Books That Travel 2021 Current German Novels and Non-Fiction Books in English Translation Good news! The Frankfurter Buchmesse has tieth century. There are brand-new bestsellers, selected its Books That Travel for 2021. fresh translations of classic works, and redis- These outstanding German books in trans- covered gems by authors who are relatively lation will travel to book fairs all over the unknown to English readers (but surely won’t world. The books transport English readers, be for long). Fiction, non-fiction, poetry, chil- wherever they are, to destinations as diverse dren’s and young adult literature are all re- as the Chinese and Russian empires of cen- presented. turies past, present-day Silicon Valley, the pine islands of Matushima Bay, and crow- I’m thrilled to see the work of such talented ded refugee camps on Europe’s borders. authors and translators on this list. At the The books’ protagonists include a street- start of a year when so many of us are keep- smart prosecutor investigating Hamburg’s ing our distance and staying close to home, criminal underbelly, young lovers in the anti- we can nevertheless travel with these books. Nazi resistance, an eccentric pianist who hates the sound of applause, and a 106-year-old sorcerer who looks back on a turbulent twen- Elizabeth Janik, Norfolk (Virginia, USA) 1 Fiction ____________________________ ____________________________ ____________________________ The Passenger Mexico Street „Microliths They Are, Little Stones“: Posthumous Prose Der Reisende Mexikoring „Mikrolithen sinds, Steinchen”: Die Prosa aus dem Nachlaß ULRICH ALEXANDER BOSCHWITZ SIMONE BUCHHOLZ PAUL CELAN Translated by Philip Boehm Translated by Rachel Ward Translated by Pierre Joris Metropolitan Books, 978-1250317148, Orenda Books, 978-1913193157, Contra Mundum, 978-1940625362, 272 pp., HC 276 pp., SC 330 pp., SC Berlin, November 1938. Jewish shops Night after night, cars are set on This volume, edited by Barbara have been ransacked and syna- fire across the city of Hamburg, Wiedemann and Bertand Badiou, gogues destroyed. As storm troopers with no obvious pattern and no brings together the celebrated pound on his door, the respected suspect. Until one night, on Mexico poet Paul Celan’s multifaceted but businessman Otto Silbermann is Street, a Fiat is torched—and this comparatively unknown achieve- forced to sneak out the back of his car isn’t empty. It holds the body ments as a writer of prose. The book own home. Fearful of being expo- of Nouri Saroukhan, prodigal son includes early language games of sed as a Jew, he boards a train, then of a notorious crime family. State surrealist inspiration and a range of another, commencing a frantic prosecutor Chastity Riley is on the biting, insightful aphorisms, as well odyssey across Germany. Beset by case, and the investigation leads as broken-off or abandoned nar- betrayed by associates, Silbermann her deep into a criminal under- ratives, stories, and dialogues with refuses to accept what is happe- ground that snakes beneath the the background of his Jewish fate. ning as his world collapses around whole of Germany. As details of The release of Microliths coincides him. Twenty-three-year-old Ulrich Nouri’s background emerge, inclu- with the one-hundredth anniversa- Boschwitz wrote The Passenger ding an illicit relationship with the ry of Celan’s birth, and the fiftieth at breakneck speed just after mysterious Aliza, it becomes clear anniversary of his death. the Kristallnacht pogroms, and his that these are no random attacks. prose flies at the same pace. This A gripping, stylish thriller featuring remarkable literary discovery is street-smart heroine Chastity Riley. newly translated into English by Philip Boehm. 2 Fiction ____________________________ ____________________________ ____________________________ Code Zero The Eighth Life The Piano Student Zero: Sie wissen, was du tust Das achte Leben Der Klavierschüler MARC ELSBERG NINO HARATISCHVILI PIERRE JARAWAN Translated by Simon Pare Translated by Charlotte Collins and Translated by Elisabeth Lauffer Black Swan, 978-1784163488, 432 pp., SC Ruth Martin New Vessel Press, 978-1939931863, Scribe, 978-1950354146, 944 pp., SC 230 pp., SC Zero, an anonymous activist, has At the start of the twentieth century, The Piano Student depicts an affair given the world a warning: Stop the on the edge of the Russian empire, between one of the twentieth cen- tech giants before it’s too late. But a family prospers. Its success derives tury’s most celebrated pianists, is anyone listening? Thousands of from a delicious chocolate recipe, Vladimir Horowitz, and his young male teenagers are signing up to Free- passed down for generations. student, Nico Kaufmann, in the late mee, the biggest new social media Stasia learns the recipe from her 1930s. As Europe hurtles toward po- site, uploading personal information Georgian father and takes it north, litical catastrophe and Horowitz as- in exchange for advice on what to following her new husband Simon cends to the pinnacle of artistic eat, how to dress, even how to choose to St. Petersburg and the center achievement, the great pianist hides their friends. No one questions what of the Russian Revolution. Stasia’s his illicit passion from his wife Wanda, Freemee is doing with all that data— is only the first in a symphony of daughter of the renowned conduc- until hundreds of users take their grand but all too often doomed tor Arturo Toscanini. Based on un- own lives. What will it take to bring romances that swirl from sweet to published letters from Horowitz to down the Freemee mastermind, and sour. This unforgettable family dra- Kaufmann that author Lea Singer who is up to the job? An unputdown- ma and epic tale of the red century discovered in Switzerland, the novel able technothriller by international has been translated into multiple portrays the anguish that the ac- best-selling author Marc Elsberg. languages and earned critical claimed musician felt about his never praise around the world. publicly acknowledged homosexu- ality and the attendant duplicity of his personal life. 3 Fiction ____________________________ ____________________________ ____________________________ The Unfinished The Lost Writings Ferdinand, the Man with the Kind Heart Die Unvollendeten Ferdinand, der Mann mit dem freundlichen Herzen REINHARD JIRGL FRANZ KAFKA IRMGARD KEUN Translated by Iain Galbraith With a contribution by Reiner Stach. Translated by Michael Hofmann Seagull Books, 978-0857427359, Translated by Michael Hofmann Other Press, 978-1635420357, 300 pp., HC New Directions, 978-0811228015, 256 pp., SC 128 pp., HC Komotau, the Sudetenland, late Selected by Kafka biographer and Upon his release from a prisoner- summer, 1945. Four German women— scholar Reiner Stach and newly trans- of-war camp, Ferdinand Timpe seventy-year-old Johanna, her lated by Michael Hofmann, these returns uneasily to civilian life in two daughters Hanna and Maria, seventy-four pieces by Franz Kafka Cologne. Having survived against and Hanna’s daughter Anna—are were long forgotten or overlooked. the odds, he now faces a very expelled from their homes by the Two of the pieces have never before different dilemma: How to lose his new Czech authorities. Initially se- been translated into English. Some fiancée? Although he doesn’t love parated from young Anna, the older stories are several pages long; some the mild-mannered Luise, he is women begin their trek to an out- run about a page; a handful are too considerate to break off the post in Soviet-occupied Germany only a few lines long. All are marvels, engagement himself. He sets out where they settle as farm laborers. culled from two large volumes of the to find her a suitable replacement Once reunited, the women’s hope S. Fischer Verlag edition Nachge- husband—no easy task, given the of one day returning to their home- lassene Schriften und Fragmente. high standards of both Luise and land is both a source of strength This trove of brilliant, difficult-to-find her father, formerly a proud mid- and a burden, choking attachments writings is a windfall for every reader level Nazi official. This 1950 classic to their new surroundings and of German literature. by author Irmgard Keun, celebra- neighbors. This conflict becomes ted for her effervescent prose and the story of their lives, and the joy representations of the Weimar-era and ruin of Anna’s son. “New Woman,” is at last available in English. 4 Fiction ____________________________ ____________________________ ____________________________ Grove: A Field Novel Michael Kohlhaas The Third Walpurgis Night Hain Michael Kohlhaas Die dritte Walpurgisnacht ESTHER KINSKY HEINRICH VON KLEIST KARL KRAUS Translated by Caroline Schmidt Translated by Michael Hofmann Translated by Fred Bridgham Transit Books, 978-1945492389, New Directions, 978-0811228343, and Edward Timms 287 pp., SC 144 pp., SC Yale University Press, 978-0300236002, 320 pp., HC An unnamed narrator, recently be- Michael Kohlhaas has been wron- Austrian author Karl Kraus was the reaved, travels to a small village ged. First his finest horses were un- foremost German-language satirist southeast of Rome. From her tem- fairly confiscated and mistreated. of the early twentieth century. He porary residence she embarks on And things keep going worse—his wrote The Third Walpurgis Night in walks and outings, exploring the servants are beaten, his wife killed, immediate response to the Nazi banal and the sublime. She recalls and the lawsuits he pursues are seizure of power in 1933, but he her childhood travels in 1970s Italy, stymied—but Kohlhaas, determined withheld it from publication for and her fragmented impressions to find justice at all costs, tirelessly fear of reprisals against the Jews and memories combine into a mo- persists. Knotty, darkly comical, and trapped in Germany. Acclaimed saic of a bygone era. The book’s magnificent in its weirdness, this when finally published in 1952, Kraus’s third Italian journey takes place short novel by Heinrich von Kleist is work is a devastatingly prescient between Ferrara and the Po estu- among the most influential tales in satire that skewers the Nazi regime’s ary, some years after the narrator’s German literature.