German Book Award for BLUTBUCH by Kim de l’Horizon
Kim de l’Horizon’s novel BLUTBUCH (Dumont July 2022) just won the German Book Award and what a speech!
- Winner of the German Book Award 2022
- Winner of the Jürgen Ponto Foundation Literature Prize 2022
- Shortlisted for the Swiss Book Award 2022 (to be announced on Nov 20)
- rights sold to Forlaget etcetera (Danish), Farrar, Straus & Giroux (English World); Il Saggiatore (Italian in pre-empt); NEW Cappelen Damm (Norwegian in pre-empt); De Conatus (Spanish World)
“With tremendous creative energy, the non-binary narrator of Kim de l’Horizon’s novel ‘Blutbuch’ (‘Blood Book’) searches for a language of their own. What narratives exist for a body that eludes conventional notions of gender?
The fixed point of the narrative is Kim’s own grandmother – ‘Großmeer’ (literally ‘great sea’) in Bernese German – in whose ocean Kim risked drowning as a child and which they now swim free of through writing.
The form of the novel is in constant motion. Every linguistic attempt, from vivid scenes to passages of essay-like memoir, reveals an urgency and literary innovation that challenged and inspired the jury.”
