Special Event! Meet the author live via Zoom!
The Book: The Murder Farm by Andrea Maria Schenkel (English translation by Anthea Bell, Quercus, 2008: first published in German as Tannöd, 2006)
Hosted by Shelley Stephenson and Keith Brown
More details about the book and the book club meeting, with historical background about the crime and questions about the book:
https://potluckdinner.org/misc/murder_farm_details.pdf
Author bio: Andrea Maria Schenkel is from Regensburg, Germany, which has been one of Tempe’s sister cities since 1976. She wrote her first novel, Tannöd, when she was in her 40s, after working since the age of 16 for Germany’s telephone company. Since this breakthrough success, she has gone on to write five more novels. More recently, she has embarked on formal higher education in the US, currently pursuing a PhD in Comparative Literature at the City University of New York Graduate Center. Andrea is joining our book club by Zoom on February 24 2025!
Reading Global Book Club: Tempe Public Library's Reading Global Book Club reads fiction and non-fiction books focusing on Tempe's Sister Cities. Each book is either written by an author from one of Tempe's Sister Cities, or focuses on those cities, and each book club meeting will include discussions led by individuals with deep experience in the diverse and compelling histories and cultures of these communities. The club meets once per month. All Reading Global Book Club meetings are held at the Tempe Public Library, 6:00pm-7:30pm.
Publication: Tannöd (named for the fictional village where it is set) took Andrea nine months to write. It was published in German by Nautilus, a small independent press, and quickly became a bestseller: it has since been translated into 20 languages. It won the 2007 Deutscher Krimi Preis, annually awarded to Germany’s best crime novel. Her second novel (published in English as Ice Cold) won the 2008 prize, making Schenkel the only author to win the award in consecutive years. Upon that book's US release in 2015, the New York Times wrote "she has sparked a renewed interest in the genre and inspired other writers in Germany."
What If I Have Not Read the Book? We find that most attendees at our book club meetings are excited about reading these books and come to the meetings having read all or part of the books. But everybody is welcome at the book club meetings, even if they haven't read the book! We have great discussions, great guests, etc., and everyone can enjoy and participate, regardless of how much they read.
Profile of the author upon U.S. publication:
https://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/11/arts/international/best-selling-german-crime-novel-breaks-into-american-market.html?_r=0
Essay by the translator, Anthea Bell, on the art of "invisible translation":
https://www.brunel.ac.uk/creative-writing/research/entertext/documents/entertext0431-supplement/Anthea-Bell-pdf-Translation-as-Illusion.pdf
Two articles on the 1922 Hinterkaifeck murder case, on which the book is based:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hinterkaifeck_murders
https://vocal.media/criminal/the-unsolved-hinterkaifeck-murders
Items guests have signed up to bring:
J. R: ?