Swiss author Dorothee Elmiger has achieved a rare triple win, receiving the German, Bavarian and Swiss book awards for her novel “Die Holländerinnen” (The Dutch Women).
All three award juries were unanimous in praising the deft manner in which Dorothee Elmiger pulls her readers in and never lets go, taking them to a place where light and hope seem to vanish. In short, her novel has attracted universal acclaim.
Elmiger has indeed pulled off quite a feat. Her writing style is challenging, but what she writes is absorbing. In the strict mode of indirect speech, Elmiger narrates the account of an author who, in a lecture, talks about a theatre experiment: “A theatre director phoned her in January three years ago,” she said, asking her whether she would like to take part in a project. He wanted to investigate and re‑enact the disappearance of two Dutch women in the jungle.
With formal concision and subtlety, Elmiger draws her readers into a labyrinthine thicket of stories and references, where the actual events dissolve into the layered act of retelling. The speaker recounts how they would tell each other frightening tales in the jungle camp to ward off the horror stirred by the surrounding darkness and sounds. In her talk, the real jungle becomes a projection of existential fear. The speaker overlays lived experience with cultural references to theory, literature and film. She says that the theatre director often expressed his fondness for Werner Herzog, who always heroically defied every danger during his rainforest productions.
Elmiger knows that all storytelling is inherently uncertain and blurred, and that it always retains an element of indirectness, challenging the notion of what has truly taken place and what is true and genuine. Though it may sound abstract, the art of this novel is that it brings such considerations to life and seduces the reader onto all manner of digressive paths. Indirect speech, however challenging, is handled by Elmiger with such agility and subtlety that it haunts the reader beyond the last page.
Winning three literary awards in quick succession is remarkable. The Bavarian Book Award is a particular surprise, since it is also open to Swiss authors despite its regional nature. This would not happen in Switzerland. Inevitably, one wonders whether books from French-speaking Switzerland or Ticino could achieve something similar.
Prestigious French literary prizes, like the Prix Goncourt, share the same spirit of openness. But only one Swiss author has ever won the Prix Goncourt: Jacques Chessex in 1973 for “L’Ogre”. To date, the returns have also been meagre at the Prix Renaudot (Georges Borgeaud, 1974) and the Prix Femina (Robert Pinget, 1965). Matthias Zschokke won the Prix Femina Étranger for his novel “Maurice à la poule” in 2009, while the 2022 prix du roman Fnac went to Valais author Sarah Jollien-Fardel for “Sa préférée”.
Literary accolades for Ticino authors in Italy have been few and far between. There has never been a Swiss nomination for the renowned Premio Strega. Fleur Jaeggy, who lives in Milan, won the Premio Viareggio in 2002 for her book “Proleterka”. She was also awarded the Premio Bagutta in 1990, a distinction previously conferred on Giorgio Orelli in 2002. However, it will never be possible for a French- or Italian-language author from Switzerland to emulate Elmiger’s triple win for the simple reason that the Swiss book award is only open to German-language works.
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