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.