Friday, June 12, 2020

Yugoslav refugee's prize-winning book tells a great tale

Saša Stanišić won the German Book Prize last year for his novel Herkunft (Origin).

At his acceptance speech he was critical of  Peter Handke being awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature because of his support for Serbian nationalists.

Stanišić was born in 1978 in the former Yugoslavia. In 1992 he fled with his parents to Germany as a refugee of the Bosnian War.

Herkunft is a novel about what it means to be born somewhere. Stanišić argues that where we are born is an accident.

When we ask someone where they are from what are we doing? Is it a neutral question? Often it's loaded with intrigue

In an interview on German television he recalls how as a young teenager in school in Germany a teacher spotted that he had talent. And one day the teacher praised him. He said it was the moment when he realised he had worth, that he could do something special. At the time he was learning German.

Herkunft is considered a modern German masterpiece.

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