''Tannöd'' is a novel by German author Andrea Maria Schenkel. It was first published in Germany in January 2006 and was adapted for film in 2009.

The novel narrates the story of a multiple murder at an isolated Bavarian farm called Tannöd in the 1950s. The points of view of the victims, the witnesses, and the perpetrator are intertwined in 39 short passages. Through these largely separate testimonies, the reader gradually builds a complete picture of the events that lead a rural family, headed by a tyrannical, abusive father to all be brutally murdered.

Background

The novel is based on the unsolved murder of an entire family in 1922 on the farmstead

Hinterkaifeck The Hinterkaifeck murders occurred on the evening of 31 March 1922, when six inhabitants of a small Bavarian farmstead, located approximately north of Munich, Germany, were murdered by an unknown assailant. The six victims were Andreas Gruber ...

, Bavaria.

Adaptations

A film adaptation of the novel with the same title ''Tannöd'' was released in cinemas in Germany on 19 November 2009, directed by Bettina Oberli (Wüste-Film West) and starring

Julia Jentsch Julia Jentsch (born 20 February 1978) is a German actress. She has received awards including the Silver Bear, European Film Award, and Deutscher Filmpreis, Lola. She is best known for ''Sophie Scholl – The Final Days'', ''The Edukators'' and '' ...

Monica Bleibtreu Monica Bleibtreu (; May 4, 1944 – May 13, 2009) was an Austrian actress and screenwriter, best known in the German-speaking world for her German film, television and stage roles. Life and career Bleibtreu was born in Vienna, Austria, the daug ...

, and

Volker Bruch Volker Bruch (; born 9 March 1980) is a German television and film actor. He is best known internationally for his leading roles as Wilhelm Winter in the television drama '' Generation War'' (2013) and as Inspector Gereon Rath in the neo-noir ser ...

Awards

* ''2007'':

Deutscher Krimi Preis The Deutscher Krimi Preis, or the ''German Crime Fiction Award'', is the oldest and most prestigious German literary prize for crime fiction. It has been awarded since 1985 by the Bochum Crime Archive. Unlike the Friedrich Glauser Prize, which is ...

, Friedrich Glauser Prize * ''2008'': Swedish Crime Fiction Prize * ''Audiobook'': CORINE-Weltbild-Leserpreis

Publication history

By May 2009 one million copies had been sold of the novel ''Tannöd''.Information on ''Tannöd''
on Andrea Maria Schenkel's homepage. The English translation of the novel was released by Quercus Publishing on 5 June 2008. The title is ''The Murder Farm''. Quercus released a paperback edition of ''The Murder Farm'' on 26 December 2008.

Bibliography

* Andrea Maria Schenkel: ''Tannöd'', Edition Nautilus, Hamburg 2006, * Andrea Maria Schenkel: ''Tannöd'', btb, Munich 2008,

References