Historical fiction takes the spotlight in the six titles selected out of 165 entries this year. Here are the books vying for the top prize.
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Maria Cecilia Barbetta: Nachtleuchten (Night Lights)
Barbetta's novel takes place during the onset of Argentina's military dictatorship in the mid 1970s. The author, who was born in Buenos Aires in 1972 and writes in German, describes the atmosphere in the immigrant neighborhood of Ballester. A fluorescent Madonna, disappearing cats, a beautiful nun and a young detective all play a role. Mysteries are not always resolved, and some narrative strands are only vaguely connected in this fascinating work.
Maxim Biller: Sechs Koffer (Six Suitcases)
Biller's novel tells the tale of a family fleeing to a foreign land, leaving behind puzzles to be unraveled and secrets to be revealed. Biller himself was born in 1960 in Prague to Russian-Jewish parents and immigrated to West Germany in 1970.
Nino Haratischwili: Die Katze und der General (The Cat and the General)
Hamburg-based Haratischwili was born in Tbilisi, Georgia and writes in German. In her book, Haratischwili looks back and into the abyss, "which opened up between the ruins of the decaying Soviet empire," according to a description of the book from the publishing house. It tells the story of Russian oligarch Alexander Orlov, known to everyone only as "the general," and raises questions of guilt and atonement in times of war.
11 great German-language authors: Here are the German Book Prize winners
These 11 German-language authors have been awarded Germany's most prestigious literature prize: the German Book Prize. It's presented at the Frankfurt Book Fair by the German Publishers and Booksellers Association.
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Frank Witzel
His novel, "The Invention of the Red Army Faction by a Manic-Depressive Teenager in the Summer of 1969," claimed the 2015 German Book Prize on October 12. It tells the coming-of-age story of a 13-year old boy in West Germany in a period marked by Cold War, domestic terrorism and dealings with the past. Despite positive reviews of his work, Witzel had not been considered a favorite.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/A. Dedert
Lutz Seiler
Last year, Lutz Seiler won the book prize for "Kruso," his 2014 novel set on the East German resort island of Hiddensee. Seiler recounts the summer of 1989 before the fall of the Berlin Wall from his protagonists point of view. The book is about the search for freedom, about escaping life and communist East Germany. The book is available in German.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/A. Dedert
Terézia Mora
"Das Ungeheuer" ("The Monster") won the 2013 award. Terézia Mora writes alternately in the style of a diary and a travelogue, the two separated by a thick black line. She creates a mosaic of autobiographic and medical sketches on depression and estrangement. The book is not yet available in English.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/A. Dedert
Ursula Krechel
The 2012 winner, Ursula Krechel traces the life of Richard Kornitzer in "Landgericht" ("District Court"). After WWII, the Jewish judge returned from exile in Cuba because he wanted to work as a judge in Germany again. The author researched the novel for more than 10 years. Her book, she said, is a "memorial to realms of thought and language." It hasn't yet been translated into English.
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Eugen Ruge
Eugen Ruge's 2011 novel surely has the most poetic title: "In Zeiten des abnehmenden Lichts" ("In Times of Fading Light"). The book unfolds a family saga from an East German point of view, spanning from the 1950s to German reunification in 1990 and the start of the new century.
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Melinda Nadj Abonji
"Tauben fliegen auf" ("Fly Away, Pigeon"), the 2010 winner, mirrors the conflicts in Europe after the collapse of Yugoslavia. The novel chronicles a family and its secrets, weaving history and personal fate into a story about the Yugoslav conflict and the Hungarian minority in Serbia's Vojvodina province.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/F. Eisele
Kathrin Schmidt
"Du stirbst nicht" ("You're not going to die") in 2009 is about Germany's era of reunification, a crumbling East Germany, and the years before the centennial, seen from the perspective of a woman who awakes from a coma and tries to relearn speech and regain her lost memories. The book is not yet available in English.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/A. Burgi
Uwe Tellkamp
In 2008, the jury awarded the prize to a novel about communist East Germany's final years before reunification: Uwe Tellkamps "Der Turm" ("The Tower"). The novel is about a family in Dresden, about adjustment and opposition in an increasingly crackling East Germany. "The Tower" was turned into a film in 2012.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/E. Elsner
Julia Franck
"Die Mittagsfrau" (called "The Blind Side of the Heart" in English) is the name of the winning title in 2007. Set in the era of two World Wars, author Julia Franck tells the disturbing story of a woman who abandons her son at a train station. The novel, whose title echoes a Sorbian legend, was translated into 34 languages and sold more than one million copies.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/Guillem Lopez
Katharina Hacker
2006 winner Katharina Hacker recounts stories of young adults in "Die Habenichtse" ("The Have-Nots"), stories about a generation of 30-somethings who know it all - but they don't know themselves. How do they want to live, what are their values, how should they act? Those are the novel's core questions.
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Arno Geiger
In 2005, the very first German Book Prize went to Arno Geiger for "Es geht uns gut" ("We Are Doing Fine"), the story of three generations of a Viennese family. The jury praised the work as an "involuntary family novel," pointing out that Geiger managed to strike a convincing balance between "the transient and the moment, historical and private matters, preservation and oblivion."
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/E. Elsner
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Inger-Maria Mahlke: Archipel (Archipelago)
Mahlke's novel begins in 2015 and tells of a family's history on the Canary Island of Tenerife over several generations. In a laconic tone, the book follows a young woman returning home to her grandfather who recounts the upheavals of the civil war. The author and criminologist, born in Hamburg in 1977, grew up there and in Lübeck.
Susanne Röckel: Der Vogelgott (The Bird God)
Although the bird god is a vulture that stinks of carrion, to his followers he appears to be a powerful and venerable god. He is tracked by teacher and bird hunter Konrad Weyde, who leaves an unpublished manuscript attesting to the bird's grim powers. Röckel describes the encounter with the bird god from the three different perspectives of Weyde's children. In very different ways, they all succumb to the pull of the mythical being, fascinated by his cult.
Stephan Thome: Gott der Barbaren (God of the Barbarians)
From Hessen to Taipei: Stephan Thome
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Thome's book tells of the opium wars of 1840-1842, which began China's semi-colonial dependency, when the British Empire forced the ports to open and flooded the country with opium. Several years later, a Christian and egalitarian rebellion against the imperial family rose in the interior of the country that led to the Taiping Rebellion. Thome uses this period in history as the setting for his captivating novel. It is led by his hero, a young missionary who accidentally sets off for China in 1850.