German Book Prize 2007: publishers submit 112 novels

Felicitas von Lovenberg (Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung) is the spokesperson for the panel of judges for the German Book Prize 2007. This has been decided by the seven judges who now begin with their selections for the German Book Prize 2007. By the closing date at the end of March, 112 German-language novels had been submitted by 56 publishing companies in Germany and eight publishers each in Austria and Switzerland.

Just under half of the novels entered are spring titles (54), 47 titles are due for publication in the summer and autumn and 11 novels come from the 2006 autumn lists. Each publishing company could make a direct maximum submission of two novels for the award. This year for the first time, publishing companies were additionally given the opportunity to recommend up to five more titles that meet the submission criteria. This recommendation list has been introduced in particular consideration of the larger publishing houses with a strong German-language novel section. The judges can ask to review additional titles from this list numbering 61 titles.

Alongside Felicitas von Lovenberg, judges for the German Book Prize 2007 are Christian Döring (editor and critic), Karl-Markus Gauss (author and editor of the magazine “Literatur & Kritik”), Ijoma Mangold (Süddeutsche Zeitung), Rudolf Müller (Müller & Böhm, Literaturhandlung im Heine Haus), Mathias Schreiber (Der SPIEGEL) and Hajo Steinert (Deutschlandfunk).

The long list of around 20 titles will be announced on 15 August 2007. From this list, the judges select six titles for the short list which will be published on 12 September 2007. The six authors find out which of them has won the German Book Prize on 8 October, the evening of the prize presentation.

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