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/lit/ - Literature

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14339641 No.14339641 [Reply] [Original]

Who is the greatest German fiction writer?

>> No.14339659

>>14339641
Brothers Grimm

>> No.14339667

>>14339641
Charles Dickens

>> No.14339674

Kafka, who, as a Jew, is incidentally the best writer the German language has ever seen, of fiction or any other medium.

>> No.14339678

>>14339641
Hitler. He made up a lot of false things about the Jewish people.

>> No.14339691

>>14339641
Homer (he was germanic-nordic)

>> No.14339764

>>14339641
Dazai or possibly Soseki, its a toss up

>> No.14339805

>>14339659
I read it cover to cover twice in English. I am working my way through the Palletti books in the original archaic German. This is definitely a good choice but I would not put it at the top.

>> No.14339884

>>14339641
Karl Marx

>> No.14339895

>>14339691
[X] Doubt

>> No.14339914

Nietzsche

>> No.14340243

>>14339641
Wagner

>> No.14340458
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14340458

>>14339641
Ethnic German: Hesse
German national: Konsalik
German speaker: Stifter

>> No.14341466

>>14339641
Jünger

>> No.14341476

Goethe wasn't fiction.
So that rules him out, unfortunately.

>> No.14341482

>>14339641
Rilke

>> No.14341490

>>14339641
Ferdinand von Schirach

>> No.14341491
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14341491

Goethe.

>> No.14341525
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14341525

>>14341476
Faust wasn't fiction? Did not know that.

>> No.14342213

>>14340458
stifter was an ethnic german

>> No.14342239

>>14339641
me when I learn german in a couple years

>> No.14342265

>>14339641
Herzog

>> No.14342283

the best fiction in german actually comes from switzerland and austria. germans themselves can only come up with autistic non-fiction.

>> No.14342408

Wittgenstein
Lmao those dudes fiction novels are wild to the point of being laughable.

>> No.14342455

>>14339641
Unironically Hitler. He wrote one book and it changed the entire world as we know it forever.

>> No.14342502

Mann.

>> No.14342522

>>14340458
konsalik is for lonely housewives
>>14341490
schirarch is boring

it‘s goethe or thomas mann

>> No.14342529
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14342529

>>14339674
>watered-down Musil

>> No.14342538

>>14342283
Recs?

>> No.14342751

>>14342283
I don't know a single writer from Switzerland apart from Max Frisch. Austria's uncle Bernhard trumps them all though.

>> No.14342821
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14342821

>>14339641
walter moers

>> No.14342826

von Goethe

>> No.14342831

Marx cause all he wrote was fiction

>> No.14342939

>>14339659
they werent' writers, they collected folk tales

>> No.14342951

>>14342283
>>14342751
Friedrich Dürrenmatt is great, the Bärlach novels especially. I like his style of concatenating many, many clauses of indirect speech, it produces an effect of comfy alienation.

>> No.14342961

>>14342821
a man of true culture, i see

>> No.14342976

probably whoever wrote the qu'uran

>> No.14343001

>>14339641
thomas mann

>> No.14343003

>>14339674
OP said German writer, not German-language writer, though.

>> No.14343008

alfred döblin

>> No.14343011

Hermann Hesse or Franz Kafka

>> No.14343055
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14343055

>>14339641
Goethe and Thomas Mann, for novelists who were German nationals.
Kafka and Hermann Hesse, for other novelists in German.

>> No.14343349

>>14342283
>>14342751
Keller is great too.

>> No.14343360

>>14343011
>>14339674
>>14343055
Kafka was Czech, not German. OP asked for German writers, not writers who wrote in German, hence the fucking Germany map and flag.

>> No.14343448

>>14343360
Post said:

>Goethe and Thomas Mann, for novelists who were German nationals.
>Kafka and Hermann Hesse, for other novelists in German.

Dumbass.

>> No.14343458

Capital bra
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=3hHWQMVkFck

>> No.14343465

>>14343448
I sincerely apologize, fellow /lit/izen.

>> No.14343559

>>14339641
Archimboldi

>> No.14343789
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14343789

Hoffmann

>> No.14343830

>liking Kafka
I hope you didn't get plebfiltered this hard, anon...

>> No.14343853

I don't count Kafka as German or I would say him.

Gunther Grass

>> No.14343854

More of a playwright really, but Schiller is very underrated internationally. Imo he's on par with Goethe even.

>> No.14343860

>>14343854
I hate you

>> No.14343862

>>14343860
Go fuck yourself then

>> No.14343867

>>14343862
but youre the one equating that faggot pleb fucking bourgeoisefaggot bitch to Goethe

>> No.14343871

Bolano or maybe even Gaddis

>> No.14343879

Deutschland ist unironisch nicht für Fiktion sondern für Philosophie (mit gelegentlicher Poesie wie zum Beispiel Spengler - größtes Werk der Spätromantik).

>> No.14343882

>>14343867
Well then I guess fuck Goethe as well since he too had a lot of respect for him.

>> No.14343888

>>14343853
Absolutely patrician, reading The Flounder rn

>> No.14343891

>>14343882
I don't know why you think your opinion is in any way equatable to Goethe's.

>> No.14343895

The answer is Hesse. Goethe is a STRONG contender, but I would actually argue that the sheer breadth of his work puts him more in the category of a public intellectual or man of letters who happened to also write incredible fiction and plays. He isn't fairly defined as a "fiction writer".

>> No.14343902

>>14343891
You're the one negating his opinion you literal fucking mong.

>> No.14344180

What are some decent and recent (1980 and later) good german fiction writers?

>> No.14344184

>>14343902
Again, I don't know why you're equating average human beans to a superduper übermensch like Goethe.

>> No.14344341

Either Karl Marx or Adolf Hitler

>> No.14344381

Is Mann worth reading? I only know of him through Mark E Smith and The Fall. Which other writers could you compare him to?

>> No.14344695

>>14344381
I've only read a book of his short stories which I found a bit hit or miss. Check out Little Herr Friedemann and Tonio Kroger, they're both excellent.

>> No.14345808

>>14341482
>>14341491
>>14343001
>>14343008
>>14342502
>>14341466
based
>>14340458
>>14343895
>>14344341
>>14343011
cringe

Friedrich Hölderlin

>> No.14346159

>>14342529
In what sense?

>> No.14346421

>>14339691
Hol up, so you be sayin we wuz greeks n shit?

>> No.14346513

>>14342751
Robert Walser my friend

>> No.14346562
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14346562

>>14341466
come for the non-fiction, stay for the fiction

>> No.14346573

>>14343448
Kafka himself said that he lived in Prague as a German among Czech.

>> No.14346652

>>14343360
>Kafka was Czech, not German.
Kafka was a jew, a stateless vagrant. You wouldn't be able to tell if he was a czech jew or a german jew in Czechia.

>> No.14346679

>>14346652
he was ashkenazi, jews who merged originally in the HRE you brainlet

>> No.14346688

>>14339641
Thomas Mann

>> No.14346792

>>14344180
Daniel Kehlmann , Maxim Biller.

>> No.14346982

>>14346679
And as you might know, Bohemia and Moravia (ie modern Czechia) were part of, and extremely influential within, the HRE.

>> No.14346998

>>14346792
>Daniel Kehlmann
dude no

>> No.14347042

>>14346159

This confuses me too. I don't get what anon was implying when he compared Kafka and Musil when they aren't even remotely similar, Musil is more closer to Thomas Mann.

>> No.14347121

>>14344180
- Jenny Erpenbeck (mostly her early work, it falls off around "Heimsuchung")
- Walter Moers (don't know much of him, but "Stadt der träumenden Bücher" is a genius love letter to literature)
- Marc-Uwe Kling (specifically his "Känguruh"-works. In "Qualityland" it was at times painfully obvious that his style, especially his simplistic prose, is better suited to shorter, episodic writing, not novels)

Reminded me again that I should read more contemporary german fiction. Well, got some Kracht for the holidays, lets see how that is.

>> No.14347756
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14347756

>>14339691
NOW HOLD ZE PHONE

>> No.14347757

Goethe probably was the greatest literary genius to come out of Germany till this date. To not count him as a fiction writer would be ridiculous. He wrote several novels (which are by definition works of fiction), plays and poems. He was the leading or is at least the best known figure of two literary movements (Sturm und Drang and Weimarer Klassik). His works basically form the foundation of the German canon of literature.
Kafka was arguably one of the greatest German language writers of all time, but not a German by birth; neither was Rilke, who also primarily wrote poetry (I am not sure if OP is looking for the greatest poet of Germany/the German language; if so, Hölderlin, George, Celan and Georg Heym are equally strong contenders imo).
Although I am not a big fan of what I read by him, Mann can be counted among the greatest German novelists I guess. Hesse and Grass definitely do not belong to this circle - they wrote some solid works, but it's like saying that DFW is the greatest novelist of the English language if you have Joyce or Melville.
Daniel Kehlmann, Walter Moers or Marc-Uwe Kling - nice to read but that's the equivalent of saying Margaret Atwood was the greatest writer to have ever taken a pen in her hand.
Goethe gets my vote.

>> No.14347860

jörg fauser

>> No.14347984

>>14343879
peinlich

>> No.14348031

>>14347984
ok retard

>> No.14348074

>>14348031
Da wartet man 16 Stunden auf ein (You) nur um beleidigt zu werden. Muss frustrierend sein oder?

>> No.14348213

>>14347757
totally agree

>> No.14348275

>>14348074
Du schreibst wie eine Schwuchtel

>> No.14348289

>>14339678
t. hollywood narrative

>> No.14348293

>>14339641
Heinrich von Schittensniff

>> No.14348323

>>14348275
Oh man
Entschuldigung, wird nicht wieder vorkommen :(

>> No.14348352

>>14348323
Ich bezweifel, dass dir das möglich ist

>> No.14348360

>>14348352
Hm, schade