Ulrike Almut Sandig: Flamingos

lit.Cologne Silberschwein Award

Hotlist Award (Best Books of Independent Publishers)

Ulrike Almut Sandig
Flamingos

fiction

176pp (36,900 words)

English sample translation (pdf)

The poetry volumes of Ulrike Almut Sandig were enthusiastically received by both readers and critics and the response to her stories which are now appearing under the title FLAMINGOS will no doubt be the same.

The stories introduce the voice of a new, quite exceptional prose author, who has already made a name for herself in the world of poetry and been awarded numerous awards. Ulrike Almut Sandig’s prose is so new, so fresh, so exceptional and so exceptionally good. Her stories are characterised by the play of memory and the creative power of the imagination, not forgetting fairy tale elements, which she deploys with admirable sureness of touch and precision. A wonderful new voice of whom we can expect a great deal in years to come: the birth of a story-teller.


»Flamingos stand in groups, but each one is alone. They keep their distance. They are watchful. We find them ugly. We find them beautiful. They look as if they’re burning, but it’s not true. They look as if they’re unbreakable, but that is not true either. They give the impression of not being there at all. But they are there. They stand right here among us and they’re heavy. Yet on the surface of the shallow water they get away from us. And then they fly up.«

Rights sold

Previously published (rights reverted)
Bulgaria – Black Flamingo
India (Hindi) – Saar Sansaar (first serial)
Ukraine – Courier Cryvbasu (first serial)
US – Words Without Borders (first serial)

paperback - S. Fischer

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Reviews

»A beguiling discovery.«
Die Berliner Literaturkritik – Most Beautiful Books 2010

»Her texts are indeed so alive, so full of perception that they leave it to the reader whether he wishes to follow the obvious or the ambiguous trail. The scenes of the death of an old man, a child’s misunderstanding or the the slow departure of a blind cello player: they may be read as a mindgame about the trap doors of realistic narrative - or not.«

Süddeutsche Zeitung

»Can lyric poets write prose? No, says prejudice. Yes, proves Ulrike Almut Sandig with her collection of 11 ambiguous stories, FLAMINGOS. (...)
Sandig is without doubt one of the most notable young German lyricists: (...) Sometimes her texts are carried by a fairytale-like tone - sometimes suspending the boundaries between what is probable and what is surreal, without ever slipping into the absurd. (...) Ulrike Almut Sandig is a prose writer who abides by the autonomy of the fictional. With FLAMINGOS she has opened a playing area for herself.«
SPIEGEL ONLINE

»Sandig takes reality and bends it like few can: she subducts the gravity. She tells uncanny, weird stories, plays with perspective as she writes her way through the generations. Her stories are about loneliness and loss, about people who are different. (...) Beautiful sentences and beautiful pictures.«
Die literarische Welt

»Those with a predilection for stories that are told in a special way, for prose that shines like poetry, for challenging texts that require a careful reader – they will make a great discovery in FLAMINGOS.«
Dresdner Neueste Nachrichten

»Sandig’s stories are set on a fairytale level and take on different levels of allusion, mixing the surreal, the unlikely and the likely in a plausible manner. Besides, they are carefully drafted.«
Frankfurter Rundschau

»A stunning prose debut. A particular strength of this collection is the variety of narrative voices and subject matter, which ensure that each story is new and remarkable in its own right, yet at the same time that it resonates with some of the key ideas and motifs of the others in this collection. (...) The lucidity and poetry of Sandig’s prose make each of these stories a joy to read.«
New Books in German

»Our Top Winter Pick.«
tubuk.com

»Amazing, unsettling stories that reach right into the heart of poetry.«
The Daily Frown

»Dense, unique stories of poetic beauty.«
DRS (Swiss Radio)

»Every word is well considered, yet written with an enviable lightness.«
Neues Deutschland

»With her painfully playful and consistently composed stories Ulrike Almut Sandig shows what we know already: she knows how to write good stories.«
Leipziger Almanach

»In the end there are eleven extracts from eleven different lives, which stand for themselves without pathos. The essential can be found between the lines. You will have to decide for yourself, whether to laugh or cry.«
rezianer.de

More titles by Ulrike Almut Sandig

Ulrike Almut Sandig: i am a field full of rapeseed hide the roe and shine like thirteen oil paintings laid on top of each otherUlrike Almut Sandig: Thick of It (Dickicht)Ulrike Almut Sandig: Against DisappearanceUlrike Almut Sandig: Monsters like usUlrike Almut Sandig: Shining Sheep