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Abstract :
[en] In 2013, the Hungarian writer Terézia Mora was awarded the German Book Prize for her novel "Das Ungeheuer" (The Monster). Her text contrasts with other more current and popular novels in terms of thematic content, textual form, and book design. As such, "Das Ungeheuer" does not really fit into the range of "technically properly narrated" literature that used to be awarded with the prize. Usually, the laureates of the German Book Prize were so-called "Familienromane" (family novels), a currently very popular genre.
By honouring Mora, the jury attempted to increase and preserve the prestige of the young literary prize (awarded since 2005) that is based on the model of the French Prix Goncourt and the English Booker Prize. The German Book Prize had quickly fallen into disrepute with the German literary critics who characterize the Book Prize as a "sheer marketing prize" because it comes along with high ranks in German bestseller lists and many foreign rights sales for its laureates.
As a new award, the German Book Prize has to position itself in the literary field. A detailed analysis of the prize and its laureates therefore allows us to observe how the struggle for prestige develops today and to consider the question whether "attention" can be considered a new form of capital that competes with Bourdieu's symbolic capital, or a variant form of symbolic capital in the current media-drenched (literary) society.
In order to find an answer to this question I am going to confront the marketing and transfer strategies as well as the literary reception of the novels "Die Mittagsfrau" by Julia Franck (laureate in 2007) and "Das Ungeheuer" by Terézia Mora.
