*It's written in German.
*It sounds quite interesting. I hope it's translated promptly because I'd be glad to read it. I might even REVIEW it.
The Capital, a new novel by prize-winning German author Robert Menasse
BERLIN — The European Union has been the subject of countless academic papers and newspaper articles. It inspired a comic-book character (called Captain Euro) and an anthem (they stole it from Beethoven). There’s even a board game, made in Taiwan, in which players compete for influence with supranational institutions. But no major writer had ever thought to do a novel about it — until Robert Menasse.
The Viennese author moved to Brussels in 2010 to start working on what would become “The Capital,” which won this year’s German Book Prize — the nation’s equivalent to the Prix Goncourt and the Man Booker — earlier this month. All the while, he was unsure if the undertaking made any sense.
What were the options for such a book, after all? A moving romance set in the bureaus of the Directorate General for Health and Food Safety? A Kafkaesque portrait of an anonymous competition official, lost in regulation? The coming-of-age story of a trainee at the European Court of Auditors?
Menasse had something bigger in mind. Inspired by sweeping novels that depict an entire era, like Robert Musil’s “Man Without Qualities” or Joseph Roth’s “Radetzky March,” he hoped the EU would merit a book that was as large, sprawling and multi-faceted as the thing itself....
