Sample Translations English

The Projectionists

Sample Translations English
  • Longlisted for the German Book Prize 2024
  • Man Booker International nominations 2017 and 2023 for the English translations of Im Stein and Als wir träumten
  • Film adaptations of Als wir träumten, Die stillen Trabanten and Die Nacht, Die Lichter
  • Clemens Meyer is translated into English, French, Spanish, Italian, Danish, Turkish, Swedish, Croatian, Japanese, Serbian, Arabic, Macedonian, Tamil


English Sample Translation available

The new novel by Clemens Meyer: an epic tale about Europe's crises and the art of storytelling.

 From Leipzig to Belgrade, from the GDR to the People's Republic of Yugoslavia, from silver screen spectacles to adventure novels. Relentless and fast-paced, "The Projectionists" tells the story of our present being crushed by the past - and of incomparable characters: in the Velebit Mountains, a former partisan experiences the adventurous filming of Karl May's Winnetou film adaptations. Decades later, the brutal battles of the Yugoslavian wars take place in these very places - in the midst of it all, a group of young right-wing radicals from Dortmund experience the futility of their ideology. And in Leipzig, the texts of a former patient are discussed at a conference in a psychiatric clinic: How did he manage to disappear without a trace? Was he able to predict the future? And what links him to the world traveller Dr May, who was once also a patient at the clinic?


"Hit of the season" - Frankfurter Rundschau, Judith von Sternburg

"A storyteller like no other." - Andreas Platthaus, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung

"'Projection', however, is the decisive keyword for this autumn's most ambitious [...] German novel" - Andreas Platthaus, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung

"gripping anti-violence and anti-war novel. With its subject matter and the art of storytelling, it is a novel from a different literary league" - der Freitag, Michael Hametner

"An epic, an adventure novel" - SWR Kultur

"As powerful as it is magnificent" - Focus

"There's no question that Clemens Meyer has delivered a real masterpiece" - WDR 3 Kultur am Mittag, Mario Scalla

"This is truly great storytelling." - Radio 3 - rbb, Nadine Kreuzahler

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WEL (Fitzcarraldo)

  • Publisher: S. FISCHER
  • Release: 28.08.2024
  • 1056 pages
Gaby Gerster 2024

Clemens Meyer

Clemens Meyer, born in 1977, lives in Leipzig. His debut novel Als wir träumten came out in 2006, followed by Die Nacht, die Lichter. Stories (2008), Gewalten. Ein Tagebuch (2010) and the novel Im Stein (2013), which was shortlisted for the German Book Prize and longlisted for the Man Booker International Prize in 2017. Clemens Meyer has received numerous awards for his work, including the Prize of the Leipzig Book Fair, the Bremen Literature Prize and the Premio Salerno Libro d’Europa. He was also a finalist for the Gregor von Rezzori Prize in 2017. A number of his short stories have been adapted for the screen, and the feature film Als wir träumten, directed by Andreas Dresen, competed in the Biennale in 2015.
Clemens Meyer's latest collection of stories, Die stillen Trabanten, was published by S. Fischer in 2017.