Friday, December 30, 2005

Nur ein Scherz: an English novel


Below I referred to the endless suffering of British literary culture. So, an example. An instance.

Gabriel Josipovici, one of our very best and most original writers, has just had a new novel published in German translation: Nur ein Scherz, translated by Gerd Haffmans. The link goes to the German blurb.


The thing is, Nur ein Scherz has yet to be published in its original language. Does this happen very often outside politically repressive states?

In the TLS a few years ago, Josipovici reflected on his relative popularity in Germany.
Why are German reviewers and audiences so much more attuned to my work than British ones? Why do they see no problem where the British are baffled and resentful, and why do their questions always come close to my intentions while the British seem to want to talk about another book altogether? Is it that I write within a German tradition, or that German audiences are simply more sophisticated?

No comments:

Post a Comment

Powered by Blogger.