DThe George Bushner Prize awarded by the German Language and Poetry Institute is the most prestigious literary prize in the German-speaking world. This year it was awarded to Clemens J. Setz. Therefore, the college takes its publicly announced plan to become more feminine on the one hand and younger on the other hand. The year before, the poet Elke Erb won the prize and was the 11th woman since 1951. On the other hand, Setz, who was born in 1982, is now much younger than his predecessor who was born in 1938.
But beyond this rather non-literary view, what does it mean to support Setz’s decision? The good news is that the Austrian writer represents a kind of literature that exceeds usual expectations. It’s not that his novels such as “Die Resonanzen” (2009), “Indigo” (2012) or “Time Between Woman and Guitar” (2015) were unsuccessful, but Setz has not yet gained a large audience. Even after he had published his first two books with the famous Austrian Residenz-Verlag, he switched to the more famous Suhrkamp-Verlag in 2011.
In return, the author attracted an unusually young audience, because his book-which also applies to prose, stories, and translation-deliberately offers something different from easily consumed novels. In writing, Setz focuses on the present, rather than indulging in mediocre, socially critical statements. His analysis of time is indirect and non-ideological. To this end, he brought his entire personality to the public. His reading and poetry lectures are not just rhetorical activities. He is also a literary explorer: Florian Havemann’s novel “Speedy” was published late last year due to an article by Setz in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung.
The award is also financially lucrative of 50,000 Euros. It was awarded (another literary award that tried to surpass the Bushner Prize with a higher donation, which was reduced to the same level again after a few years, and there was never the courage. The personal prize won at the Darmstadt National Theater was abandoned). I can only hope that the conditions of the epidemic at that time will allow the audience to enter the venue again after the fiasco of the online awards ceremony last year: the live audience at the time was probably two rows of audiences in the big house. But this time Clemens J. Setz’s name should be added.
