Whether due to common themes and/or the willingness to experiment with form and technique, I am drawn to German-language literature (in translation) more than any other. I am excited by two new studies due this autumn, both edited by Stuart Taberner.

Emerging German-Language Novelists of the Twenty-First Century (Camden House) offers fifteen essays examining in detail the major work of contemporary German-language novelists like Daniel Kehlmann, Karen Duve and Alina Bronsky. “Between them they represent a range of literatures in German, from women’s writing to minority writing (from Turkish immigrants and Eastern Europe), to “pop literature” and perspectives on the former GDR and on Germany’s Nazi past.”

The Novel in German since 1990 (Cambridge University Press) presents close readings of a series of brilliant novels including W. G. Sebald’s Austerlitz, Elfriede Jelinek’s Greed, Herta Müller’s The Land of Green Plums and Daniel Kehlmann’s Measuring the World. “Each novel discussed in the volume has been chosen on account of its aesthetic quality, its impact and its representativeness.”