Serge Joncour's panorama of rural life in late 20thC France won the Prix Femina in 2020 and was shortlisted for the Dublin Literary Award in an English translation by Louise Rogers Lalaurie. It's set at Les Bertranges, a family farm deep in the south-west. Opening with the long hot summer of 1976, and closing with the cataclysmic storm of December 31 1999, the novel takes an affectionate look back at the period - Mitterand's presidential campaign, the eco-protests on the Larzac plateau, Chernobyl - with climate alarm bells ringing in the background. Alexandre is set to inherit the family farm, a yoke he assumes unquestioningly. The route of a new motorway poses an existential threat, but his love for a German student from behind the Wall, and the attentions of her eco-terrorist friends may prove his biggest challenge yet.

BUY THE BOOK: https://guardianbookshop.com/human-nature-9781913547196/

"An outstanding, big, compassionate novel... BY telling the stoery of days gone by, Joncour makes us reflect on those yet to come." Le Figaro.

Translator bio
Louise Rogers Lalaurie is a writer and translator from French, with a focus on art, fiction, and travel.

Author bio
Serge Joncour (b. 1961) is the author of 18 acclaimed novels, including three titles translated into English: Human Nature (2022), Wild Dog (2020) and Lean On Me (2022).

Sophia Merwald’s award-winning debut (Alfred Döblin Prize 2025) is a fiercely idiosyncratic novel about queer kinship, anti-establishment homemaking, and the precarious construction of safety. With fairy-tale logic and postmodern mythmaking, it creates a world where utopia and threat sit side by side, and where the most intimate forms of care are constantly tested by memory, violence, and the pressure of the outside world. ‘Outsize’ is not a straightforward realist narrative. It is stranger than that, deliberately surreal, and committed to building its own language. Its voice-led fiction, queer domestic mythologies, and playful forms carry real emotional weight and make it a distinctive, unsettling, and oddly tender read.

Translator bio

Rob Myatt translates into his native English (UK and US) from German, Danish, Swedish, Norwegian, Russian, Polish and Luxembourgish, specialising in legal, ESG, finance, marketing, culture and literary texts.
He is a Qualified Member (MITI) of the Institute of Translation and Interpreting, an Intermediate Member of the Chartered Institute of Editors and Proofreaders, and a member of DELT (the Association of Danish-English Literary Translators). His work was recognised with the Goethe-Institut Translation Award 2023. His website is https://polyglotliterature.co.uk/.

Author bio
Sophia Merwald studied Journalism and Film and Media Culture and works as a freelance journalist. Sperrgut (‘Outsize’) is her first novel, and received several awards before even being published, including the Alfred Döblin Prize. She lives and works in Munich.

For rights info contact: Contact: Annemarie Blumenhagen // rights@ullstein-buchverlage.de // Phone +49 (0)30 23456 450

The translator has obtained permission from the original rights holder to translate this sample and to share a recording of it on Translators Aloud.

THE POWERLESSNESS OF INTERNATIONAL JUSTICE - THE RETURN OF WAR AND CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY

https://www.new-books-in-german.com/recommendations/the-powerlessness-of-international-law/

With the Nuremberg Trials, a new chapter in the history of international law began after the Second World War. And after the Cold War, a rule-based world order appeared realistic.
However, this is not the reality of the early 21st century – international law appears to be in ruins, brute force seems to prevail, and the global community seems to be settling into cynicism or resignation. Safferling’s treatise is concise, competent, personal, and passionate.
Despite its seemingly sombre title, the book ultimately offers an optimistic outlook:
Safferling argues convincingly that international law should not be written off as a regulatory framework for global relations. In the author’s firm belief, it will ultimately assert its relevance and force. As readers move through the book, it becomes increasingly clear that
there are compelling reasons to share this hope.

"An impressive and simultaneously disquieting book about the capabilities and limitations of the international legal order […] Equal parts analysis, diagnosis and warning cry."– Peggy Fiebig, Deutschlandfunk (Andruck)

"International law has seen better days, and Christoph Safferling does not pretend to his readers that all is well. But it is precisely this realism that makes his book so well worth reading." – NZZ Geschichte

"Safferling skilfully reconstructs the debates on peace and international law from 1945 to the present day, including the very latest developments." – Hendrik Simon, FAZ

Author/translator bio
Christoph Safferling, born in 1971, is Professor of Criminal Law, Criminal Procedure Law, International Criminal Law and International Law at the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg.
He is the director of the International Nuremberg Principles Academy

https://www.dtv.de/autor/christoph-safferling-7908

Translation funding guaranteed by New Books in German. https://www.new-books-in-german.com/