Contemporary German Writers discussion

Hi all!

I studied German in school for three years (about 10 years ago) and have recently decided to take up German again, mainly to get to read some of the brilliant works of literature and philosophy that have been written in German. I hope you can help!

I've gone through a German grammar book for reading (German Quickly by April Wilson) and an introductory German reader (First German Reader, edited by Harry Steinhauer). I also read Kafka's Die Verwandlung, In Der Strafkolonie, and Boll's Der Zug war punktlich, though I had to lean very heavily on the dictionary.

I thought I would try some children's literature as an easier way in to German and have ordered Pippi Langstrumpf... even if it was originally written in Swedish...

I was wondering if anyone could suggest good, but simply written, German books I could use to improve?

Many thanks, bis bald!

Krücke by Peter Härtling is quite an easy (and not too childish) read

Thanks for the suggestions! I'll definitely take a look at those.

Someone else recommended me Johannes Simmel's 'Es Muss Nicht Immer Kaviar Sein'. Does anyone have any opinions about it?

If you like, I could send you one of my German Ebooks for your studies.

Modern plays might be the way to go as well.

Der Besuch der alten Dame by Friedrich Dürrenmatt (both of the following versions, Der Besuch Der Alten Dame and Der Besuch Der Alten Dame are meant for German language learners and contain notes, a glossary and an English language commentary).

Biedermann und die Brandstifter by Max Frisch (the following version, Biedermann und die Brandstifter is again meant for German language learners).

I really enjoyed the following book, based on the life of a relative of the author (a German Mennonite who went to Russia, where there was a large Mennonite minority prior to WWI and ended up exiled to Siberia). If you have read "Die Verwandlung" you should have no problems reading and understanding the book, it is textually dense, but easy to understand, Alles kann ein Herz ertragen. Die weite Lebensreise der Elisabeth Thiessen.

Die Nachtwachen des Bonaventura = The night watches of Bonaventura (this is an excellent piece of satirical, sarcastic late 18th, early 19th century literature). Be sure to get this particular version, as it looks like it is a dual language English/German version.

Also, you might consider reading German translations of children's and/or young adult books you have already read in English. I did that with the Harry Potter series, where I ended up reading a bunch of the novels in French (already being familiar with the stories in English made reading the novels in French much easier, I hardly ever had to look up words in my dictionary). And children's literature in German is another possibility, but you have already been given quite a number of suggestions, let me just add the fantasy novels of Michael Ende, Die unendliche Geschichte, Momo, Jim Knopf und Lukas der Lokomotivführer, Jim Knopf und die Wilde 13, Der satanarchäolügenialkohöllische Wunschpunsch.

Gundula wrote: "Modern plays might be the way to go as well.

Der Besuch der alten Dame by Friedrich Dürrenmatt (both of the following versions, Der Besuch Der Alten Dame and Der Besuch Der Alten Dame are meant fo..."


whopp Gundula, so many great reads!

A lot of suggestions - thanks! Especially to Gundula for so many detailed suggestions, I appreciate it. The works of Durrenmatt and Frisch are definitely in my local university library so they are easily obtainable.

howl of minerva wrote: "A lot of suggestions - thanks! Especially to Gundula for so many detailed suggestions, I appreciate it. The works of Durrenmatt and Frisch are definitely in my local university library so they are ..."

And both Frisch and Dürrenmatt (Swiss German authors) are excellent and really hit both humorously and thought-provokingly. Another wonderful novel by Max Frisch is Homo Faber.

Let me suggest some things from a different view, for me it was quite a challenge to read more in english, that's why I went for short stories. You finish a story quite fast, and have an nearly instant success. Thats why I want to recommend Wladimir Kaminer to you, he choose the german language for writing, but is originally from Russia. He has quite a funny way to explain his new home Germany and his neighbours and relatives. I guess the language is quite easy to handle, because he writes in a simple but entertaining style. But please don't have high expectations, just go for reading some of his stories for fun.

I recently discovered Walter Moers and want to recommend to you the beautiful: A Wild Ride Through the Night, but I'm not sure if he is only applicable to bookworms... The Dreaming Books series seemed to fit my style but my friends found the references onto too many books disturbing. But the A Wild Ride Through the Night fascinated most of my friends. Basically he tells a new story around the Gustave Dore images from Cervantes Don Quichote. Just go through the goodreads recommendations and see if they string a chord.

For me it was best to start with shorter stories (for improving english reading skills) and then I was hooked on a podcast about fantasy/sci-fi and they recommended a novel I couldn't resist starting a novel in english (536 pages). I think it's easier to start with a book or a novel that you wanted to read anyway because of the topic or the writer and not because it's a classic, because especially classic books tend to have strange words and phrases you have to look up very often.

If you want to go for more classical literature anyway maybe you should check out the gutenberg project on the internet, there are DE bookshelfs like DE Kinderbuch with german literature maybe you have to switch the site to german to see them. There are even audiobooks available, so you can practice your listening skills to.

And another, from a different point of view: I love the Harry Potter books and I find that, since I am so familiar with the story, I can make quite a bit of headway with them in other languages. German isn't too hard for me, but Spanish and French were more of a challenge.

Drdrbent wrote: "i never liked the german version of harry potter.

bent"
this isn't a good translation?

I actually like the German version. There is at least one joke in the German version that works better in German than in English. But I am not a native German speaker. I disliked the French version (audiobook) so much that I actually gave it away.