Wednesday 8 July 2015

Georg Büchner Prize to Rainald Goetz

Sue me – I have never read Rainald Goetz and I'm not even planning to. I think he's like Marmite; you have to have grown up with him to appreciate him. But a hell of a lot of Germans do appreciate him, and now he's won the mega-prestigious Georg Büchner Prize for his life's work. It comes with €50,000 and eternal glory. The judges said:
Rainald Goetz has described Germany's present of the past thirty years, let it come to perception and speak for itself, he has celebrated it and condemned it and analyzed it over and over by means of theory. Behind his nervous, tense willingness to gain experiences are a broad education and a sensitive awareness of history, which enable his language a balance between passionate expression, observational coolness and satirical clarity.
They're really into him, huh? But I know a lot of people (men?) who worship the guy. I once went to a reading he did where he was like, I'm going to read for ten minutes and then go out and smoke a fag on the doorstep (it was raining, I think) and then I'm going to have a rest for a while and then at half past I'll read for five minutes and then I'll have a bit of a sit down and then on the next full hour I'll read for another ten minutes, but first here's the list of ingredients on my cigarette packet. Those may not have been his exact words; it was about five years ago. But instead of totally losing patience and leaving, like I did, everyone else was hanging on his every word and had nothing they wanted to do more than spend all day waiting for the guy to read in between his extended cigarette breaks. Also I used to see him in my local supermarket before I moved house. He's quite short and likes white bread rolls.

He's written lots of novels and plays about contemporary phenomena. I think the only thing available in English is the play Jeff Koons, translated by David Tushingham.

7 comments:

Hannes said...

"He's quite short and likes white bread rolls."
Love this one. Especially now that he's bagged the Büchner he should just use it on his own website.

kjd said...

The more expensive kind, "Toskanabrötchen".

Unknown said...

Dear Ms. Derbyshire, Please keep up this excellent blog; it is a doorway to literature that would otherwise remain largely unknown.
I find this incredibly illuminating and stimulating.
Best regards,
Richard Ullyett
Wien & Berlin
richard.ullyett@gmail.com

Unknown said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Unknown said...

I'm Meryl Garner from Contra Costa County, California. United States, my special greetings to everyone reading this letter, If you are into Crypto currency investment then this message you need to read carefully as it will be of a great impact to your knowledge. myself and my family have been into crypto trading legitimately for the past 5 years and we haven't had such a great loss like the recent loss whereby we got robbed of our coins by a Chinese broker exchange scam who made away with our funds amounted to $1.850.000. We have tried all our best to make report and get our funds back by seeking help from the force department in charge of handling fraudulent cases but nothing happen, we just only wanted the Chinese broker to help us in mining some coin so that the sudden falling or decrease of bitcoin won't affect us much but we later end up being scammed. I told a friend at my office and she directed me to a hacker from Upwork and freelancer site then i did, the good thing is that a very good trusted hacker opens up to me that he has a trusted person who works anonymously for security reasons and he is the only one who can get the job done so he introduce me to ((wizardwierzbickiprogrammer@csrc.live)) and also ask me to WhatsApp him in case he couldn't respond to my Email so i did exactly so and write to +1 (519) 398-1460 myself and Wizard Wierzbicki Programmer. got along and I gave him all the details about how I fell into the scam, he told me not to worry, his timing was 72 hours, he actually kept to his word and I confirmed the funds on my wallet. All thanks to this Hero known as Wizard Wierzbicki Programmer. Reach him on Instagram: @wizardwierzbickiprogrammer

Unknown said...

Hello everyone I know this is not the topic discussing here but with what I Have be through and my bad experience, I want to Please everyone should be careful and stop being deceived by all these brokers and account managers, they scammed me over $500,000 of my investment capital, they kept on requesting for extra funds before a withdrawal request can be accepted and processed, in the end, I lost all my money. All efforts to reach out to their customer support desk had declined, I found it very hard to move on. God so kind I followed a broadcast that teaches on how scammed victims can recover their fund, I contacted the Email: wizardwierzbickiprogrammer@csrc.live, provided for consultation, I got feedback after some hours and I was asked to provide all legal details concerning my investment, I did exactly what they instructed me to do without delay, to my greatest surprise I was able to recover my money back including my profit which my capital generated. I said I will not hold this to myself but share it to the public so that all scammed victims can get their funds back. Chat Them on WhatsApp +1 519 398 1460. Reach him on Instagram: @wizardwierzbickiprogrammer

Unknown said...

Hello everyone I know this is not the topic discussing here but with what I Have be through and my bad experience, I want to Please everyone should be careful and stop being deceived by all these brokers and account managers, they scammed me over $500,000 of my investment capital, they kept on requesting for extra funds before a withdrawal request can be accepted and processed, in the end, I lost all my money. All efforts to reach out to their customer support desk had declined, I found it very hard to move on. God so kind I followed a broadcast that teaches on how scammed victims can recover their fund, I Email him (WIZARDWIERZBICKIPROGRAMMER@CSRC.LIVE) for consultation, I got feedback after some hours and I was asked to provide all legal details concerning my investment, I did exactly what they instructed me to do without delay, to my greatest surprise I was able to recover my money back including my profit which my capital generated. I said I will not hold this to myself but share it to the public so that all scammed victims can get their funds back. Chat Them on WhatsApp (+31 6 84990027)