DARTMOOR DOZEN GOES INTERNATIONAL
Thanks to German blogger Bernd Kochanowski the Dartmoor Dozen was picked up on the web site of the Stuttgart Zeitung here.
This is part of the article translated by Google! I like the "criminal also enthusiastic".
The complete article in German with their list of chosen books is here.
Bernd's own list at his blog Krimileser can be seen here.
Thanks to Dorte of DJS Krimiblog for the information via Maxine's Friend Feed Room where the chat is all about crime.
posted by Uriah Robinson at 1:06 AM
15 Comments:
Congratulations, Norman! LOL
I think it is interesting that a newspaper writes about crime fiction blogs - ours certainly doesn´t, though they write about the odd cat in a tree when they have nothing else to fill the pages with.
And the translation is hilarious.
I always knew I liked the Stuttgarter Zeitung! (Well, I did on the two previous occasions I read it - one of which was actually while delayed by snow at Stuttgart airport!)
The translation is very, very funny. (My first year undergraduates tend to be about as accurate, but their errors are much less amusing.)
PS: for the bits that didn't quite make it into English - "head Proviant" = provisions for the mind; "Krimiunerfahrenen" - someone without experience of crime novels; "eingeschneit" - snowed in.
I've actually read ten of the Stuttgart list, but the two I haven't encountered seem really interesting. The Grytten sounds intriguing. As for the Scerbanenco, the blurb on Amazon.de notes (in my translation) that "The star Italian crime novelist Carlo Lucarelli admitted in a fictional letter: "Dear Signor Scerbaneco, I'm a faithful reader of your books." So I'm sold there too.
Thanks for the translation Lauren I was getting worried about what "head Proviant" meant. :0)
Thanks again Dorte for spotting this.
Dear Uriah Robinson, Lauren and Dorte H, as you and several other English speakers have already tried to make sense of my reaction to your Dartmoor challenge and Bernd Kochanowskis variation, I’ve added a rough translation at the end of the post. My blog, by the way, is part of Stuttgarter Zeitung Online, but not part of our print edition. So there’s really almost no rivalry between cats in blogs and cats in trees. Best wishes, Thomas Klingenmaier (Stuttgarter Zeitung)
Thanks for the translation Thomas. How about a bilingual blog like Dorte at DJS Krimiblog? We English speakers miss out on a lot of German crime fiction.
*Sigh* Now I've lost my one chance at fame! (I was going to offer to translate the article, but was slightly too embarrassed, and now it's been done.)
As far as German crime fiction goes, none of the books on the list are German, which is interesting. And a quick straw pole around my neck of the woods (which includes a German department, which may or may not affect the results, given there's a certain snobbery factor) suggests that those reading crime in German aren't reading too many German authors. My own bookshelves skew fairly heavily towards things translated into German that haven't made it into English.
Not entirely though. At a quick glance, the German-language authors I have are: Jan Seghers, Veit Heinichen, Kirstin Warschau, Astrid Paprotta, Nicholas Remin, Oliver Bottini, and Gisa Klönne. (Plus Pieke Biermann, Friedrich Glauser and Max Frisch at home in Oz, and Jakob Arjouni in the office. And I've probably forgotten some.)
I'd love to blog on this topic, actually, perhaps even bilingually (I've been meaning to ask Dorte if she writes two posts or translates from one), though I suspect my time/future career prospects would be better served just finishing my PhD. But perhaps I could find the time somewhere... besides, I've just lent one of my supervisors an Arne Dahl novel!
(I realise I'd have to work on getting to the point if I blogged regularly, an ability clearly not in evidence here. Sorry!)
Lauren if you ever want to do a one off guest blog on German crime fiction you are welcome on Crime Scraps. [thbear08@googlemail.com]
But I think you should have your own bilingual blog.
Good luck with the PhD.
Hi Lauren.
I usually write my reviews in the language the novel is written in and translate to the other language afterwards - I don´t bother too much about translating accurately, of course, and sometimes I add extra information in English (things all Scandinavians would know).
Have you read Arne Dahl in German? (It says on his page they should be out in English but they are probably only on their way).
NB: Norman, I am sure Bernd or Thomas will go bilingual if we keep stalking them :)
Thanks Dorte, I am sure if there is stalking to be done Bernd and Thomas would much prefer you as their stalker. ;o)
Trilingual stalker, that is me :D
- and when I go to court for it, I am sure you will defend me, Norman.
And I enjoyed the Riyadh, Padova and Genoa flags. My most exotic visitors today are from Vietnam and Tokyo.
Dorte, in another life, in another galaxy, one of my jobs [unpaid] was to represent dentists in front of service committees [star chambers].
I think I could manage to defend such a sympathetic, impressive and innocent defendant as yourself. ;o)
I am very jealous of your Vietnamese visitor, although I have had a very welcome visitors from Tajikistan, Burkina Faso, Costa Rica and Mongolia. :o)
Sorry, Lauren, if only I had known....
There are no German books among my Dartmoor Dozen, but there easily could have been in all of my categories (something I would not have claimed 20 years ago).
We have a whole bunch of interesting authors now, some smack in the middle of the genre, some on the edge of it. Christine Lehmann, Uta Maria Heim, Heinrich Steinfest, Norbert Horst to name but a few not on your list, from which I'd especially recommend Astrid Paprotta.
And no, the view in your department is a bit askew. There's even a large group of genre readers gourging themselves solely on German crime fiction. Not a healthy diet.
As for my list, the Germans lost out in some cases simply because I have a long-standing relationship with older books/authors (Scerbanenco, Highsmith) or because I'm just a tiny bit more thrilled by the chosen title than by the home-boy contender – mild exotism, probably.
I'll gladly try to answer any questions about German crime fiction (the good, the bad and the well-meant). What I can’t deliver is a bilingual blog. 1) My paper wouldn’t stand for that,. 2) My active English is a hodgepodge of superhero speech balloons and throwaway phrases from old Bogart movies and not up to the job.
Come to think of it, Lauren, you might still get your laurels... you could translate Bernd’s fine blog on a daily basis.
If I may hijack this blog to talk to Thomas... thanks for the extra authors you mentioned. I have read Steinfest and not been too enthralled, but perhaps I should try again, especially as he was born in my neck of the woods. The other names have gone on to my lengthy to-read list. Unfortunately German crime novels are (understandably) not a staple of Scottish - or Australian - libraries, so I'll have to keep counting my pennies.
It's good to hear there is a market for German crime fiction. I suspect the problem among Germanisten is that there's professional pressure to have read the new Grass/Marron/revised edition of Fontane, even if they fall outside one's own research interests, whereas the latest Paprotta is dismissed as "nur ein Krimi" regardless of quality.
Re: a diet solely of German crime fiction, apart from its general unhealthiness I suspect it would completely destroy the tourist industry on Sylt and in many other small towns! But the growth of good German writing is great news. Even only ten years ago, I remember standing in a bookshop in Dusseldorf and being rather disappointed to more books I'd already read in English than new German works.
As far as translating other blogs goes, it might be more productive to try and set up my own, and stop clogging other people's comments!
Two other quick points:
Dorte, I've read Dahl in German - the English seems to be indefinitely delayed.
Norm, thanks for the offer! Maybe after the end of semester...I still have a hard time considering myself an expert in anything, let alone German - it's all rather a novelty. (I'm hoping confidence comes with age!)
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