Fall 2015 - Aufbau Verlag

Foreign Rights Guide
Fall 2015
Christian
Buder
Verena Boos
Isabella Straub
Bov Bjerg
Eva
Baronsky
Janko Marklein
Heike Specht
Anja Marschall
Freda
Wolff
CONTENT:
Literary Fiction Blumenbar
Bov Bjerg
»Auerhaus«
3
Janko Marklein
»Florian Berg ist sterblich«
4
Crime/Thriller
Isabella Straub
»Das Fest des Windrads«
5
Freda Wolff
»Töte ihn, dann darf sie leben«
15
Biography & Memoir
Dinesh Bauer
»Toter Winkel«
16
Heike Specht
»Curd Jürgens«
25
Anja Marschall
»Lizzis letzter Tango«
17
Manfred Flügge
»Das Jahrhundert der Manns«
26
Joan Weng
»Feine Leute«
18
Lorenz S. Beckhardt
»Der Jude mit dem Hakenkreuz«
27
Christian Buder
»Der Tote im Moor«
19
Literary Fiction Aufbau
Martenstein Harald & Tom Peuckert
»Schwarzes Gold aus Warnemünde« 6
Ulrich Schacht
»Grimsey«
Eva Baronsky
»Manchmal rot«
Verena Boos
»Blutorangen«
7
8
Matthias Keidtel
»Frau Endlich geht«
Raymond A. Scofield
»Der große Lord«
Guido Dieckmann
»Die sieben Templer«
14
Christian Buder
»Schwimmen ohne nass zu werden« 23
Anne Esser & Karen Krüger
»Bosporus Reloaded«
24
9
Non-Fiction
Popular Fiction
Ellen Berg
»Alles Tofu, oder was?«
Natalie Simon
»Das Lied des blauen Mondes«
10
11
12
13
Victor Klemperer
»Man möchte immer weinen und
lachen in einem.
Revolutionstagebuch 1919«
20
Angela Rohr
»Lager«
21
Alexander Krützfeldt
»Wir sind Cyborgs«
22
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION
PLEASE CONTACT:
Photo credits (f.l.t.r) :
Stefan Schweiger, Alois Jauch, Winfried Höh,
Kay Itting, Milena Schlösser, Kai Kaufmann
Diana Klessen
Foreign Rights Manager
Tel: +49-30-28394-123
[email protected]
Literary Fiction
»WHO WOULDN’T WANT TO LIVE IN
AUERHAUS« DAVID WAGNER
Six friends and a promise: their lives shouldn’t be filed away in folders labeled Birth –
School – Work – Death. That’s why they move in together, into Auerhaus. Flatmates in
the country in the 80s – unheard of. And it’s not just their own lives they want to save,
but also their best friend Frieder’s. He isn’t so sure why he should keep on living.
Bov Bjerg’s storytelling is perceptive and electrifying as he examines love, death, friendship and the lives of six idealists whose resourcefulness is nothing other than selfdefense
against reality; whose struggle for happiness is also a fight for life and death.
»It has a good sound, it has power. And suddenly I’m 17 or 18 again, like the protagonists, the
wildness of youth: I want to set out with them, break out with them, love, be young and stupid.«
Clemens Meyer
»Auerhaus shows that the value of a community grows from the particularities of its individuals. A beautiful, warm-hearted book.« Terézia Mora
ielena S
Photo: N
Bov Bjerg
Auerhaus
Auerhaus
Novel. 240 pp.
Blumenbar. Hardcover
2015, July
Sample translation available
»This isn’t pop. But in truth Auerhaus is more pop than literature, that’s named like it: every
word is positioned right, everything that could be wrong, dispensable, mere artist’s nonsense,
is not there. Clear warm empathetic and emphatic prose, that is read effortless and also won’t
leave no longer.« Die Welt
chlosser
Bov Bjerg, born 1965 studied linguistics, politics, and
literature in Berlin, Amsterdam and at the German Institute for Literature in Leipzig. Bjerg is the founder of several reading series, including Reformbühne Heim & Welt and
Mittwochsfazit, which won the German Cabaret Prize. He
is also a recipient of the MDR Literature Prize. His debut
novel, Deadline, was published in 2008. He lives in Berlin.
»Auerhaus is a very specific coming of age novel: full of life and death-like sadness. And when
the circle closes at the end, you really want to begin again, to let yourself in for that tone, that
sound anew and to hear Frieder’s laughing again.« ndr
3
Literary Fiction
THE ANTIHERO OF HIS GENERATION: JADED,
WITTY AND FULL OF LONGING
Florian Berg is a walking contradiction. No wonder, with parents like these: his dad’s the
priest in charge of weddings for their district of Lower Saxony, and his mum is the priest
who deals with funerals. Florian goes to study in Leipzig, but contradictions follow in his
wake: he’s a couch potato and an adventurer, drawn to girls yet repulsed by them, longs
for love but is afraid of it. Then one day he gets off the sofa and sets out on a journey –
but hardly has he begun before he realises that the biggest score he has to settle is with
himself.
»Janko Marklein is a phenomenal chronicler of the abysses of West German youth.«
Olga Grjasnowa
»Florian Berg is a fabulous weirdo who even gives the boys from The Big Bang
Theory a run for their money.« Michael Wildenhain
at
Photo: K
K aufman
n
Janko Marklein was born in Bremen in 1988. He studied
literary writing at the German Institute for Literature, in
Leipzig, and philosophy at the University of Leipzig, as well
as at the Free University of Berlin. He spent a year as an
exchange student in Santiago. Marklein was awarded first
prize at ‘open mike 2012’ and also received a 2012 Bremen
author‘s grant for Florian Berg is Mortal.
Janko Marklein
Florian Berg ist sterblich
Florian Berg is Mortal
Novel. 336 pp.
Blumenbar. Hardcover
2015, August
»Just as the meeting was about to end, Anna Kuszlak asked
Florian for his name, in order to demonstrate another piece of
logical reasoning: from the two sentences ‘all human beings are
mortal’ and ‘Florian Berg is a human being’, it logically followed
that ‘Florian Berg is mortal’.«
4
Literary Fiction
WOULDN’T IT BE NICE IF THINGS WERE NICER?
The Festival of the Windmill is a novel about the affronts of everyday life, about stumbling
on the professional ladder and the attempt to choose the right path in life when you’re
starting from the wrong point.
In early evening Greta’s train comes to an unexpected stop just outside of a provincial
Austrian town. She’s on her way to a big endoscopy conference in San Marino and to
the promotion she’s sure she’ll get. She doesn’t have much time, so she jumps from the
train window. When she stumbles across the taxi driver Jurek at the edge of town, she
doesn‘t realise she’s surprised him during one of his rare mating attempts. And little does
she suspect that aloof Jurek and the austere village are just the beginning of her greatest
challenge: an encounter with herself. Her entire course is changed that weekend when
the windmill, a relic of the American occupation, goes up in ceremonial flames.
Isabella Straub
Das Fest des Windrads
The Festival of the Windmill
Novel. 352 pp.
Blumenbar. Hardcover
2015, March
»Isabella Straub’s tale is bold and energetic. We gladly follow her into the most absurd everyday situations.« NZZ
»A critique of our times conducted in a fleet-footed tone that skilfully shifts between tragedy
and comedy.« ORF Radio Broadcaster
Photo: S
tefa n Sch
weiger
Isabella Straub was born in 1968 in Vienna. She studied
philosophy and German language and literature. She has
worked as a journalist for a large Austrian daily newspaper,
and as an advertising copywriter in Klagenfurt am Wörthersee. Her novel Looking In was shortlisted for the Bremen
Promotion Prize and the Franz Tumler Prize, and it won the
Erfurter Herbstlese Debut Prize.
P R E V I O U S P U B L I C AT I O N S :
Isabella Straub
Südbalkon
Looking In
Novel. 254 pp.
Blumenbar. Hardcover
2013, March
Sample translation available
Selected for New Books in German
5
Literary Fiction
The GDR has survived –
and all of a sudden it‘s the richest
country in the world
In the autumn of 1989 an enormous oil reserve is discovered off the coast of East Germany. Not only does the GDR survive, but all of a sudden it’s the richest country in the
world, richer even than Saudi Arabia. And yet this black gold is a mixed blessing.
2015 sees the GDR celebrate the twenty-fifth anniversary of petroleum-socialism, the
envy of its brothers and sisters in the impoverished West. By taking on different identities, two daring reporters have achieved what others can only dream of: a glimpse behind
the curtain. The West German Martenstein and the dissident East German Peuckert
come face to face with the dark side of the empire, at every level of society. Going undercover as migrant workers, they are exploited in the service of petro-communism.
As masseurs, porters and fast-food peddlers they are literally treated like dirt, while as
undercover reporters they are feted by the rich and powerful. Yet despite all the humiliations and dangers, they manage to find friendship and – yes – even love.
Harald Martenstein, born in Mainz, West Germany, fronted the band This Is What You
Wanted. He has worked as a hotel porter in Berlin, the capital of the GDR, and as a
fast-food worker on the island of Hiddensee. Martenstein has been sentenced to prison
multiple times.*
Harald Martenstein
Tom Peuckert
Schwarzes Gold aus Warnemünde
Black Gold from Warnemünde
Novel. 256 pp.
Aufbau. Hardcover
2015, August
»Harald Martenstein und Tom Peuckert have achieved what the state party of East Germany
never did: they have sketched a country no one wants to flee from.« Die Zeit
»Sharp criticism of society, served with humor.« Die Welt
Tom Peuckert, was born in Leipzig and grew up in the GDR. He has been published
in the West under various pseudonyms, and his anonymous blog Private Pankow is
legendary. He is known as the East German Wallraff.*
*according to the book
6
Literary Fiction
A brilliant voice,
elegant and powerful
The tiny aeroplane has brought a middle-aged man straight from Akureyri to Grimsey, a
small Icelandic island located directly on the Arctic Circle. This is the fifth time he’s set
foot on Arctic soil, having travelled extensively – it’s almost as if he’s collecting islands.
His journey takes him across the barren landscape and into a church, where he can
hear a strange buzzing sound: there are flies, countless flies, but also dead ones, caught
and clumped together. Outside, surrounded by loneliness and nature, memories of the
past flood back: building islands out of sand on the beach as a child; rooting through
waste-paper storage facilities looking for books as a teenager; rebelling and being
arrested as a grown man. A photographer and journalist, he soon needs new rolls of film
and something to eat, meets friendly locals, and sees the same young boy again and again
– everything would seem completely normal, if it weren’t for all those white flecks...
Ulrich Schacht, born in Hoheneck prison, grew up in Wismar, East Germany. In 1973
he was sentenced to seven years’ imprisonment for ‘subversive agitation’. He was released
in West Germany in 1976. There he worked as a feature-story editor and head reporter
for the newspaper Die Welt. Schacht has received various prizes and literary grants, including the Theodor Wolff Prize for Excellence in Journalism. He is known as a determined reporter who feels responsible not to convention, but to a humanistic tradition.
Since 1998 he has been living in Sweden.
Ulrich Schacht
Grimsey
Grimsey
Novel. 189 pp.
Aufbau. Hardcover
2015, August
»The island-collector has set foot on an unusual specimen: the island of Grimsey in a treeless
world, very small, on the Arctic Circle, filled with the cries of birds and the bodies of seagulls
white as snow. Your mind is immediately thronged with cinematic images – other islands,
another nature and another life. This book is a wonderful publication.« Sarah Kirsch
7
Literary Fiction
»I’ve only just started
to be somebody.«
In this modern fairy tale, a real-life short-circuit causes two normally separate worlds to
crash together: that of a successful lawyer, and the other of an illegal cleaning woman.
Both will have to let go of everything they never thought to question before.
Everything is going well: Christian is about to make a great business deal. Unfortunately
first he has to get rid of the senior executive of his firm, close an extravagant Swiss money
laundering account and finally accept that his girlfriend has left him.
He only gets to know his cleaning lady Angelina because she falls off of a ladder in his
apartment. When she wakes up in the hospital, she can no longer remember or write her
name. As she researches the woman she used to be, in disbelief, she reinvents herself.
The world of music reveals itself to her, and the world of letters she didn’t before know
existed. In the process, she develops a self-awareness that Christian finds increasingly
fascinating – and that leaves him ever more uncertain himself.
Eva Baronsky’s warm-hearted novel recounts the story of two people who have to let go
of everything they’re certain of.
Eva Baronsky, was born in 1968 and lives in Taunus. For her extraordinary and extremely successful debut novel, Herr Mozart Wakes Up, she received the promotion award of the
Friedrich Hölderlin Prize. Her second novel, Magnolia Sleep, was published in 2011.
Eva Baronsky
Manchmal rot
Sometimes Red
Novel. 352 pp.
Aufbau. Hardcover
2015, February
P R E V I O U S P U B L I C AT I O N S :
Eva Baronsky
Herr Mozart wacht auf
Herr Mozart Wakes Up
Novel. 350 pp.
Aufbau. Hardcover
2009, July
Rights sold to 11 countries
8
Literary Fiction
Empathy is, first of all,
an act of imagination
For the young Spanish woman Maite, studying abroad in Munich is an opportunity to flee
her conservative family. Her home in Valencia, famous for its flawless oranges wrapped
in tissue paper, becomes foreign to her, as does her family. She falls in love with Carlos,
who comes from a German-Spanish family and befriends his grandfather Antonio, who
collects orange wrappers. Maite breaks Antonio’s silence with her questions about the
past. She has to get to the bottom of the question: how did her father end up wearing a
German Wehrmacht uniform? And what is Antonio still concealing from Maite, even
if he sits with her at the kitchen table and tells of his escape from Spain? When a mass
grave from the Franco era is opened, the fates of her boyfriend’s family and her own
finally come to light.
Verena Boos’ impressive debut about the subtle differences between guilt and duty links
German and Spanish history over the course of three generations, touching us as only
literature can.
Verena Boos, was born in 1977 in Rottweil and now lives in Frankfurt. She studied
sociology and English literature, and completed a doctorate in history. She spent many
years in Italy, Great Britain and Spain. She has worked as a journalist, lecturer and in
fundraising. Since 2010, she has lived as a freelance author and editor.
»An astonishing and worthwhile debut novel that presents a diversity of material as is normally only seen from our great writers.« Thomas Lehr
Verena Boos
Blutorangen
Blood Oranges
Novel. 411 pp.
Aufbau. Hardcover
2015, March
RIGHTS SOLD:
Spain/Spanish World (Plataforma)
»This moment is the eye of a time-storm
that reaches from the big bang to the end of days.
These sixty-five years, during which the murderers upheld
injustice, were nothing more than a shudder,
a quake across the face of the earth.«
9
Popular Fiction
I’ll take mine with soy, please!
For Dana, it never rains but it pours. First her boyfriend Paul walks out on her after a
completely disastrous ‘romantic’ dinner. Then her grumpy father moves in with her and
starts getting on her nerves. Finally, her plan to pleasantly surprise the customers at her
small bistro with vegan food goes horribly wrong – even her chef Hung Tai thinks Dana’s
cooking is an affront to good taste. Only Philipp, a regular at her restaurant, remains undeterred, determinedly working his way through tofu-seaweed ragout and seitan schnitzel. Meanwhile, the scheming real-estate agent Müller-Merten is getting increasingly
devious, and she’s got her sights set on the building that houses Dana’s restaurant. But
then Dana discovers the soothing effects of romantic vegan cooking, and decides to fight
back. Her meat-loving father actually turns out to be incredibly helpful. Then all of a sudden comes a bolt from the blue: quite unexpectedly, Dana falls madly in love.
Ellen Berg
Alles Tofu, oder was?
So It‘s All Tofu, or What?
Novel. 334 pp.
atb. Paperback
2015, May
P R E V I O U S P U B L I C AT I O N S :
Ellen Berg, born in 1969, studied German literature and later worked as a tour guide and
in the catering business. Today she lives with her daughter on a small farm in the Allgäu.
Rights to her previous books have been sold to Poland, the Czech Republic, China and
Latvia.
»Wonderfully funny.« Tina
»A great book – refreshing, alive and easy to read. Ellen Berg’s humorous writing let’s you
smirk while reading.« vegan live
»When meat-eaters meet vegans, humour becomes the best possibility to approach the other’s
way of living.« Bild
Over 700,000 copies sold
10
Popular Fiction
A wonderfully comic tale
of marriage
Marten Finally, an author who writes how-to books on pets and small animals, has been
married to his wife Silke for twenty years. As far as he’s concerned, there's no reason
things can’t continue along exactly the same lines for the next twenty. But ever since
their two children moved out six months earlier, everything has been different for Marten. When he goes to sit down at his old place at the breakfast table one morning – from
which his children ousted him decades before – his wife looks at him as if he’d just
insulted her. He can’t explain her reaction, and is suddenly gripped by the fear that she
might leave him.
Matthias Keidtel
Frau Endlich geht
Frau Finally Leaves
Novel. 304 pp.
Rütten & Loening. Hardcover
2015, September
What should he do to avoid this – in his view – harrowing future as a lonely, malnourished alcoholic sitting in a bedsit? Should he try to make his wife jealous? Should he
plan a surprise party and see if that works?
Marten decides to go for broke. He gets involved with Renate, a colleague who has idolised him for a long time, but soon everything begins to go wrong in spectacular fashion,
as it turns out his wife Silke has plans of her own...
Matthias Keidtel was born in Schleswig-Holstein in 1967, growing up in Tehran and
Tokyo. He studied history and German studies in Berlin. Initially taking on various side
jobs as a copywriter, cigar seller and assistant at a film company, he has worked full-time
as a writer since 1998. For more about the author, visit www.keidtel.de.
»Matthias Keidtel is a warm-hearted, insanely funny and occasionally genuinely wise writer.
Who has to come to terms with the fact that I adore him.« Jörg Thadeusz
P R E V I O U S P U B L I C AT I O N S :
Matthias Keidtel
Karaoke für Herta
Karaoke for Herta
Novel. 256 pp.
Rütten & Loening. Hardcover
2014, April
11
Popular Fiction
What happened next
to Cedric Fauntleroy…
Constable Kincaid is astonished when a dishevelled, confused-looking young man in a
clown costume with two llamas in tow and a penguin under his arm wanders into the
sleepy police station in Wyndham Towers one Christmas Eve. The strange young man
has an extraordinary story to tell. As a child he became Cedric Fauntleroy, heir to the
Earl of Dorincourt. But then he and his beloved mother were caught up in a fiendish intrigue, which now, twenty-one years later, is reaching its dramatic climax… Little Lord
Fauntleroy’s moving journey from New York did not come to an end with Christmas at
the castle. Raymond A. Scofield reveals what happened to the lovable little boy next.
A heart-warming and cheerful story of friendship, love and kindness – and a narcissistic
llama.
Raymond A. Scofield’s real name is Gert Anhalt. He is a reporter with the German
broadcaster ZDF, and for many years was their correspondent in China and Japan. He
has written numerous novels and thrillers, including The Jade Palace and The Tibet Conspiracy.
Raymond A. Scofield
Der große Lord
The Great Lord
Novel. 255 pp.
atb. Paperback
2015, September
At last, a sequel to
the world-famous novel Little Lord Fauntleroy
by Frances Hodgson Burnett.
12
Popular Fiction
The world’s greatest secret
Seven Knights Templar have survived the decimation of their order. Each knight has
been entrusted with a gemstone by Thomas Lermond, who is living in the old Templar
commandery disguised as a merchant. The stones contain clues to the greatest secret
of the order, once the most powerful in Christendom – a secret that could change the
world.
But in the year 1314, the Inquisition is hunting them down and their legacy is in danger.
Trying to save the secret of the order, the old knight Thomas Lermond sends word to his
brothers, scattered across half of Europe, urging them to gather in Berlin one last time.
The seven Templars’ journey soon spirals into nightmare: shadowy forces are conspiring
to ensure that they never accomplish their goal, and they struggle to tell friend from foe.
And at their arrival in Berlin, their adversaries are already waiting for them – which
leaves the knights no choice but to take the arms one final time.
Guido Dieckmann
Die sieben Templer
The Seven Templars
Novel. 400 pp.
atb. Paperback
2015, December
RIGHTS SOLD:
Italy (Newton Compton)
P R E V I O U S P U B L I C AT I O N S :
Guido Dieckmann, born in 1969, is a freelance author living in the Palatinate region of
southwest Germany. He has made his name writing a number of historical novels, and
his book based on the film Luther became a bestseller.
Over 310,000 copies sold
13
Popular Fiction
A melody that changed a life and
the magic of a new love
Juliette has just gotten out of a relationship that she thought was true love. Now all she
wants is to restore furniture in peace. But then she loses the lease to her beloved workshop, and her capricious Aunt Manon, whom she hasn’t seen for years, surprises her
by showing up in Paris and monopolising her time. When Gérard walks into her life, it
shows her that love is worth fighting for.
Manon, the worldly, charismatic chansonnière returns to Paris after forty years – the
city where she met the love of her life. In Paris in the 60s, she meets Jean-Claude. For
both of them, it is the one great, true love. When they make music together, somehow
the world is transformed. They become stars as a performing couple, but no one can
know of their love – Jean-Claude is engaged. And the family of Jean-Claude’s fiancée
saved his parents from being deported to Germany during the war.
Natalie Simon is the pseudonym of the authors Tania Schlie and Katrin Traoré. Tania
Schlie writes novels, as well as books about art and art history, and she works as a freelance editor. In addition to her work as an author, Katrin Traoré works at a foundation.
They have been friends since university and spent a year in Paris at the same time. That’s
when they fell in love with the city. And even back then, they were crazy about beautiful
love stories. The Song of the Blue Moon is their first novel written together.
Natalie Simon
Das Lied des blauen Mondes
The Song of the Blue Moon
Novel. 304 pp.
atb. Paperback
2015, June
As romantic as a walk
along the Seine –
a mesmerising love story!
14
Crime/Thriller
A devious game: would you murder
your husband – to save your
daughter?
Freda Wolff
Töte ihn, dann darf sie leben
Kill Him and I’ll Let Her Live
Thriller. 384 pp.
Rütten & Loening. Hardcover
2015, September
Just over a year has passed since a sociopath kidnapped the psychologist Merette Schulman’s daughter Julia and her friend, and the two girls only narrowly escaped death at
his hands. Merette’s ex-husband Jan-Ole, a special investigator with an elite police unit,
manages to persuade her to take a break in an isolated cabin in southern Norway. But
on the very first night, Jan-Ole is attacked. While he’s still unconscious, Merette gets a
message from Bergen: Aksel, the sociopath, has broken out of the mental hospital and
nobody knows where he is.
Merette is convinced that Aksel is responsible for the attack on Jan-Ole, and on the very
same day, she receives a text from him with a photo of her daughter Julia. Not only has
he tracked down Merette and Jan-Ole to wreak revenge, but he knows where Julia is too.
Another text follows: “Kill him and I’ll let her live.”
Freda Wolff is the pseudonym of Ulrike Gerold and Wolfram Hänel (both born in
1956). They studied German literature in Berlin and worked at various theatres before
beginning to write together. Today they live and work mainly in Hannover – for over
twenty years they’ve written in the same room, at the same desk.
»Trust me, when you’ve finished reading this thriller you’ll think twice about taking that
holiday in a cabin in the Norwegian forest!« Dietmar Bär
RIGHTS SOLD:
Italy (Newton Compton)
P R E V I O U S P U B L I C AT I O N S :
Freda Wolff
Schwesterlein muss sterben
Little Sister Has To Die
Thriller. 400 pp.
Rütten & Loening. Hardcover
2014, March
RIGHTS SOLD:
Italy (Newton Compton)
Poland (Swiat Ksiazki)
Sample translation available
15
Crime/Thriller
Mountains and murder – a quirky
crime novel set in the Alps
Inspector Korbinian Eyrainer of the Grenzberg Police isn’t much fond of murder. When
he stumbles across a dead man while chopping wood, however, his investigative instincts
are awoken. Sixtus Eder, a rather shady character, has been pinned to a tree with a pitchfork. The dead man’s brother draws suspicion on himself by doing a runner that very
same night. Is it a dark family secret or plain old greed? The village policeman chorsch
Wammetsberger, who has taken a personal interest in the mysterious case, is asking the
same question. His wife Elfriede is the dead man’s niece. Eyrainer and his newfound ally
receive a tip-off from the Eder brothers’ neighbour, and they agree to meet, but he never
shows up to the rendezvous – as it turns out, he’s already dead, impaled like a cocktail
cherry on a stake beneath his hunting turret. It takes time for things to get dicey for
Eyrainer, as rural Bavaria is by nature a peaceful place.
There are several people trying to solve the case besides Inspector Eyrainer, an old-school
Bavarian, but only one of them keeps getting in his way: village constable Schorsch
Wammetsberger, who sets about trying to solve the case with his own rather unorthodox
methods…
Hans-Peter Dinesh Bauer, born in 1963, comes from near Bad Tölz. He has worked for
more than twenty-five years as a film and print journalist. He lives in Munich and Tölzer
Land, in the Bavarian Alps.
Dinesh Bauer
Toter Winkel
Blind Spot
Crime. 416 pp.
atb. Paperback
2015, October
A love letter to the white-and-blue landscape
of the Bavarian mountains
16
Crime/Thriller
Two pensioners and a murder:
retired, not tired!
When her husband Willi, a moderately successful neighbourhood hustler, kicks the bucket and the haul from his last bank robbery falls into her hands, Elisabeth Böttcher –
known as Lizzi – doesn’t have to think twice. Willi’s final gift will go towards making the
twilight of her life more pleasant and financing her stay at a fancy retirement home. It’s
just her luck, however, that her daughter has such terrible taste in men, bringing home
a small-time crook who nicks all of Lizzi’s ‘savings’. As she tries to get her money back,
aided by the nurse Mareike, she attracts the attention of the retired Inspector Pfeiffer,
who is still trying to track down the cash Willi stole. When one of the residents at the
retirement home is shot, Lizzi and her companions are thrust into the middle of a murder
investigation, tangling with a killer who has more than one name on his list…
Anja Marschall, born in Hamburg in 1962, has worked as a hotel maid in London, an
apple-picker in Israel, in a kiosk on Hamburg Pier and as a project leader at a university. Today she lives and works as a journalist and author in Schleswig-Holstein, having
published numerous crime novels and a historical novel. For more about the author visit
www.anja-marschall.de.
Anja Marschall
Lizzis letzter Tango
Lizzi’s Last Tango
Crime. 308 pp.
atb. Paperback
2015, September
“Lizzi is gloriously headstrong, and the most sympathetic heroine I’ve come across in a good
long while.” Gisa Pauly
»Lizzi is no interchangeable pensioner. Be ready for a hilarious and criminal reading!«
Norddeutsche Rundschau
17
Crime/Thriller
A crime novel set in the
Roaring Twenties in Berlin
Berlin, the summer of 1925. Film star Carl von Bäumer has never lacked persistence.
Whatever he wants, he gets, and now he wants Detective Superintendent Paul Genzer,
a no-nonsense policeman. What better way to get into his good books than to solve the
mystery of Gottlieb Straumann’s murder? After all, Carl not only knows the family,
but has access to the most elevated social circles in Berlin, where the identity of the
killer is an open secret – Straumann’s unfaithful wife Bernice is behind it. But Carl is
not convinced of her guilt, and his suspicions are confirmed when Bernice suddenly
overdoses on morphine. Is it suicide, accident or murder? The plot thickens still further
when Straumann’s brother is shot, a maid dies and the family banker commits suicide.
Joan Weng
Feine Leute
Polite Society
Crime. 384 pp.
atb. Paperback
2016, February
Joan Weng, born in 1984, has been a writer since 2010, and has been awarded the Hattinger Förder Prize, the Wiener Werkstatt Prize, the German Female Authors’ Association’s Goldstaub Prize and a stipend from the Heinz Weiler Foundation, among other
nominations and runner-up prizes.
»Mister Straumann was suspecting something and wanted definite
proof. He was that kind of guy. He had to know things inside out
before making any decisions.«
18
Crime/Thriller
Mysterious, exciting,
philosophical!
Alice is stubborn and brilliant, a devotee of the philosopher Wittgenstein, with whom
she occasionally speaks. She has to find her place at a new school, where she’s treated like
an outsider. When someone finds a corpse while walking through the bog, at first only
one archaeologist is interested in the discovery, and soon there’s talk of a new Oetzi. But
then Alice finds out that the body isn’t from the Stone Age, but rather was dropped there
twenty or thirty years ago. Its hands were bound and the body strangely mutilated.
Christian Buder
Der Tote im Moor
The Body in the Bog
Thriller. 346 pp.
atb. Paperback
2015, July
Lisa Bork, her only friend at school, is absent one day – the day her father is murdered.
For the police, there is no doubt that Lisa killed her father with a knife. But she doesn’t
say a word to anyone and is diagnosed with schizophrenia and put in an institution. Alice
doesn’t believe that Lisa killed her father. To save her, she must find out who really committed the murder.
Christian Buder born 1968, studied business management and then philosophy in
Marburg, Paris and Chicago. As a freelance author and journalist, he writes articles for
Die Zeit and other magazines. He currently lives in Memmingen. The Body in the Bog is
his second novel.
P R E V I O U S P U B L I C AT I O N S :
“A challenging pleasure, a true rarity.” Ostthüringer Zeitung
“Philosophical, mystical, exhilarating – a first-class thriller.” Buch Magazin
Christian Buder
Die Eistoten
The Ice Deaths
Thriller. 384 pp.
atb. Paperback
2013, August
19
Non-Fiction
A sensational first-time publication:
Victor Klemperer on the »wild Munich days«
of 1919
As one of the most important chroniclers of German history, Victor Klemperer depicts
the chaos that followed the First World War and the failure of the November Revolution,
drawn from a previously unpublished chapter of his journals (1942) and long-forgotten
1919 newspaper articles from besieged Munich. Particularly notable: for the first time,
Klemperer is forced to take a stand. He presents a very intimate, unique perspective on
figures such as Ernst Mühsam, Max Levien and Kurt Eisner, and an evaluation of contemporary events from a young, rather conservative, educated middle-class perspective.
He is increasingly aware of the worsening antisemitism also to be found in Munich. And
he gets to know some of the people who will betray him under the Nazis – or who will
stand by him.
Victor Klemperer
Man möchte immer weinen und
lachen in einem. Revolutionstagebuch 1919
I always want tears and laughter
united as one. Revolution Diary 1919
Non-Fiction. 263 pp.
With 16 illustrations
2015, July
RIGHTS SOLD :
Netherlands (Atlas/Contact)
Poland (Universitas)
English Worldwide (Polity Books)
Spain/Spanish World (Stella Maris)
Sweden (Lind & Co.)
Selected for New Books in German
Victor Klemperer was born in 1881, the eighth child of a rabbi. He taught Romance
languages and literature at the Dresden Technical College until his compulsory dismissal
under Nazi laws in 1935. He avoided deportation because he was married to a non-Jew
and documented in minute detail the daily terror of the Nazi regime. His diaries were
thought to have been lost for decades when they were finally published in the 1990s and
became an international success, translated into 18 languages.
»One is immediately captured by Klemperer’s tone. He emerges as a thorough and forthright
person in each paragraph. Who can write like this – everything is interesting about him.«
Daniel Kehlmann
»Klemperer has once again proven himself to be a brilliant reporter and an intelligent
essayist. A sensational testimony.« Die Zeit
On the Bestseller List Non-Fiction since publication (best position #8)
»With his talent for dramatic portrayals, for reflection, and his knack for boiling things
down to their essence, Revolution Diary 1919 gives us a more intimate view of Klemperer than we’ve ever seen before.« Die Welt
20
Non-Fiction
A panorama of cruelty and despotism
When the unnamed narrator is brought to a gulag in 1942, she is entering a world where
normalcy does not exist. From now on, the only law is that no one has any rights. As a
doctor there, she works in »hospitals« without medicine or instruments. She is just as
much at the mercy of hunger and cold as she is at the mercy of the camp hierarchy. Even
after she has served her completely unjustified sentence, she must remain in exile – another kind of confinement that is no less humiliating or perilous. She tries to protect
herself by developing a hard outer shell against all emotion, but eventually cracks form
in it, as the treacherous remains of affection and caring come to light from beneath all of
the hatred. A tremendous documentation of the will to survive under the most hopeless
of conditions.
This shocking autobiographically based novel stands out among all of the stories from
the gulag as the author analyses the gulag system with unforgiving sang-froid and observes how her heroine tries to survive in order to be »the memory for all of time.« Rohr’s
narration of unthinkable events, of »villains who seem immortal«, is nearly indifferent,
and often sarcastic. For the first time Camp is available in a faithful and complete edition
from the author’s estate.
Angela Rohr (1890–1985) was born in Moravian Znojmo. She belonged to the Dada
scene, was friends with Rilke and Freud, wrote expressionist prose texts and married several times. In 1925, she travelled with her husband to Moscow where she was arrested
in 1941 and sentenced to five years in the gulag then exiled. She was absolved of all
charges in 1957 and returned to Moscow. 2010 saw the publication of her sensational
collection of stories The Bird.
Angela Rohr
Lager
Camp
Novel. 395 pp.
The first faithful and complete edition
Forthcoming for November, 2015
RIGHTS SOLD :
Italy (Bompiani)
Netherlands (Arbeiderspers)
Selected for New Books in German
(Forgotten Gems)
»The name Rohr belongs in the heavens of terror and beauty whose fixed stars are known
as Franz Kafka and Primo Levi, Jorge Semprun and Varlam Shalamov. Angela Rohr’s star
is smaller because the volume of her work is slimmer, but it shines with the same relentless
brightness.« der spiegel
»In her panorama of hunger, nakedness and death, the author makes use of the linguistic forms
she developed in her early expressionistic work. At those moments, it recalls Dante’s underworld,
Dostoyevsky’s house of the dead, Kafka’s penal colony.« nzz
»After half a century in a drawer, this prose can now finally find its readers.« süddeutsche zeitung
21
Non-Fiction
A BOOK THAT GETS UNDER YOUR SKIN
In 2045, so experts believe, we might reach what’s called ‘singularity’: when artificial
intelligence overtakes that of human beings. It doesn’t leave us much time to address the
complex question of how we deal with technology that is already learning to simulate
our thought processes. The relationship between man and machine is the central issue of
our generation. Already, the routes we take are chosen by our smartphones, and multinational corporations determine where and what we buy. Already, systems and algorithms
imitate our thought and speech patterns. At what point do you become a cyborg? Who
decides how this new technology is used, and who controls it?
Alexander Krützfeldt
Wir sind Cyborgs
We Are Cyborgs
Non-Fiction. 240 pp.
Blumenbar. Hardcover
2015, November
Alexander Krützfeldt meets the world’s most prominent and pioneering experts on
cyborgs, offering a panoramic overview of great hopes and legitimate fears. On one point
they are all agreed: the need to discuss the issue on a broader social level has never been
more urgent.
»If we want to survive as a species, we need to start heading in new directions.«
Tim Cannon, Grindhouse Wetware, USA
P R E V I O U S P U B L I C AT I O N S :
Photo: J.
Singer
Alexander Krützfeldt studied journalism, and specialises in transnational reportage in unusual environments.
He used a pseudonym to publish Deep Web: The Dark
Side of the Internet, an investigation into the dangers and
possibilities of the invisible ‘Tor’ network that sparked a
heated debate.
Anonymous
Deep Web. Die dunkle Seite des Internets
Deep Web: The Dark Side of the Internet
Non-Fiction. 224 pp.
Blumenbar. Hardcover
2014, May
RIGHTS SOLD:
Serbia (Laguna)
China/Chinese Simplex (Bookzone Publishing)
22
Non-Fiction
The art of finding happiness
Have you ever asked yourself why some people are always successful, while others are
perpetually hounded by bad luck? Have you ever wondered why most people in society
settle for lives that don’t really make them happy? Do you ever stop to think why so many
people can’t even imagine living any other way, let alone actually make changes to their
lives? Do you believe that a happy and contented life is genetically or socially determined? Or do you believe that we are in control of our lives, and that society is shaped
by each individual person?
Christian Buder, an author and philosopher, has consulted philosophy’s big thinkers, undertaking a literary journey that leads him to a question of significance to us all: what
exactly is a happy life? An amusing and richly informative book about how philosophy
can change our lives.
Christian Buder, born in 1968, studied business management and then philosophy in
Marburg, Paris and Chicago. As a freelance author and journalist, he writes articles for
Die Zeit and other magazines. He now lives in Memmingen. He has previously published
two very unusual crime novels with Aufbau, in which the heroine solves murders with
the aid of philosophy: The Ice Deaths and The Body in the Bog.
Christian Buder
Schwimmen ohne nass zu werden.
Wie man mit Philosophie glücklich wird
Swimming Without Getting Wet.
How Philosophy Can Make You Happy
Non-Fiction. 224 pp.
atb. Paperback
2015, October
Happiness isn’t a state you achieve but a way of
thinking, and – ultimately – a way of living.
23
Non-Fiction
Where is Turkey headed?
As a bridge between Europe and the Islamic world, Turkey is extremely important. This
book explains the developments taking place in Turkey itself, as well as the conflicts
within the Turkish community in Germany, examining the lives of its members.
Two years after protests broke out against Erdogan’s government and the destruction of
Gezi Park in Istanbul in the summer of 2013, the authors explore the new Turkey, and the
cultural, environmental and economic developments that have fundamentally altered it.
East and West, Occident and Orient collide at the Bosphorus. Since a conservative Islamic party came to power under Recep Erdogan, young people have been under more
pressure than ever to develop themselves personally and artistically, and to counteract
the changes taking place, which are rooted in the Turkish president’s own financial interests and restrictive moral code. It is an eye-opening account of a whole generation, doing
away with all the common clichés.
Anna Esser and Karen Krüger both grew up in Istanbul and completed their schooling
there. Anna Esser returned to Istanbul in 2006, initially working as a German teacher
before moving to the cultural department of the Goethe Institut. Karen Krüger became
a journalist, with a special focus on Turkey. As a features editor for the newspapers FAZ
and FAS she reports on Turkish life in Germany.
Anne Esser
Karen Krüger
Bosporus reloaded
The Bosphorus Reloaded
Non-Fiction. 335 pp.
Aufbau. Hardcover
2015, October
»When asking young people in Istanbul what recent event has been
the most relevant to them, you always hear: Gezi. Of course Gezi.
And then they tell with shining eyes how amazing it was, in the Gezi
Park. The new beginning. The hope. The togetherness.«
24
Biography & Memoir
A bon-vivant and lateral thinker
He was a star of German post-war cinema, legendary for his urbane manners, popularity
with women and glamorous parties. He was also the best-paid and most in-demand German actor of his age, and the only one who was truly internationally famous. For the first
time, this biography tells the story of his life, both on set and with the jet-set.
His work was his first love, said Jürgens. He performed in almost a hundred plays and
shot 140 films over the course of his fifty-year career in Europe and the USA. Having
grown up in Munich and Berlin, he remained in Germany after 1933, without his family,
though he only made non-political films. His international breakthrough came in 1955
after the war was over, with Carl Zuckmayer’s The Devil’s General, and he went on to star
alongside Yves Montand, Brigitte Bardot and Robert Mitchum. Meanwhile his turbulent
private life repeatedly hit the headlines: married a total of five times, he collected houses
at the most sophisticated addresses in Europe, but also sympathised with Willy Brandt’s
left-leaning Social Democratic Party and the revolutionary generation of 1968. Entertaining and knowledgeable, Heike Specht explores the contradictory life of this unique,
internationally renowned German star.
Heike Specht was born in 1974 and studied German literature and history in Munich.
She received her doctorate for her work on the family of Leon Feuchtwanger and worked
for many years as an editor at a publishing house. Today she lives as a freelance writer
and author in Zurich.
Heike Specht
Curd Jürgens. General und Gentlemen.
Die Biographie
Curd Jürgens. General and Gentleman.
The Biography
Biography. 480 pp.
Aufbau. Hardcover
2015, October
P R E V I O U S P U B L I C AT I O N S :
Heike Specht
Lilli Palmer. Die preußische Diva
Lilli Palmer. The Prussian Diva
Biography. 352 pp.
Aufbau. Clothbound
2014, May
25
Biography & Memoir
The first biography of
the Mann family
The history of this legendary family is a wellspring of exemplary curricula vitae, a panorama of fascinating figures which illustrate the fates of humanity in the 20th century.
Manfred Flügge, a notable expert on the Mann family history, has written a panorama
that spans a century in life of the celebrated literary clan, which he uses to illustrate the
intellectual, political and cultural development of Germany to the present. Within the
history of this family unfolds that of all Germany: full of contradictions and suffering,
glamor and glory, mistakes and sonderwege, achievements and cultural heritage.
They are the perfect model for understanding the society and history of Germany and its
position in the world, and in many ways they serve as a lens through which the Germans’
characteristics and tendencies can be better understood.
Manfred Flügge, was born in 1946 and studied Romance languages and literature
and history in Münster and Lille. He has published numerous books, most recently the
much-acclaimed biographies The Four Lives of Martha Feuchtwanger and Stéphane Hessel
– A Happy Rebel appeared from Aufbau. He has won various awards, including the European Literary Prize of Cognac. He lives as a freelance author and translator in Berlin.
Manfred Flügge
Das Jahrhundert der Manns
The Mann Century
Non-Fiction. 352 pp.
Aufbau. Hardcover
2015, May
RIGHTS SOLD:
Spain/Spanish World (EDHASA)
China/Chinese Simplex (Foreign Language
Teaching and Research Publ.)
»I believe that there was never a more significant, original or interesting family in
Germany than the Manns.« Marcel Reich-Ranicki
»Manfred Flügge clearly depicts in his book how much the Manns were perceiving the
fame of their family as a duty, a load, a gift and a myth at the same time.« MDR
»The experienced biographer and journalist Manfred Flügge tells not just the story of their
lives but also of their literary careers. He moves with superior ease among the voluminous
sources, masters their works in their entirety and shows not only a confident but also a
very personal approach to the legendary family.« Deutschland Radio Kultur
26
Biography & Memoir
The Jew with the Swastika
Lorenz S. Beckhardt was raised Catholic. It’s only as an adult that he learns about his
Jewish heritage. As he begins to research, he discovers a dramatic German-Jewish family
history, as well as a photo of his grandfather, Fritz. He returned from World War I as the
most highly decorated Jew, and had his fighter plane decorated with a sun symbol for
good luck. After 1933, Fritz Beckhardt (by then a successful businessman) was incarcerated for ‘racial defilement’, but with the help of his old squadron buddy Hermann Göring,
he was released from Buchenwald and could emigrate with his wife. His son Kurt and
daughter Hilde arrived safely in England via the Kindertransport. Other relatives were
deported and murdered.
But in 1950, the family dared to return to the land of their persecution. Lorenz S. Beckhardt depicts the results of the silence and suppression, and the difficult new beginning
in their old homeland, the daily humiliations and the demoralizing fight to recover their
old belongings. A moving book about the survival of a Jewish family in Germany – not
just before 1933, but also after 1945.
Lorenz S. Beckhardt was born in 1961 and holds degrees in both chemistry and journalism. He is an author and an editor for the ARD, WDR and 3sat broadcasting services,
working as a foreign correspondent in Europe and the Middle East. He researched his
grandfather’s history for the WDR documentary The Jew with the Swastika (2007).
Lorenz S. Beckhardt
Der Jude mit dem Hakenkreuz
The Jew with the Swastika
Non-Fiction. 480 pp.
Aufbau. Hardcover
2014, October
RIGHTS SOLD :
Italy (Newton Compton)
Romania (Hasefer)
Selected for New Books in German
»Papa, Hitler will lose the war. … we’ll come back;
even after these years,
there will be Jews living on the Rhine
for a thousand years.«
27
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