Brussels, E.U. Capital, Gets a Novel, Both Tart and Empathic<br />The result is thought to be the first novel about Brussels as the capital of the European Union, called "Die Hauptstadt," or "The Capital,"<br />and much to Mr. Menasse’s surprise, it won the 2017 German Book Prize, Germany’s most important literary award.<br />14, 2018<br />BRUSSELS — In one of the more cynical lines in the Danish political TV drama, "Borgen," an aide to the prime minister discusses sending one of her rivals into exile as a European commissioner, saying: "In Brussels, no one can hear you scream."<br />But if the European Union has meaning, surely Brussels must.<br />" He worked hard on "Die Hauptstadt," "but when I gave it to the publisher I had no expectations," he said.<br />that Unknown was right, and I was depressed for two or three years — if you put five, six, seven years of all your emotional and intellectual capacity into one project and no one looks, you can get depressed.<br />United States said that to that extent the European Union is the world’s avant-garde,<br />"I was in Brussels then and in the beginning I really couldn’t believe it." Brussels might have<br />been an historical accident as the capital of the bloc, but it was inevitable for Mr. Menasse.<br />"Its variety is its richness." But it is the very persistence of nationalism, and the increase in power in the European Union of the Council of nation states,<br />that creates the real democratic deficit felt by Europeans toward the Brussels institutions, Mr. Menasse argues.
