German author Jenny Erpenbeck and translator Michael Hofmann won the International Booker Prize for fiction on Tuesday for “Kairos,” the story of a tangled love affair during the final years of East Germany’s existence.

The novel beat five other finalists, chosen from 149 submitted novels, for the prize, which recognizes fiction from around the world that has been translated into English and published in the U.K. or Ireland. The 50,000 pounds ($64,000) in prize money is divided between author and translator.

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Canadian broadcaster Eleanor Wachtel, who chaired the five-member judging panel, said Erpenbeck’s novel about the relationship between a student and an older writer is “a richly textured evocation of a tormented love affair, the entanglement of personal and national transformations.”

It’s set in the dying days of the German Democratic Republic, leading up to the fall of the Berlin Wall. Erpenbeck, 57, was born and raised in East Berlin, which was part of East Germany until the country disappeared with German reunification in 1990.

“Like the GDR, (the book) starts with optimism and trust, then unravels so badly,” Wachtel said.

She said Hofmann’s translation captures the “eloquence and eccentricities” of Erpenbeck’s prose.

The International Booker Prize is awarded every year. It is run alongside the Booker Prize for English-language fiction, which will be handed out in the fall.

Last year’s winner was another novel about communism and its legacy in Europe, “Time Shelter” by Bulgarian writer Georgi Gospodinov and translated by Angela Rodel.

The prize was set up to boost the profile of fiction in other languages — which accounts for only a small share of books published in Britain — and to salute the underappreciated work of literary translators.

Hoffman is the first male translator to win the International Booker Prize since it launched in its current form in 2016.

Serbia’s Movement of Socialists party has announced it will draft a bill aiming to restrict the activities of foreign non-governmental organisations operating in the Balkan country.

The draft closely resembles the highly controversial law on foreign agents that is expected to be implemented in Georgia soon.

Defending the draft law, Movement of Socialists MP Bojan Torbica said, “Betraying one’s own country and people can no longer be a highly profitable activity.”

The proposed anti-foreign NGO law could bring more attention to the left-wing nationalist party, which currently has just two MPs in the 250-seat National Assembly.

“I really believe that it is a threat to the Republic of Serbia if there are NGOs that are donated from abroad and work here to propagate Kosovo as an independent state, to propagate the genocide in Srebrenica and the destruction of Republika Srpska,” said Đorđe Komlenski, parliamentary leader of the Movement of Socialists.

The three issues — two of which pertain to neighbouring Bosnia and Herzegovina — have been prominent talking points of nationalist politicians in Serbia ever since the disintegration of the former Yugoslavia and a series of bloody wars in the region in the 1990s.

While it is unclear whether Komlenski and Torbica alone can gather enough support to advance the law past the draft stage, civil society actors, such as the Youth Initiative for Human Rights, are concerned that the bill will impact Serbian society’s future.

Marko Milosavljević from Youth Initiative for Human Rights sees the move as a means of intimidating civil society and independent media. 

“Through these announcements, we actually see the ban on the advocacy of certain democratic principles is kind of desireable,” Milosavljević said.

Serbian voters will go to the polls on 2 June to participate in a rerun of last year’s local election in 66 electoral units, including the capital, Belgrade.

The EU recently criticised Serbia, a candidate for EU membership, for not conducting free and fair elections, citing allegations of voter fraud.

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