Subverting the institutionalized reading tour: Rafik schami and Daniel Kehlmann

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

1-1-2014

Abstract

Germany ismore prolific than any other country in theworld in promoting its authors through book tours. Given the demands placed upon Germany's authors through the institutionally organized reading circuit, contemporary authors sometimes turn their experiences of these tours into themes in their own works. This essay primarily examines two novels in which the institution of the 'Lesereise' is a significant focus: Rafik Schami's 'Sieben Doppelgänger' (1999) and Daniel Kehlmann's 'Ruhm' (2009). Both texts treat the difficulties and irritations to which authors are subject when they engage in such tours. While Schami's novel uses the motif of the Double to explore Germans' (mis)perception of cultural alterity and to underscore why the author took a hiatus from the reading circuit late in the 1990s, Kehlmann's 'Ruhm', in which the institutionalized reading tour constitutes only one, albeit significant, thread, broadly examines issues of celebrity and identity in our highly technological age. © W. S. Maney & Son Ltd 2014.

Publication Source (Journal or Book title)

Oxford German Studies

First Page

55

Last Page

68

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