In his Booker Prize-winning "Prophet Song", Paul Lynch succeeds in transforming our fragile political present into a bleak vision more relevant than many political treatises

In "Der Teufelsgriff" (The Devil's Grip) Lina Wolff masterfully tells the story of an "amour fou" between a Swedish woman and an Italian man in Florence

Tash Aw's memoir "Strangers on a Pier" is an illuminating and touching document about the search for family and national identity in times of migration

„Intermezzo“ - a musical interlude, an unexpected chess move, and now Sally Rooney’s latest novel, in which she tackles the universal themes of grief, loss and love

In "What you can get", Clemens Böckmann gives a harrowing insight into the life of a sex worker who spied for the Stasi and into the "real existing socialism" of the German Democratic Republic, which was dissolved in 1989

With his three cycles in "Die Erde hebt uns auf", Tom Schulz has produced an outstanding volume of poetry that is as beautifully sad as it is formally rigorous, political in identity and combative

In "Kritik der großen Geste" (Critique of the grand gesture), sociology professor Armin Nassehi calls for politicians to refrain from making huge demands in times of major crises and opt instead for a policy of small steps

Joseph O'Neill's boldly composed and carefully researched football novel "Godwin" plays with the question of whether a biography with any degree of integrity can still unfold in this crazy world

In "The World of Tomorrow: A Sovereign Democratic Europe - and its Enemies", Robert Menasse asks whether nationalism is becoming the gravedigger of the EU and whether European elites are failing