2nd day: Bönt and Petersen are favourites

On the second day of the readings, Ralf Bönt and Jens Petersen particularly impressed the jury with their texts. Austrian Linda Stift, on the other hand, failed entirely.

Morning: rejection followed by rapture

Linda Stift’s “Die Welt der schönen Dinge” (The world of beautiful things) opened the second day of the reading competition in Klagenfurt. Karin Fleischanderl, who had invited her to the Bachmann Prize, tried in vain to defend the text against her fellow jury members. Stift’s text failed completely.

The jury’s response was completely different after Ralf Bönt’s reading. Most of the jury members were enthusiastic about his novella excerpt “Fotoeffekt” (Photo effect). The comments about the text by Karl-Gustav Ruch were ambivalent.

Afternoon: positive feedback for Petersen

After an exciting morning of readings, the two German authors, Jens Petersen and Andreas Schäfer, read their texts to the jury on Friday afternoon.

The jury did not agree on whether Petersen’s novel excerpt “Bis dass der Tod” (Until death) was “kitsch” or “art”. Ultimately, however, the positive responses by the experts outweighed the negative ones.

The text by Andreas Schäfer made the jury “want more” – but more “ferocity” (Mangold) in the text was wanted. Despite the death motif, the judges thought it lacked emotional proximity.

Summary of jury assessments:

Linda Stift

Ralf Bönt

Karl Gustav Ruch

Jens Petersen

Andreas Schäfer

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