SWISS BOOK PRIZE 2016 (Satis Shroff)

Swiss Book Prize 2016: ‘The Dead’ outlives Other Authors (Satis Shroff)

The Swiss Book Prize (Schweizer Buchpreis) is a literary award awarded annually by a jury on behalf of the Swiss Booksellers' Association. The prize amount is CHF 30,000. The award was instituted in 2008 following the example of the German Book Prize. Only German language works of authors living in Switzerland or of Swiss nationality are eligible. This year the Prize was awarded to Christian Kracht.

The winner of the Swiss Book Prize 2016 is Christian Kracht and his novel ‘Die Toten,’ the Dead. It outlived the other four novels from the Swiss short-list. The also-rans were: Sacha Batthany, Christopher Höhtker, Charles Lewinsky and Michelle Steinbeck.

Three authors were really up to the mark in the battle for the Swiss Prize. Christoph Höhtker came up with a novel about Bielefeld. It made an impact on readers from Bielefeld, Germany.  The other contender was a journalist from Zurich named sacha Batthany with his debut work, which didn’t made it in the Austrian Book Prize. Another was Michelle Steinbeck, also making her debut, with a 153-page melange comprising stories about delirium and notes from her diary. She was regarding as a promising writer.

The novels by Christian Kracht and Charles Lewinsky had the Heimat (Homeland) in common and dealt with how Faschism crept in the film-industry in Kracht’s book. It was about the German film industry during the Weimar Republic, and the celluloid-axis built by Berlin and Tokyo, in which Japan and Hollywood played significant roles and how politics was given an aesthetic polish by the movie-industry.

What is the novel ‘The Dead’ about? It really sucks out the National Socialist and film industry and makes it re-live on the silver screen or DVD as the case may be.

Lewinsky’s ‘Andersen’ is about a Folterknecht, a torture-boy   as an embryo and leads directly to Anders Behring Breivik, the right-extremist and mass-murderer.

It might be noted that Christian Kracht was not nominated for the German Book Prize 2016. Asked how he comforted himself for the non-nomination, he replied to Jan Drees from Deutschlandfunk with the words: ‘I have been nominated for the Swiss Book Prize. I find it beautiful and important.’

Christian Kracht lives in LA and was born in Switzerland 50 years ago.

Why did the Swiss jury give Kracht the Prize?

The book gives us a clear diagnosis of our contemporary times. The implication is: Brexit, refugees in Germany, the growing rightist movements in Europe, the former East Bloc workers in Britain, the joblessness in many European countries and so forth.

How much the Prize was? 30,000 Swiss Franks.

Book Basle 2016 was well-organised by Katrin Eckert and her team. The main theme of Basle 2016 was ‘Heimat’ or Homeland, and was inaugurated by Federal Counselor Simonetta Sommeruga. Two well-known Swiss scientists were also invited: Georg Kreis and Jakob Tanner. Sarajevo was closely scrutinized. Heimat involves also the Swiss dialects in the different cantons, in addition to standard German at schools and educational institutes of higher learning. Then there’s Avenir Swisse, the political Greens and other parties. To give the three-day occasion a local touch, school-classes presented their own stories and even ended as a Book Nite. Basle also has Museum Nights.

Were there other authors at the Book Basle 2016?

There were quite a few: Niram Baram, Colin Emcke, Mathias Enard, Terezia Mora, Ronald Schimmelpfennig, Franz Hohler, Lukas Hartmann and newcomer Jonas Lüscher.

There was even a podium discussion on Islam with the authors Shumona Sinha (Paris), David Wagner, Christoph Ramsmayr. The German cabaretist Harald Schmidt and Gabriel Vetter took part in another Zeit-podium event. The Basler Zeitung had invited three other writers as guests: Ingrid Noll, Mathias Enard and Eswahan Aykol who read from their works.