Swiss literature: New publications in July 2024
Published: Monday, Jul 1st 2024, 11:20
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Prose, spoken word, essays and poetry by Swiss authors and writers who live in Switzerland: The Keystone-SDA news agency has selected new works that will provide food for thought in July.
Laurence Boissier: "School is starting again". Novel. Verlag die Brotsuppe, 168 pages. (Published on July 3)
In her first novel "Rentrée des classes" (2017), which is now being published in German for the first time, Laurence Boissier tells the story of little Mathilde. When asked about her father's profession, she replies: "Disappeared". The novel is about how the family comes to terms with the loss. Boissier mixes melancholy and sadness with humorous, comical passages. The author was awarded the Gottfried Keller Prize in 2013 and received the Swiss Literature Prize for "Inventar der Orte" in 2017. She died in 2022 at the age of 56.
Francesco Micieli: "The agent of small things wakes up by the stream". Thriller. Verlag die Brotsuppe, 80 pages. (Published on July 3)
Angelo is a self-appointed private detective and the agent of small things. When he regains consciousness, he doesn't know where or who he is. But miraculously, he is very well-read and has the strings in his hand. This enables him to avert an attack on the democratic order in the village. "The Agent of Small Things Awakens by the Stream" is the second book Micieli has written about Angelo since 2014. The author himself came to Emmental from the south of Italy with his parents as a child and now lives in Bern. His style is a mixture of poetry, narrative and monologue.
Mariann Bühler: "Shift in the rock". Novel. Atlantis Literature, 208 pages. (Published on July 11)
Three characters in a village: the baker Elisabeth, the farmer Alois and the young returnee. They know nothing about each other. Nevertheless, they are connected by the area, the village - and by the question of how things should actually continue. The author uses them to trace how change quietly seeks its way and unfolds with force, how shifts sometimes move mountains. "Verschiebung im Gestein" is the debut of Mariann Bühler, who was born near Lucerne and now lives in Basel after studying in Basel and Berlin. She works as an author, literary mediator and event organizer.
Zora del Buono: "Because of him". Novel of a research. C.H.Beck, 208 pages. (Published on July 11)
In "Because of Him", the narrator, who has a lot in common with Zora del Buono, sets out in search of the man who once drove her father to his death in a car accident. She wants to confront him with the story of her family, in which her father has remained a blank space. But suddenly she knows more about the man who drove her father to his death than about her father himself. The author was a baby when her father was killed in a car accident in 1963. She later studied architecture at ETH and worked as a construction manager in post-reunification Berlin. Her previous acclaimed novel, "Die Marschallin", was published in 2021.
Roman Graf: "Life without consequences". Novel. Wallstein Verlag, 400 pages. (To be published on July 24)
Roman Graf was born in Winterthur, worked as a forest warden and then studied at the German Literature Institute in Leipzig, among other places. In 2013, he was nominated for the Swiss Book Prize with his novel "Niedergang". "Leben ohne Folgen" is a montage novel about failure in and of today's meritocracy. Literary fragments come together like a jigsaw puzzle. It is about the great love that has supposedly been found, the first child, the move to the provinces. One hopes for perfect happiness, but only the disintegration is perfect.
Micha Lewinsky: "As soon as we have arrived". Novel. Diogenes, 288 pages. (Published on July 24)
Micha Lewinsky, son of author Charles Lewinsky, has long since made a name for himself in the film industry. In 2008 he was awarded the Swiss Film Prize for "Der Freund" and in 2009 the Zurich Film Prize for "Die Standesbeamtin". Now he is appearing in public with his debut novel "Sobald wir angekommen sind". At the center is Ben Oppenheim, an insecure man in crisis mode. Nobody seems to be interested in his latest screenplay. The war in Eastern Europe worries him. Driven by a Jewish instinct to flee, he boards a plane to Brazil with his ex-wife and two children. There he misses Julia, his love.
More:
Adolf Jens Koemeda: "Separation. The unbearable lightness of lies". Münster Verlag, 200 pages. (Published on July 2)
Andreas Steiner: "Homecoming in a foreign land". Novel. Edition Königstuhl, 168 pages. (Published on July 10)
Georg Weber: "Blind rage". Novel. Edition Königstuhl, 296 pages. (Published on July 10)
Miriam Kunz (ed.): "Mord im Rustico. Crime stories from Ticino". Atlantis, 192 pages. (Published on July 11)
Benedict Wells: "The stories within us. About writing and about life". Narrative non-fiction. Diogenes, 336 pages. (Published on July 24)
Matt Basanisi, Gerd Schneider: "Memento". Thriller. Blanvalet, 448 pages. (Published on July 31)
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