ARTS.21 presents the shortlist for this year’s German Book Prize. Rainer Merkel's «Lichtjahre entfernt» (Light Years Away) explores the vicissitudes of love. Norbert Scheuer's «Überm Rauschen» (The Rushing of Water) is a novel about childhood with autobiographical elements. Kathrin Schmidt's novel «Du stirbst nicht» (You're Not Going to Die) depicts the interior life of a woman who has suffered a cerebral hemorrhage. «Die Frequenzen» (The Frequencies) by Clemens J. Setz revolves around the stories of two childhood friends whose paths cross again. Stephan Thome's debut novel, «Grenzgang» (Walking the Boundaries) takes a look at the search for happiness. The critics' favorite is Herta Müller's «Atemschaukel» (Everything I Possess I Carry With Me), a novel about the fate of ethnic Germans from Romania, focusing on one young man in a Soviet labor camp after World War II.