THE SNAKE IN WOLF’S CLOTHING

  • What is the secret of good style, how does language become literature? A language and style guide unlike any other: 50 portraits unfold a highly original history of German literature.
  • 50,000 copies sold!

A language and style charmer like no other – in this major work, Michael Maar draws on the sum of his reading experience. What is style, what is jargon, and what traps does almost everyone fall into? How do the elementary particles need to interact for the perfect prose sentence? Maar shows who can do dialogue and who can’t, why Hölderlin is overrated and Rahel Varnhagen underrated, why Kafka is an alien and why Heimito von Doderer is the only one who can hold a candle to Thomas Mann. In fifty portraits, from Kleist to Kronauer, he delicately unfurls a small history of German literature.

After exploring the treasure-house of modern poetry he leads the reader onto the fertile ground of Eros in poetry, exemplifies why Bambi is pornography and how an anonymous writer reveals himself through a stylistic fingerprint. Anyone who finishes Maar’s book, which is academic but an enjoyable read, will be a different reader from now on – and a better writer. Main rule: "There are no rules, at least you can break them all. But you have to be able to."

"Michael Maar’s book showcases what it is about: the thousand and one possibilities of the German language."  Süddeutsche Zeitung

"A great success ... This book is not only an unconventional study of style, but above all an entertaining literary history of style." DIE ZEIT

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  • Publisher: Rowohlt Hardcover
  • Release: 13.10.2020
  • ISBN: 978-3-498-00140-7
  • 656 Pages
  • Author: Michael Maar

Awards

  • 2021: nominiert - Deutscher Sachbuchpreis
  • 2021: empfohlen - SWR Bestenliste
  • 2021: empfohlen - SWR Bestenliste

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Buchcover von THE SNAKE IN WOLF’S CLOTHING: Das Geheimnis großer Literatur
Michael Maar THE SNAKE IN WOLF’S CLOTHING
Portrait von Michael Maar
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Michael Maar

Michael Maar , born in 1960, is a Germanist, author and literary critic. He gained recognition with his work  Geister und Kunst. Neuigkeiten aus dem Zauberberg (1995), for which he received the Johann Heinrich Merck Prize. In 2002 he was accepted by the German Academy for Language and Literature, in 2008 by the Bavarian Academy of Fine Arts, and in 2010 he was awarded the Heinrich Mann Prize. Die Schlange im Wolfspelz was a Spiegel bestseller. Michael Maar has two children and lives in Berlin.