Books published solely in German seldom receive international attention. Rightly or wrongly, Deutsch has a reputation for being near-impenetrable to non-native speakers. As Mark Twain observed in his wonderful essay That Awful German Language more than 130 years ago, it “ought to be gently and reverently set aside among the dead languages, for only the dead have time to learn it”.
Thus when a German language book causes a global stir, it must be of relevance beyond the narrow national confines. This explains the scores of articles dedicated to Deutschland schafft sich ab (Germany abolishes itself). Written by former politician and central banker Thilo Sarrazin, it covers topics such as the effects of the welfare state on the country’s underclass, demographic change and the ageing society, the failure of public education, and the problems of integrating Muslim migrants.
Without even being available outside German-speaking countries, the book has been discussed in newspapers from The Wall Street Journal to the Jerusalem Post. It was also reviewed positively in Britain’s prestigious Prospect Magazine - apparently a first for a foreign language publication.
In supposedly self-abolishing Germany, Sarrazin’s controversial book became an unlikely success, selling more than a million copies to date. The Germans, of course, have always had a propensity for doom and gloom,
