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Awarded: Tonio Schachinger with the novel of the year he wrote: “Real Age”. © Arne Dedert
Tonio Schachinger wins the German Book Prize on the eve of the opening of the Frankfurt Book Fair. His book “Real Age” is the novel of the year 2023.
Maybe you don’t notice it – but he’s really happy, emphasizes Tonio Schachinger on Monday evening on stage in the Kaisersaal of the Frankfurter Römer. He and the world have just found out that the 31-year-old has been awarded the German Book Prize. In fact, Schachinger hardly makes a single expression. He deliberately doesn’t thank the jury or the Book Culture and Reading Promotion Foundation of the German Book Trade Association, which awards the prize – “they’re just doing their job” – but instead thanks his wife Margit Mössmer, and all the more warmly. Because he learned “everything I know in this life” from her. He unpretentiously uses his speech to “recommend Margit’s novel, published this year,” to the viewers in the live stream and the audience in the hall. This new novel by his wife is called “The Secret of My Success” (Leykam Verlag). And what is the secret of his success? What makes his book “Real Age” the novel of the year 2023? “With subtle irony, Tonio Schachinger reflects the political and social conditions of the present,” said the jury. At first glance, “Real Age” is a school novel – but at second glance it is much more than that.
“Real Age” questions the possibility of a successful life
In the book, the Austrian writer tells the story of the Viennese student Till. The hero of the novel cannot do anything with the snobbish environment at his elite high school. His passion is computer gaming. Without anyone in his circle knowing, Till is already an online celebrity at 15, the youngest top 10 player in the world. “Schachinger’s novel describes the Austrian nature of the upper class of society: material existence is secure, but a touch of existentialism questions the possibility of a successful life,” is how our critic described it when the work was published in March of this year.
Tonio Schachinger’s first novel, “Not like you”, had already made it onto the shortlist for the German Book Prize in 2019. The Book Culture and Reading Promotion Foundation of the German Book Trade Association has been honoring the best German-language novel of the year with this award every year since 2005. This year, alongside Schachinger, competing in the final round were, as reported, Terézia Mora with “Muna or Half of Life,” Necati Öziri with “Fathermark,” Anne Rabe with “The Possibility of Happiness,” Sylvie Schenk with “Maman” and Ulrike Sterblich with “Drifter “. To have even made it onto the shortlist was a very, very big success, emphasizes moderator Cécile Schortmann, looking at the six nominees who are sitting in the front row and eagerly awaiting the announcement of the jury’s decision. In fact, this year a total of 196 novels from 113 German-language publishers competed for the award worth 25,000 euros.
Jury member Katharina Teutsch calls the challenge of deciding on a novel “the forest/tree problem”. They would have taken a thorough look at every tree – that is, every nominated book. The shortlist ultimately created a grove, a mixed forest in the best sense of the word. But who should you decide for? Who from this forest of books will receive the title “Novel of the Year”? Ultimately, Teutsch emphasizes, there are no fixed criteria and such decisions are always subjective.
Being on the shortlist is a seal of approval
One thing is certain: the six nominees will find sales on the book market thanks to the note “2023 German Book Prize Shortlist” on the cover. Works such as Anne Rabe’s radical reckoning with the GDR and false Ostalgie in “The Possibility of Happiness” or Necati Öziri’s bitterly bitter confrontation with her own father in “Father’s Mark” would have been at least as deserving of the award.
In the end, the award ceremony, which traditionally takes place on the eve of the opening of the Frankfurt Book Fair, is above all a clear signal in these days in which the world around us is increasingly characterized by violence, a shift to the right and fear. “This is an important evening, despite or perhaps because of the world situation,” says Karin Schmidt-Friderichs, head of the stock exchange association. Because evenings like this celebrate literature. And literature can teach empathy and get people to deal with the big world or the smaller cosmos that are closer to home. That’s exactly why fanatics are afraid of literature – because they know the power that poetry and imagination can develop in people. On Sunday, Salman Rushdie will be honored with the Peace Prize of the German Book Trade at the end of the book fair. The 76-year-old was attacked last year and has been blind in one eye ever since. But he refuses to be intimidated and continues to build bridges by writing.
2023-10-16 19:05:28
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