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Winner Hanika: "I thank everyone"
Photo: Alberto Novelli (Villa Massimo)
The Leipzig Book Fair prize in the »Fiction« category goes to
Iris Hanika
for the novel »Echos Kammern«.
Its plot, which takes place between New York and Berlin, is "hardly a serious, short-term narrative," said juror Katrin Schumacher.
The jury praised Hanika's “risky writing” and described the 58-year-old as a “clever, witty and wild narrative designer”.
The jury selected the ethnologist
Heike Behrend
for her book “Human Becoming a Monkey. An Autobiography of Ethnographic Research «. In particular, she describes the experiences she made in Kenya and Uganda, where she had been doing field research since the late 1970s. "It is an illuminating book in these darkening times," praised juror Andreas Platthaus.
Timea Tankó received an
award in the
"Translation"
category.
Born in Leipzig, she translated from the Hungarian »Apropos Casanova.
The Breviary of St. Orpheus «by Miklós Szentkuthy.
When it appeared in 1939, the original was banned by the censors, the provocative prose work describes a reading of the memoirs of Giacomo Casanova.
The list of nominees in the fiction category had been criticized by several literary scholars in an open letter: "However, there are no black authors among the nominees," it said.
According to the undersigned, there would have been »this spring, in particular, enough choice of authors who have already received public recognition and awards«.
The Leipzig Book Fair Prize was awarded under Corona conditions.
After the trade fair was canceled again, the award ceremony was held in the Leipzig Congress Hall as part of a ceremony.
The jury was on site, but the nominees were only connected via video.
The prize is awarded in the three categories of fiction, translation and non-fiction / essay writing.
It is endowed with a total of 60,000 euros.
Usually the prize is awarded during the Leipzig Book Fair.
However, as in 2020, the book show was canceled due to the Corona crisis.
As a replacement, there will be a reduced extra edition of the reading festival »Leipzig reads« until Sunday.
Last year the writer Lutz Seiler won the award in the fiction category for his novel »Stern 111«.
feb / dpa / AFP