942. Only Bender’s son survives the concentration camp.

Muna is about to graduate from high school when she meets Magnus, a French teacher and photographer. She spends the...

Muna is about to graduate from high school when she meets Magnus, a French teacher and photographer. She spends the night with him. When the Berlin Wall comes down, he disappears. Seven years later, they meet again – and become a couple. Muna thinks she has found the love of her life. But as soon as they take their first trip together, cracks start showing in their relationship. Over the years the coldness, unpredictability and violence get worse. But Muna isn’t willing to give up.

Fourteen-year-old Billie rarely crosses the boundaries of her high-rise housing estate. By the end of the month their money barely...

Fourteen-year-old Billie rarely crosses the boundaries of her high-rise housing estate. By the end of the month their money barely stretches to pasta with ketchup, but her mother, Marika, lights up Billie’s world with her imagination and big heart. One day, however, they receive an unwelcome visit from her Hungarian grandmother, and Billie loses much more than the colourful everyday life she shared with her mother. No longer able to ask Marika any more questions, Billie sets off alone in their old Nissan – she is determined to meet the father she never knew and find out why she keeps dreaming about the sea, even though she’s never been there.

The Girl is back: in ten stories, Angelika Klüssendorf tells the story of a child growing up in the GDR...

The Girl is back: in ten stories, Angelika Klüssendorf tells the story of a child growing up in the GDR of the 60s and 70s – a story characterised by insecurity and longing. After the death of her beloved grandmother, the Girl encounters abuse and indifference. She struggles to endure and understand her parents’ behaviour, and to protect her sister. Books are her one consolation: even in the children’s home, reading continues to offer her an escape. In this novel, the author – a winner of the Marie Luise Kaschnitz prize for literature – retells the stories preceding her successful novel The Girl, which were published twenty years ago and are now out of print. In the process, she examines unsparingly what she left out then, and why. Is it even possible to write truthfully about oneself? Autofiction of a radical and moving kind!

Vanessa is a pharmacologist. She delivers drugs that maintain her clients’ happiness and success – doctors, athletes and politicians. Deniz...

Vanessa is a pharmacologist. She delivers drugs that maintain her clients’ happiness and success – doctors, athletes and politicians. Deniz is a police officer who patrols his beat in Kreuzberg. He does double shifts while also caring for his father. Every day, Vanessa and Deniz come across the lostand the lonely, until one day, they meet. A tender, stirring social novel that asks: How do we survive the pressure? How do we want to live our lives and how can we love?

When Baran boards the train in Chur, he feels as if his life is already going off the rails. He...

When Baran boards the train in Chur, he feels as if his life is already going off the rails. He suspects that his partner Cla, who remained behind in Turkey, is no longer being quite faithful to him, and that he himself has changed too: he has unexpectedly developed deep feelings for Alva, who is none other than Cla’s former partner and the mother of their child. The longer he stares out of the train window at the barely changing landscape, and the more he starts imagining the lives of the strangers sharing his compartment, the more the line between past and present, places and times becomes blurred. On the night train from Sofia to Istanbul, a decision is made that must surprise everyone in the end.