Wilhelm-Raabe-Preis 2024 goes to Saša Stanišić
The prestigious Wilhelm Raabe Preis 2024 goes to Saša Stanišić for his novel Möchte die Witwe angesprochen werden, platziert sie auf dem Grab die Gießkanne mit dem Ausguss nach vorne (When the Widow Wants Someone To Talk to Her, She Puts the Watering Can on the Grave with the Spout Facing Forward), published by Luchterhand Literaturverlag (Random Verlag) in 2024.
According to the jury:
In this book, Saša Stanišić combines precision in the observed detail and precision in the linguistic implementation depending on the milieus he is illuminating with an intensive examination of older and newer literary references. In it, he recalls how much literature himself absorbed him into the German language after he and his family fled the war in Bosnia to Heidelberg as a young teenager. But he also merges spheres that do not naturally belong together when he intersects the story of a Turkish cleaner with a novella by Arthur Schnitzler or brings his own fictional alter ego into conversation with texts by Heinrich Heine. This is always surprising, sometimes even downright postmodern.
The prize, endowed with 30,000 Euros, is one of the most important literary awards in the German-speaking world. Previous winners include Judith Hermann, Jan Faktor, Judith Schalansky, Thomas Hettche and Clemens J. Setz.
