A flick through the nobel prize odds ,showed the German writer Ulrich Holbein shooting up the odds ,this made me, go who? So a quick twitter chat to a German friend and a look for him on web turned up some information ,he is experimental ,avant grade writer ,lives like a hermit in a small town near Kassel in the centre of Germany ,in a house full of books .His most famous book is Isis Entscheiert (Isis Unveiled ) a work assembled from other works ,in a clever variation on the cut up technique used by William S Burroughs .he has won a number of awards and has yet to be translated to English .I’m puzzled why a successful writer with at least 20 plus books written has yet to reach us in English ? Like the German book prize it shows how blotchy translation of works from German to English are .
This is a new feature were occasionally I ll highlight writers yet to reach english or need highlighting more
There does seem to be a distinct lack of German authors translated into English. Such a shame.
I like your new blog feature – hopefully it will persuade someone to translate a few of them.
I hope so Jackie ,it seems a pick and mix of who gets translated ,this years german book prize winner I hope makes it to english it seems like a powerful story ,all the best stu