Reading for New Books in German

Reader reports are an essential tool in guiding the New Books in German jury as it selects the books we recommend twice a year.

The literary translator Emma Rault recently wrote an article for us on what makes a good report. If you are considering reading for us (or others) it is a hugely helpful source of information and tips.

To read you need to be confident that you can read a fiction or nonfiction book in German and write a report in English covering the book’s style, content, information about the author and whether you recommend it for inclusion in New Books in German. This means you will need to be happy to make an assessment of whether the book is a good example of its genre and whether it might appeal to an English-language readership. You must be reliable and able to meet deadlines.

We supply a template for the report which you can download here.

We pay £80 for a book up to 400 pages in length and £100 for books the are 401+. The fees increase if a book is very long or if a short deadline in required.

If you are interested, please fill in your reading preferences and contact details here. You will be emailed twice a year to see if you are available to read at that time. Work is not guaranteed as we often have many more interested readers than available books.

Browse recent recommendations

New Books in German promotes German-language literature for translation into English in the UK, USA and beyond. We feature recommendations of the best new fiction and non-fiction titles from Austria, Germany and Switzerland. We publish articles and information on books, authors and those who translate or work with them.

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