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A novel about the last days of East Germany, Uwe Tellkamp’s Der Turm (The Tower) is this year’s winner of the 25,000 euro German Book Prize, Germany’s premier award for fiction. Notably, the novel (published by Suhrkamp) was only published in September in Germany and has yet to be published elsewhere.
‘Through the lives of a middle-class Dresden family, [Tellkamp] tells of conformity and of resistance within a system that has run its course,’ says the citation from the award’s seven judges. ‘The novel is set in very different milieus, among school students, doctors, the literati and political cadres. Uwe Tellkamp sends his rebellious hero Christian Hoffman on a journey through hell … as never before, the reader is given a true sense of the flavour, ways of speaking and mentalities in the final days of the GDR [German Democratic Republic].’
Der Turm was chosen from 161 novels published in Germany this year, and a shortlist of five.
English-language extracts and other information about the shortlisted books can be found here.
Tags: awards, fiction, German Book Prize
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