No Heroes - Verlagsgruppe Oetinger .::. Book Rights

Press Release
published on August 7th, 2014 by Deutsche Akademie für Kinder- und Jugendliteratur e.V. Volkach
Anna Seidl Wins Newcomers’ Award for Children’s and Young Adult
Literature
Her debut novel Es wird keine Helden geben (There Are No Heroes) impressed
the jury of the German Academy for Literature for Children and Young Adults
(Deutschen Akademie für Kinder- und Jugendliteratur e.V )
In 2014, the German Academy for Literature for Children and Young Adults in
Volkach is not only awarding its traditional Grand Prize, but also cosponsoring with Paul Maar and Bayernwerk AG a newcomers’ award for
authors of German-language children’s and young adult literature. The 2014
Newcomers’ Award goes to Anna Seidl for her young adult novel Es wird keine
Helden geben (There are no heroes). The jury’s short-list included five other
books.
The presentation will be made in Volkach at 6pm on 25 September 2014.
To the award-winning book
Anna Seidl: Es wird keine Helden geben
There
There Are No Heroes
published by Verlag Friedrich Oetinger, Hamburg 2014
256 pages
ISBN 978-3-7891-4746-3
School shooting: Fifteen-year-old Miriam witnesses the mayhem caused as
one of her schoolmates runs amok and can do nothing but look on helpless as
her injured boyfriend, Tobi, dies.
There's an authentic feel to the entire story from the very beginning because
the author skilfully describes the unfolding events in minute detail – and not
just the external developments, but also the changing emotions on the
inside: the fear, the panic, the despair. From this moment on, nothing can
ever be the same again; far less so after her best friend, Joanne, commits
suicide. The book is a fascinating psychogram of everyone involved from the
perspective of the first-person narrator. With astonishing empathy, the
author reflects on her own behaviour, that of her family, her friends and her
psychologist. Like a mosaic, the full picture is gradually pieced together, not
least thanks to the sophisticated structure of the book, which intersperses
the events that follow with – typographically highlighted – flashbacks.
Miriam’s life is completely overshadowed by the memory of her dead
boyfriend, Tobi. Only very slowly does life begin to take on new meaning for
her, and that includes the merest hint of a new relationship. A key aspect of
this emotionally charged book is the ever-present reference to Matias, the
boy who ran amok. As his status of outsider and constant victim of bullying
gradually comes to light, even his actions no longer remain incomprehensible.
An exceptional debut novel from a young author!
Anna Seidl was born in Freising in 1995 and lives with her parents in Frankfurt
today. Even as a child, she loved to tell stories; now, at 18, she has published
her first novel.
For further information please contact:
Renate Reichstein: [email protected]
Katharina Depken: [email protected]
www.book-rights.com