German Book Prize 2023 to Tonio Schachinger
© Christof Jakob
The jury has chosen: the Deutscher Buchpreis 2023 was awarded yesterday to Tonio Schachinger for his novel Echtzeitalter (Realtimes), published by Rowohlt.
2019, Vienna: Teenager Till Kokorda has collected a series of failures in real life, but he is a virtuoso in the world of video games, so much so that he ranks among the world's top 10 gamers. The universe of video games is his happy island, sheltering him from the elite boarding school he is forced to attend after the death of his father, where the sadism of the professors and the viciousness of his classmates reign. But how authentic is this happiness?
From the jury's statement:
“At first glance, Tonio Schachinger’s ‘Echtzeitalter’ is a school story. At second glance, it is much more than that: a social novel that describes its hero Till’s coming-of-age at an elite Viennese boarding school where future key players are prepared for life with reactionary rigour and according to the ideals of the educated bourgeoisie. Till escapes from this repressive environment – embodied by his diabolical teacher Dolinar – into the world of gaming. With subtle irony, Schachinger mirrors the political and social conditions of the present: brute force issues forth from educated pupils. The world of computer games offers a place of fantasy and freedom. In a narratively brilliant and contemporary way, the novel negotiates the question of literature’s place in society.”
The award ceremony took place in the Kaisersaal of the Römer in Frankfurt. The prize is endowed with EUR 25,000, while the other finalists received EUR 2,500 each.
