German Literature Month – November 2013

Lizzy @ Lizzy’s Literary Life and Caroline @ Beauty is a Sleeping Cat are hosting the third annual German Literature Month in November, and I’m pleased to say that for the first time I am organised early enough to participate this year.

German Literature MonthI will be pushed for time, but have decided upon, and have at the ready, the two German titles in translation I would like to read and review as part of this event.

      Little Man What Now by Hans Fallada      The Old Child and The Book of Words by Jenny Erpenbeck

They are Little Man, What Now? by Hans Fallada (translated by Susan Bennett) and The Book of Words by Jenny Erpenbeck (translated by Susan Bernofsky).

I have the lovely paperback version of Little Man, What Now? released earlier this year by Scribe in Australia, but it is available in ebook too and previous paperback versions of the English translation are available from Amazon.

Tony from Tony’s Reading List recommended Jenny Erpenbeck to me, and the synopsis of her novella The Book of Words intrigued me, but I couldn’t find it in ebook format. So I went on the hunt for a paperback copy I could get to my door quickly. I ended up sourcing a paperback released by Portobello Books in 2008 from Booktopia which contains both The Book of Words along with another of Erpenbeck’s novellas The Old Child.

Have you read either of these titles or authors?

I really like the fact Lizzy and Caroline have set the challenge for a 50:50 male to female author ratio this year and nominated alternating ladies and gents reading/reviewing weeks to encourage that result. They are also hosting two readalongs which unfortunately I won’t have time to participate in – Anna Kim’s Anatomy of a Night (a recent digital release from Frisch & Co.) and Hans Keilson’s Death of the AdversaryI haven’t read these particular titles but I was impressed by Hans Keilson’s Comedy in a Minor Key when I read it last year.

If you’d like to participate in German Literature Month also, do check out Lizzy’s Literary Life and Beauty is a Sleeping Cat for all the details.

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