Oct 2, 2006, 17:57 GMT
Frankfurt - Katharina Hacker, 39, won Monday Germany's top award for contemporary novels, the 25,000-euro (32,000-dollar) German Book Prize, for her novel, Die Habenichtse (The Have-Nothings).
A seven-member committee chose the winner from a short-list of six, announcing it in Frankfurt on the eve of the Frankfurt Book Fair. The prize, currently in its second year, is similar to the Booker Prize in Britain, but for novels written in German.
Frankfurt-born Hacker, who is a graduate in philosophy and Jewish studies and spent from 1990 until 1996 in Israel, currently lives in Berlin. She first aroused attention with novels in 2000 and 2003.
Die Habenichtse describes a successful young couple who meet at a Berlin party on September 11, 2001, the day of the suicide-hijack attacks on the World Trade Center in New York, and move to London together, where their lives gradually become disturbed.
The prize committee praised Hacker for showing how world events can affect the lives of individuals, and how an inability to make or sympathize with decisions can clash with a need for 'existential' experience.
The prize, instituted by the German booksellers' and publishers' association Boersenverein, is intended to make German novels better known internationally. Last year's winner was Es geht uns gut (We are alright) by Austrian novelist Arno Geiger.
The other five novels short-listed received prizes of 2,500 euros (3,170 dollars) each.
Those five novelists and titles were Martin Walser (Angstbluete), Ingo Schulze (Neue Leben), Ilja Trojanow (Der Weltensammler), Thomas Hettche (Woraus wir gemacht sind) and Sasa Stanisic (Wie der Soldat das Grammofon repariert).
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