Bavarian Book Prize for Clemens Meyer: When he dreamed

Well then, it’s okay. Now Clemens Meyer has also received his first literary prize for “The Projectors”, the Bavarian Book Prize worth 10,000 euros. In his opinion, he should have won the German Book Prize weeks ago for this major novel.

Close coordination

However, it was tight, was the impression during the vote by the three-person jury in the All Saints Court Church of the Munich Residence. In the end it was about Meyer’s novel and that of Martina Hefter, “Hey good morning, how are you?”, which had just been awarded the German Book Prize in mid-October, to Meyer’s loud dismay.

After “FAZ” literary director Andreas Platthaus didn’t want to let go of his favorite and his jury colleague Marie Schoeß from Bayerischer Rundfunk finally broke away from her favorite Alexandra Stahl and voted for Hefter’s novel, it was up to the jury chairman, the “SZ” editor Cornelius Pollmer, who suggested “Hey good morning, how are you?” for the prize, made the decision. And Pollmer said, however comfortable he might have felt about it: “The projectors.”

Good, better, even better

However, there was no sign of a pros and cons or a bitter discussion beforehand: the jury praised all three books effusively, as well as those in the non-fiction category, in which Steffen Mau with his East-West book “Unequally United “won the prize.

This public jury decision demonstrated, above all, that literary prizes are not sporting competitions. That it is difficult to compare literature against one another and classify it as “better” and “even better” and “not quite as good”. All the literary criticism doesn’t help either.

Who writes for prizes anyway?

It would have been bitter for Meyer, especially for economic reasons, if it hadn’t been enough again, despite all his statements that he didn’t write for literary prizes. Martina Hefter certainly doesn’t do that either.

In his words of thanks, Clemens Meyer refrained from expressing exuberant joy or surprise. Instead, he spoke of how literature should never stay on the surface, but should go deeper, “like an echo sounder.” And that she had to fight “again and again to win readers.” There had to be so much pathos that was strangely out of time and equally touching. And it was good. Whether “The Projectors” will one day become a classic, regardless of awards or audience sympathy, that alone will decide anyway: time.