Final published version
Research output: Contribution to Journal/Magazine › Journal article › peer-review
Research output: Contribution to Journal/Magazine › Journal article › peer-review
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TY - JOUR
T1 - Prize Germans?
T2 - changing notions of Germanness and the role of the award-winning author into the twenty-first century
AU - Braun, Rebecca
PY - 2014/3
Y1 - 2014/3
N2 - Germany has an unusually large number of literary prize foundations in international comparison. The historical and socio-political reasons for such a widespread ritual appropriation of ‘award-winning’ authors can tell us a great deal about changing notions of German cultural identity. This paper argues that where the long-running named literary prizes (such as the Büchner and Kleist prizes) place their laureates in a retrospective tradition that is firmly tied to national and regional cultural politics, a new breed of prizes - spearheaded by the German Book Prize - has emerged since the beginning of the twenty-first century that deliberately seeks to propel authors beyond the confines of the German literary field. These prizes proactively ‘celebrify’ the author with the explicit intention of bringing to market a self-consciously contemporary, more diverse image of Germanness. Pursuing a literary career in such a context is both a challenge and an opportunity, as the specific case of Daniel Kehlmann shows.
AB - Germany has an unusually large number of literary prize foundations in international comparison. The historical and socio-political reasons for such a widespread ritual appropriation of ‘award-winning’ authors can tell us a great deal about changing notions of German cultural identity. This paper argues that where the long-running named literary prizes (such as the Büchner and Kleist prizes) place their laureates in a retrospective tradition that is firmly tied to national and regional cultural politics, a new breed of prizes - spearheaded by the German Book Prize - has emerged since the beginning of the twenty-first century that deliberately seeks to propel authors beyond the confines of the German literary field. These prizes proactively ‘celebrify’ the author with the explicit intention of bringing to market a self-consciously contemporary, more diverse image of Germanness. Pursuing a literary career in such a context is both a challenge and an opportunity, as the specific case of Daniel Kehlmann shows.
KW - authorship
KW - literary prizes
KW - literary culture
KW - Celebrity
KW - German Book Prize
KW - translations
U2 - 10.1179/0078719113Z.00000000047
DO - 10.1179/0078719113Z.00000000047
M3 - Journal article
VL - 43
SP - 37
EP - 54
JO - Oxford German Studies
JF - Oxford German Studies
SN - 1745-9214
IS - 1
ER -