He was honored on Thursday for his artist and travel novel “A Round Thing”. The book prize is endowed with 15,000 euros. Gardi’s book was actually considered a surprise on the nominee list.
“A round thing” consists of two parts: a bizarre odyssey through the German language jungle and the life story of a painter from Java, written in Hebrew and translated into German, who travels the world in the 19th century. In addition to Gardi, Katerina Poladjan (“Music of the Future”), Dietmar Dath (“Gentzen or: Clean up drunk. Calculus novel”), Heike Geißler (“The Week”) and Emine Sevgi Özdamar (“A Room Bounded by Shadows”) were in the fiction section. ) nominated.
In the non-fiction/essay category, Uljana Wolf won with the book “Etymological Gossip: Essays und Reden”. Wolf deals with language, ethics and poetics.
Anne Weber was honored among the translators. She translated from French “Nevermore” by Cécile Wajsbrot. According to the jury, Weber’s art of language was particularly challenged because the novel tells the story of an author who is working on a translation into French.
All winners will each receive 15,000 euros in prize money. There is also 1,000 euros for each nomination. Despite the renewed cancellation of the Leipzig Book Fair due to the corona pandemic, the prizes were awarded live in the glass hall of the Leipzig Fair.
Source: Nachrichten
