foreign rights catalogue: backlist fiction · [email protected]. verla u agenbach emser str....

Verlag Klaus Wagenbach Emser Str. 40/41 D–10719 BerlinPhone (00 49) 30 / 23 51 51–0 Fax (00 49) 30 /2 11 61 40

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Foreign rights catalogue:Backlist fiction Stand Oktober 2018

Backlist fiction p. 2

Franz Kafka p. 18

Erich Fried p. 25

Verlag Klaus Wagenbach


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Fiction



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Ursula Ackrill

Zeiden, im Januar

Zeiden, in January

240 pages

Transylvania in winter 1941. War is drawing nearer and threatening to the people of Zeiden. It splits the town into factions. Only Leontine has sensed it coming and has been warning about the imminent danger for a long time. She tries to forget her great love and breaks with her oldest friend: But will she be able to save herself ? Dusk is setting in very early and in the capital city shots are fired.

21st of January 1941. It is winter in Transylvania. The cold coming in from the East has gripped the land of the Saxons a long while ago. Clairvoyant Leontine Philippi, with grey streaks of hair, is writing the chronicle of Zeiden. But she keeps the manuscript under lock and key. Her foster child, a young Romanian girl, buys and sell objects that people trade for money in order to finance their escape. She doesn’t seem to understand any of it. For months Leontine hasn’t spoken a word to her childhood confidant Franz Herfurth. He is now a school doctor in Zeiden, checking the SS- recruits claimed by the Reich and he has good reasons to be suspicious the local idiot. Leontine doesn’t let herself be silenced but knows how to keep silent in spite of the highest danger right to the end.

For centuries Romanian Germans have created their own world, enclosed in their lan-guage and culture on a swathe of land at times belonging to Austria- Hungary and at other times to Romania. Ursula Ackrill tells of people who during Nazism were suffering from radically divided loyalties and who by their opportunism and cowardice incurred guilt on themselves.

A compelling and challenging book about identity and assimilation, love and friendship in agonizing times.

Ursula Ackrill, born 1974 in Kronstadt/Brașov, Transylvania, graduated in German studies and theology from Bucharest University. At the University of Leicester she wrote a PhD thesis on the German writer Christa Wolf. In 2005 she received her master in information management. She now lives and works as a librarian and writer in Nottingham. Zeiden, in January is her first novel.

Shortlisted for the German bookprize Leipzig

Zeiden, im Januar Roman

Ursula Ackrill



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Roland Albrecht

Museum der Unerhörten Dinge

Museum of Unattended Things

120 pages

Have you ever wondered why the wine used for Roman Catholic Communion is white rather than red? Why Edelweiss is so highly regarded? Or why the Austrian empress Maria Theresia insisted on mother- of- pearl buttons for her soldiers?

These are the big questions provoked by the tiny things that Roland Albrecht has dedi-cated an entire Museum to: the stone which inspired Thomas Mann; the tiny part of Walter Benjamin’s type- writer which suddenly lacked; the last tree of a prehistoric forest …

It is the things that seek out the author, and Albrecht is ever ready to listen to their stories. Fantastic , imaginative, tongue- in- cheek, Albrecht leads us beyond the well- trodden paths of historiography onto the thin ice of great discoveries.

The Museum of Unattended Things is a treasure- trove of marvels. Read and see for your-self.

»This man finds answers to questions the world has never heard of!« Memminger Zeitung

»A dadaist collection of curiosities!« Basler Zeitung

Roland Albrecht, born 1950 in Memmingen, Bavaria, photographer and artist with medi-cal training, since 2000 is director of the Museum of Unattended Things in Berlin.

Roland Albrecht

MUSEUMder Unerhörten Dinge



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Ingeborg Bachmann

Ein Ort für Zufälle

A Place for Concurrence

64 pages

Ingeborg Bachmann’s dreamlike portrait of West Berlin, full of incidents that turn into acci-dents. Written in 1964 in Berlin, where Ingeborg Bachmann lived at the time.

Illustrated by Günter Grass and with an extensive afterword by Klaus Wagenbach com-menting on the history and form of this poetic account of the city.

»An exquisite bibliophile edition of this wonderful text by the great Ingeborg Bachmann.« Neue Zeit

Ingeborg Bachmann was born in Klagenfurt, Austria, in 1926; she grew up in Carinthia, studied philosophy at Innsbruck, Graz and Vienna University, where she graduated with a PhD in 1950. Later she lived in Uetikon, Switzerland, Berlin and Rome, where she died in 1973.

Foreign Sales:France (Actes Sud), Japan (Jimbun- Shoin), Poland (Telgte), Slovak Republic (Drewo), UK (Serpent’s Tail)



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Heinz Berggruen

Die Kunst und das Leben

The best Stories about Arts and Life

144 pages

50. 000 copies sold!

This book comprises Heinz Berggruen’s best short portraits, long anecdotes, friendly en counters and rather personal meditations.

Most of them are about famous artists or collectors: the resolute Baron Rothschild and his Metro luxury; the inseparable Giacometti brothers; Klee as the key to paradise; the pecu-liar Gertrude Stein; the unforgettable Helmut Newton; and right amongst them, as always with Berggruen, we meet some stunning characters: prominent guests of the Berggruen Collection like the owner of the Brasserie Lipp or the Duke of Windsor.

»All the episodes are characterized by Berggruen’s untiring curiosity about people, his humour and wisdom. A carefully illustrated album about chance acquaintances and friends, some of them fine connoisseurs of the arts, some masters in the art of living, but all extremely witty.«

Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung

»As art dealer and patron Heinz Berggruen opens his drawer and relates his encounters with artists and clients everybody’s eyes will fill with tears of laughter and nobody’s lips remain shut.« Focus

»Heinz Berggruen tells the most wonderful anecdotes. The legendary former art dealer and latter day patron has many amusing stories to tell and yet remains admiringly discreet.« Der Spiegel

Heinz Berggruen, born 1914 in Berlin, migrated to California in 1936, where he worked as a critic and curator for the San Francisco Museum of Art. In 1947 he set up a gallery in Paris and became famous for his exhibitions of the work of Picasso, Matisse, Braque, Chagall and Klee. In 1996 he returned to Berlin where his collection »Picasso und seine Zeit« is shown at the Stülerbau opposite Charlottenburg Palace. His contribution to classical modern painting earned Heinz Berggruen many honours. He died 2007 in Paris.

Foreign Sales: France (L’ Arche; Bourgois)

Heinz Berggruen

DiE KunstunD Das LEbEn

Schnurren, Erinnerungen, Portraits



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Johannes Bobrowski

Feast of Mice[Mäusefest]

Short stories

144 pages

There he still is, Moise, sitting on his little chair in his little store, delighted about his mice, who in the moon’s silver light are holding a celebration and dance around the bread crust allotted to them. And as the young soldier enters, a German milksop wanting to see how Jewish folk dwell, we still feel the lump in our throats for we already know what Moise for the time being but suspects.

Bobrowski needed but four and a half pages to describe the entire misery the German invasion of Poland brought about and to anchor it in our memories, quietly but all the more persistent.

The twenty- two stories, masterpieces of German prose, get their strength from the wide-open landscapes of the east projected as quiet, clear pictures in front of the reader’s eyes. They are inhabited by all sorts of unconventional and witty people that get entangled in remarkable scenes, all sympathetically observed by Bobrowski and yet overshadowed by the menace of things to come. And they tell of the internal and external devastations that these times left behind, still sympathetic , but melancholy too.

»This author taught me for the first time how pure literature can be – pure in the sense of pure painting: without sketching, but entirely made of paint.« Ingo Schulze

Johannes Bobrowski, born 1917, studied art history in Berlin. He was drafted in 1939 and wrote his first poems during the German military campaign against Russia. In 1949 he returned from Soviet captivity to East Berlin where he started to work as an editor. In 1961 he published his first volume of poetry Sarmatische Zeit and one year later received the award of Group 47. In 1964 he was awarded the Heinrich- Mann- Prize. Since the early 1960s Bobrowski also published pieces in prose. He died in Berlin in 1965.



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Marina Caba Rall

Esperanza

224 pages

Esperanza has never spoken of her childhood, of life under Franco and her first love Alfonso. Daughter Karla has had enough of her silence, when suddenly a stranger appears in Berlin. Apparently her half- brother.

»Why did you actually leave Spain then?« her grandsons ask, still much too young to under-stand. Her grown- up daughter lurches from one crisis to the next. All connections cut, no looking back, that works out fine – until one day a stranger appears at the door, knowing eyes gazing at Esperanza. She left Spain decades ago, found a job in Germany, a good husband in Karl- Otto. Almost forgotten the language of childhood, the smells and colours of the landscape, the poverty, all the memories, all the pain. Esperanza never speaks of the past, yet when Juan turns up in Berlin the family begins to guess how much she left behind in Spain.

The story is not over yet. Accompanied by her daughter, Esperanza sets off for Spain to break the silence and face her demons.

This expertly woven family saga relates the fates of migrant workers and the experience of foreignness, the blackest moments of Spanish history and how successive generations come to terms with the blind spots in their own biographies.

Marina Caba Rall was born in 1964 in Madrid. When she was ten her family moved to Germany, where she grew up in Tübingen. After studying film and theatre, history and philosophy, she trained as a director at the Film and Television Academy in Potsdam-Babelsberg. As well as working for the Spanish service of Deutsche Welle she is a screenwri-ter and has directed numerous films. Esperanza is her first novel. * Digital proof: [email protected]



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Jean Cocteau & Pablo Picasso

Eine Künstlerfreundschaft

Cocteau & PicassoArtists and Friends

96 pages

A book about the lifelong relationship of two artists who couldn’t have been more different and yet managed to maintain an almost paradigmatic friendship. The friendship between the largely homosexual Cocteau and Picasso, who was obsessed with female eroticism, went through three phases: A first phase which culminated in the joint work for Serge Diaghilew’s Ballets Russes and in which Cocteau convinced Picasso to shrug off cubist rigidity. A second phase in which Cocteau vacillates between collaboration with and resistance against the Nazis and in which Picasso completely withdraws from public life. And finally a post- war phase characterized by oscillating between glory and envy, but also by the affectionate attachment of the two artists’ and the wisdom of old age.

»What a feat for Goeppert to show how two proven monomaniacs managed to stay friends for such a long time.« Herwig Warner, Die literarische Welt

Herma C. Goeppert-Frank studied German and Romance languages and general lingui-stics. She received her PhD in 1970 and qualified as university lecturer in 1976. She has been working as a freelance researcher since 1981.

Sebastian Goeppert studied medicine and biology before undertaking postdoctoral research into psychoanalysis and language. He is director of the Department of Medical Psychology at Freiburg University, Germany.

Their joint publications include Pablo Picasso Minotauromachie (1993), Pablo Picasso. Das Antlitz der Muse (2001), and Pindar / Picasso: Die 8. Pythische Ode (2003).

Sebastian und Herma C.Goeppert

Jean Cocteau & Pablo Picasso

Eine Künstlerfreundschaft



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Milena Michiko Flasar

Ich nannte ihn Krawatte

I Called him NecktieNovel

144 pages

Two outsiders meet on a park bench in the middle of Tokyo. The older one is a salaryman, like thousands of others he has been working in the office all his life. He can’t tell his wife that he has lost his job and every morning keeps leaving the house, pretending, with his Bento- Box carefully prepared. The younger man has been locking himself up in his room and refusing all contact to others. The two men start telling one another about their lives, which, after all, have brought them together on the bench: they talk about arranged love marriage and betrayed friendship, about fake family photographs and a forgotten kiss.

The novel, written by a young Austrian author with Japanese roots, is situated in Japan but might just as well take place in any meritocratic Western society. It deals with the risks of failure and the anarchic forces of refusal, about the standardization of human beings and loneliness within the crowd; above all it is a novel about the value of friendship and the power of music and poetry.

»By letting these two losers bit by bit entrust one another with the calamities of their lives Flasˇar unfolds a world of fascinating detail that doesn’t shun away from great notions such as freedom, happiness and truth. With great artistic sensibility Flasˇar manages to turn anecdote into exem-plary story.« Urs Jenny, Der Spiegel

»Milena Flasar’s story is inspired by utmost tenderness. It resembles the close- up scenes of dialogic studio theatre that entirely relies on the power of linguistic expression.«

Anja Hirsch, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung

»A delicate and melancholic book of enormous stylistic beauty and lucidity. An unblemished novel.« Christoph Bartmann, Süddeutsche Zeitung

Foreign Sales: Spain (Siruela), Italy (Einaudi), France (Édition de l'Olivier), Canada (Éditions XYZ), Slovenia (Mladinska knjiga Zalozba), Netherlands (Cossée), Finland (Lurra Editions), USA (New Vessel Press), Sweden (Nilsson förlag), Thailand (Legends Books), Japan (Ikubundo), Vietnam (Kim Dong Publishing), Czech Republic (Dobrovsky BETA)

Milena Michiko Flas arIch nannte ihn Krawatte Roman

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Hans Werner Henze

PhaedraEin Werkbuch

A DiaryIn Collaboration with Christian Lehnert

96 pages with illustrations

Hans Werner Henze grants insight into the creation of his latest opus and at the same time lets us partake in his abundant experiences of life and the world.

A book on the making of Henze’s latest opera which will see its world permiere on the 6th of September 2007 in Berlin.

At the outset the famous composer and the young poet Christian Lehnert expose their new interpretation of the classical story of Phaedra: Phaedra falsely accuses her step- son Hippolytos to have raped her. Her husband Theseus believes her and has Hippolytos dragged to teath by horses. Pheadra kills herself and the Minotaur appears. Goddess Artemis saves Hippolytos and brings him to Lake Nemi in Italy where she patches him up. Hippolytos goes on to live as a forest god.

The story is followed by extensive excerpts of Hans Werner Henze’s diary from the years he has been working on Pheadra and a brief account of Christian Lehnert on his collabo-ration with Henze.

The beautifully illustrated book closes with a portrait of Henze’s music by David Cortes.

»The naturalness with which Henze assumes that he has to respect and look after and even paper his genius in order to extract, nay to set free the most beautiful results is as amazing as it is enviable.« Arno Widmann, Perlentaucher

Hans Werner Henze, born 1926 in Gütersloh, Germany, composed his first works in an elegant, neo- classical style and ever since has been accommodating new influences and impressions, most notably after he moved to Italy in 1953. From the 1960ies when Henze joined the Italian Communist Party political commitments have started to influence his music more strongly until the 1070ies. Since the Henze has increasingly turned to classical forms ant themes.

Hans Werner Henze PHAEDRA Ein Tagebuch



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Juliana Kálnay

A Short Chronicle of Gradual Disappearance

192 pages

Novel

Don is turning into a tree right before the eyes of his wife. Ronda keeps goldfish that don’t want to stay. The twins from 3rd floor aren’t really twins. But everybody knows about the love between Toni and Bell. The people of no. 29 are a curiously conspiratori-al even as they hardly know one another and certainly don’t share their secrets.

House no. 29 is first and foremost Rita’s house as she is almost as old as the building itself. She is observer, mediator and judge, a hub with mysterious capabilities and intentions. Then there are Lina and Don, the couple that survives Don’s fundamental metamorphosis in a rather fruitful way. There is an unknown housemate who nests in the escalator, a child that bites his way through walls and a flat that practically swallows its tenants.

Rita sees what nobody shows and hears what no one says. But before she can impart what she found out little Maia mysteriously disappears.

Juliana Kálnay trained in the writing of great authors like Georges Perec or Julio Cortázar ventures into the surreal and absurd. Her writing is poetic and untimely in the best sense of the word, deeply disquieting and moving.

Juliana Kálnay, born 1988 in Hamburg, grew up in Cologne and Malaga. She has published in German and Spanish anthologies and journals and has won the scholarship for literature of the Cultural Foundation of Schleswig- Holstein in 2016. She presently lives and works in Kiel. A Short Chronicle of Gradual Disappearance is her first novel.

Juliana Kálnay

Eine kurze Chronik des allmählichen Verschwindens Roman

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Foreign sales: Spain (Acantilado), Italy (Giunti) Awards: Aspekte-Literaturpreis for The Best Debut Novel 2017, Hebbel-Preis 2018

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»I haven’t read a debut in a long time that was so disquietingly beautiful.«Julio Cortázar

»Juliana Kálnay so easily and elegantly plays with narrative positions, pitches and literary forms that one cannot help but be impressed by this poetic picaresque novel full of double bottoms and traps.«

Cornelius Wüllenkemper, Süddeutsche Zeitung, 6. February 2017

»Juliana Kálnay found an very personal, pleasant, farcical tone and demonstrates a most brilliant feeling of style.«

Rainer Moritz, Die literarische Welt, 4. February 2017

»A truly exceptional debut. This is pure literature. Cleverly told, comic and serious at the same time.«

Cornelia Geissler, SWR 2 Bestenliste

»This amazing novel almost mischievously stands out from all other contemporary German fiction. We may congratulate the publisher on the discovery of a truly fascinating new author.«

Sigrid Löffler, SWR 2 Bestenliste

»There was not a single line that made me realise that this is Juliana Kálnay’s first novel: It is thrillingly well written, mastering a very particular tone, and using extraordinary imagery. A very great talent.«

Esther Willbrandt, Radio Bremen, 6. February 2017

»Her language is crystal clear, each sentence perfectly coherent. The book’s peculiar atmosphere is familiar to anybody, who has lived in a large anonymous block of flats, and it is the combination of fantastic elements with so clear a language that makes this book so special.«

Julia Encke, Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung, 19. Februar 2017

»This author has found a very personal form for her first novel: There is no over- all plot, the threads of narration dangling loose at all ends – the general picture is but created by tiny little images. Kálnay tells her story by adding gem after gem. She tells no more of life than what can be grasped by fleetingly peeking though a keyhole.

Simon Strauss, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, 28. February 2017


[email protected]

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Eva Roman

Siebenbrunn

128 pages

Welf is gone. Gone for good. Jeanne is left , alone in the cold mansion, each day pushing herself back on her feet. A thoughtful novel about parting, memories, and the bold defi-ance that lies in keeping on living.

Fate struck Jeanne without knocking first. Welf is dead. Now she is alone in Siebenbrunn learning to live around a void. Jeanne

stays in an old mansion at the edge of the forest soaked in spring rain while working her way through the dust at the municipal archive. There she meets red- haired Antonia Weissdorn with golden shoes and a robust humour, an artist assigned to give form to the history of Siebenbrunn.

Things are getting lighter and warmer. But when Welf’s parents decide to sell the man-sion Jeanne stumbles again.

At the same time a young student looking for her hardly known father puts up her tent in the wet forest and takes photographs: of young leaves and lost ducks, overgrown paths and an abandoned school building. She too runs into Antonia who self- confidently amuses herself with her intern Josh, mounts curious installations and demonstrates to the world how easy it is to wring a little happiness from life.

Eva Roman, born 1980 in Aachen, grown up in Augsburg, is now living in Leipzig. She has studied German and Romance literature in Berlin.

Eva Roman

Roman



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George Tabori

Autodafé und Exodus

Autodafé and Exodus. MemoirsPartly translated from English by Ursula Grützmacher-Tabori

160 pages

The first part of Tabori’s memoirs Autodafé published in 2002 is here supplemented for the first time with an account of his adventurous odyssey through war- torn Europe and the Middle East published from his estate. Autodafé has sold more than 20. 000 copies!

Great old tragi- comedian George Tabori tells the story of young Györgi Tabori alias George Turner:

The first part Autodafé begins as an ordinary family history with the birth of the nar-rator on a Sunday in May. By and by the entire Jewish family is introduced, the friendly and quiet mother, the sceptical journalist father, the elder brother Paul who first wanted to throw the newborn into the Danube and later proves his unrivalled talent for poetry and untruth, and finally the many aunts and uncles all over Eastern Europe who refuse to listen to father’s warnings.

Györgi is send to a Berlin hotel as an apprentice. There he not only learns to juggle with plates but also with many charming ladies – and with increasingly brazen- faced Nazis.

In the second part, Exodus, written in German and published here from Tabori’s estate for the first time, we follow George on his way out: After a rather sunny spell in London and a short and all the more risky return to a duel in Budapest the young journalist ends up first in Sofia, then in Istanbul until finally reaching Jerusalem.

“He who can read but doesn’t read this wonderful little book that teaches you to see life as a tragic-comic theatre of the real world must blame him- or herself.”

Eberhard Rathgeb, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung

“A storybook. A textbook of tongue in cheek melancholia. An aged refugee of many worlds whose fate we Germans have to answer for tells the story of his life and the life of everybody persecuted.”

Rolf Michaelis, DIE ZEIT

“Anecdote, joke and punch line are the three Graces responsible for the captivating charms of this book.”

Lothar Müller, Süddeutsche Zeitung

George Tabori, born 1914 in Budapest, emigrated to London when he was twenty. It was there that he started his career as a writer. In the 1950s he worked for both theatre and film with Brecht and Hitchcock amongst others. In 1969 he returned to Europe, where he staged productions at several important theatres, finally at Berliner Ensemble. Tabori died in Berlin in 2007.

GeorGe Tabori

autodafé und exodus

Erinnerungen



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George Tabori

Son of a BitchRoman eines StadtneurotikersThe Story of an Urban Neurotic

96 pages

Meine Kämpfe

My Struggles

160 pages

Mutters Courage

Mother’s Courage

96 pages

George Tabori, born 1914 in Budapest, emigrated to London, where he became a writer; during the 1950s and 1960s he worked with Brecht and Hitchcock for the theatre and film, first in England and later in the US. In 1969 he returned to Europe, where he directed countless productions at many renowned stages. He received many honours and awards, amongst them the prestigious German Georg Büchner Preis in 1992. He worked for long periods in Vienna and the last years of his life at the Berliner Ensemble. He died in 2007.

Foreign Sales: Czech Republic (Prostor), France (Diaphanes)

WAT

George TaboriSon of a bitchRoman eines Stadtneurotikers

George TaboriMeine Kämpfe

WAT

449 Tabori, Kämpfe neu 18.04.2002 21:26 Uhr Seite 1

George TaboriMutters Courage

WAT


[email protected]

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Michael Wex

Die Abenteuer des Micah Mushmelon, kindlicher Talmudist

The Adventures of Micah Mushmelon, Child Talmudist

96 pages

Who is Micah Mushmelon? When Schraga knocks him down in front of the kosher comic strip store, he doesn’t realize who this boy is: a nine year old child Talmudist with universi-ty degree, president of a Brooklyn synagogue, and prestigious pioneer of a strict adherence to the holy laws. Neither the scandal about kosher sour cherry sweets that have been pollut-ed with jelly made from pig’s trotters nor the perennial controversy between nominalism and realism pose insoluble problems to his sharp mind.

This is a fast and absurd, witty and idiosyncratic tale about life between tradition and post modernity, between the thora and comic strips, between synagogue and petting acade-my staffed with the most beautiful girls of the world. A wild, unorthodox adventure story.

»Hilarious! A priceless and luckily not at all secret book for the benefit of all things living.«Yvonne Gebauer, Süddeutsche Zeitung

»This concoction of Jorge Luis Borges, Harry Potter and Kinky Friedman is unbelievably funny and cries out for a sequel and for its translation into comedy. If it weren’t one already.«

Georg Patzer, Jüdische Allgemeine

Michael Wex, born 1954 in Lethridge, Alberta, is the son of Polish Jewish migrants. He lives in Toronto today. He is considered cult within today’s Yiddish world scene and has written lyrics for bands like The Klezmatics and Sukke. In 1994 together with his German translator Heiko Lehman he founded the Golus Storyzheatre and toured Canada, the US and Europe.

WAT

MICHAEL WEXDie Abenteuer des

Micah Mushmelon, kindlicher Talmudist


[email protected]

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Franz Kafka



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Hans-Gerd Koch (Ed.)

Franz Kafka, Brief an den VaterMit einem unbekannten Bericht über Kafkas Vater als Lehrherr und anderen MaterialienMit einem Nachwort von Alena Wagnerová

Franz Kafka, Letter to His FatherIncluding an Unknown Description of Kafka’s Father as Master of Apprentices and Other Original SourcesWith a postscript by Alena Wagnerová

160 pages, with many illustrations

Franz Kafka’s Letter to His Father has massively influenced our view of Hermann Kafka. The recollections of the apprentice Frantisek Basik about his time in the Kafka family’s fancy-business, however, conveys a very different impression.

When Frantisek Xaver Basik wrote down his recollections in 1940 he didn’t as yet know that his former master’s son was heading for world fame. His intention was not to write about Franz Kafka or his family, but to describe his apprenticeship in a commercial enterprise in Prague between 1892 and 1895. Unwittingly, almost in passing, he gives us a vivid picture of the Kafkas’ everyday life.

Hans- Gerd Koch puts Kafka’s Letter to His Father and the memoirs of Basik into a contem-porary perspective and describes the conflict between father and son as a broader pheno-menon of literary and cultural society at the time of World War I.

Alena Wagnerová uses selected case studies to illuminate the problematical position of father figures and of women during the rapid industrial expansion at the turn of the 19th century.

»Presently, there is no other scholar with such an immense and intimate knowl edge of Kafka’s life and writing processes as Hans- Gerd Koch.« Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung

»The book contains various documents, many contemporary photographs and an epilogue by Alena Wagnerová which introduces us to Kafka’s times. An exciting read that may pave the way for a new understanding of Kafka.« Bergische Blätter

Hans-Gerd Koch is editor of the critical edition of Kafka’s works.

FRANZ KAFKABRIEF AN DEN VATER

Mit einem unbekannten Bericht über Kafkas Vater als Lehrherr

und anderen Materialien



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Hans-Gerd Koch (Ed.)

Als Kafka mir entgegenkam Erinnerungen an Franz Kafka

When Kafka Was Approaching MeReminiscences of Franz Kafka

208 pages

This volume is a complete edition of all memories of Franz Kafka which have surfaced during the last seventy years, some of them hardly accessible, drawn from archives and neatly arranged. It comprises more than 40 texts, the memories of school friends and col-leagues at work, of Kafka’s cleaning woman and his publisher, of female and male friends. Annotated with information about the people and their reports.

A surprise reading and a must for all Kafka- fans!

»A treasure for all those who wish to look through Kafka’s enigmatic work and see the author’s face.« Peter Pfaff, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung

»A compilation of loveable sketches, the reflections of attentive observers and interesting personal accounts. A must for all who aspire to become fans of Kafka and for those who already are.«

Berliner Zeitung


Foreign Sales:Czech Republic (Spolecnost Franze Kafky), France (Actes Sud), Japan (Heibonsha), Spain (Acantilado), Italy (Nottetempo)

WAT

»Als Kafka mir entgegenkam . . . «

Erinnerungen an Franz KafkaHerausgegeben von Hans- Gerd Koch

Erweiterte Neuausgabe



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Hans-Gerd Koch

Kafka in Berlin

Kafka in Berlin

144 pages with historical photographs

Berlin for the Prague- based writer and insurance official Frank Kafka was a city of longing. Hans- Gerd Koch tells the story of this yearning desire and guides us through the legendary German capital of the early 20th century.

Frank Kafka’s love of Berlin sprang up during his first stay there in December 1910. The city took him by storm and he began day- dreaming about life in this metropolis of modernity.

Like many other artists and intellectuals of his time, Kafka was fascinated by the live-liness of Berlin, by the omnipresent technological innovations, its public transport system and its rapidly growing cultural diversity. The city was a show- case for artists of all sorts, from Paul Klee to Max Reinhardt, from Alfred Döblin to Charlie Chaplin; it was a refuge for people from Eastern Europe; and it was an intensely booming industrial and commer-cial centre, whose charisma can hardly be imagined today. Following the traces Kafka laid out in his letters and diaries we learn to know about an era eventually culminating in the »Golden« Twenties.

»Plausibly, there is no other scholar with such an immense and intimate knowledge of Kafka’s life and writing processes as Hans- Gerd Koch.« Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung


KafKa in Berlin

Hans-Gerd Koch



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Klaus Wagenbach

Franz KafkaBilder aus seinem Leben

Pictures of His Life

256 pages

In connection with his biographical research on Kafka, Klaus Wagenbach in 1951 started a collection of photographic documents on Kafka. Within the last five decades this collection has grown into a unique archive with hundreds of pictures. This archive has served as the stock for this book which publishes all important pictures on Kafka and his life. The story of each picture is explained in the accompanying texts and there is a general introduction to each chapter representing a different stage of Kafka’s life.

A lavishly illustrated reader and an immensely readable picture book, this volume con-veys countless insights into the paradigmatic life of the great writer, whose influence on contemporary literature cannot be overestimated.

»The best illustrated book on Kafka.« DIE ZEIT

Klaus Wagenbach, born in Berlin in 1930, paid tribute to several German cities until he returned to Berlin, where he founded a publishing house more than four decades ago. He has entertained a love affair with Kafka since 1950 and is internationally recognized as Kafka’s »longest- serving widow«.

Foreign Sales:Spain (Circulo de lectores), Denmark (Vandkunsten)

Klaus Wagenbach

FRanZ KaFKaBilder aus seinem Leben



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Klaus Wagenbach

Kafkas PragEin Reisebuch

Kafka’s PragueA Travel Book

128 pages

A portrait of the literary and biographical places of Kafka’s Prague in both word and image. Franz Kafka hardly ever left his home town and was a notorious »tramp« (as he himself wrote) in cruising its streets and squares. Klaus Wagenbach traces his life, describes his apartment, visits his school, his university and his office, follows him across bridges into cafés and parks and to the theatre.

These perambulations are illustrated by several maps of the city and many photographs showing the Prague of Kafka’s time which in many ways hasn’t changed, so that even today’s visitor may still find most of the original locations.

»No doubt, both language and content have to be regarded as >timeless<.« Jürgen Weber, buchkritik. at


Foreign Sales:Corea (Openbooks), France (Michalon), Holland (Byblos), Hungary (Atlantis), Italy (Feltrinelli), Portugal (Fenda), Spain (Peninsula), Taiwan (Mook Publication), US (Overlook Press)

Klaus Wagenbach

Kafkas Prag Ein Reiselesebuch



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Klaus Wagenbach

Franz KafkaBiographie seiner Jugend

A Biography of His Youth

368 pages

The classical biography on young Kafka – a much quoted source for all succeeding biogra-phical works. Extended and with a new commentary.

A few years after World War II, a young man reads a novel by a German speaking author, who will accompany him for the rest of his life. He follows the author’s traces, searches for his relatives and friends. He even travels to Prague and Israel – rather unusual destinations for a young German at the time.

The young man’s name is Klaus Wagenbach, his juvenile hero was Franz Kafka, and it is the first biography after Max Brod to be written. The book is unique: It combines reports of contemporary witnesses, family registers, reports, and personnel files. From all this and much more material Klaus Wagenbach develops a highly colorful, if not literary portrait of a young author, his passions and his home town Prague. The book ends with Kafka’s first literary success and breakthrough, in 1912. It was Klaus Wagenbach’s first book, and he was the same age as Kafka at the publication of his first book Betrachtung. Almost 50 years later, he took a critical look at his work, added new documents as well as four essays and updated the annotations.

»Indispensable!« Lexikon der Weltliteratur

»As long as the letters and diaries of Kafka’s friend and heir Max Brod are not available this biography of the young Kafka will remain the best thing we have.« Sigrid Löffler, Literaturen


Foreign Sales:Japan (Tuttle- Mori)

FranzKafka

Klaus Wagenbach

Biographie seiner Jugend


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Erich Fried


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Erich Fried

Gedichte und ErzählungenIn: Gesammelte Werke. Gedichte und Prosa in 4 Bänden

Poems and StoriesIn: Collected works. Poems and Prose in 4 volu-mes

Early poemsPoems of the sixties. . . und Vietnam und . . . ; Anfechtungen; Die Beine der größeren LügenPoems of the seventiesUnter Nebenfeinden; Die Freiheit, den Mund aufzumachen; Gegengift; Die bunten Getüme

Late poemsLebensschatten; Liebesgedichte; Es ist was es ist; Beunruhigungen; Am Rand unserer Lebenszeit; UnverwundenesErich Fried’s anthology Hundert Gedichte ohne Vaterland was sold into more than 10 countries (Verlegerpreis der Sieben, 1977)

StoriesFast alles Mögliche (1975), Das Unmaß aller Dinge (1982)

»A glorious and soft lover of beautiful words and daring sentences.« Karl Heinz Bohrer

»I am convinced that the work of Erich Fried belongs to the most permanent achievements this time has brought forth.« Helmut Heißenbüttel

»For Fried living, speaking and writing were one. He wasn’t a poet of lamentations and jere-miads: He wanted to be a poet of full life in all its diversity with the sole exception of violence.« Hans Mayer

»The Heinrich Heine of our century.« Brigitte

»Erich Fried devoted all his life to writing against injustice and lie.« Michael Bauer, Die Welt

»Frieds poems are not only complex in their verses and stanzas, they are also complex in the way they spell out a new alphabet of thought.« Gert Ueding, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung

Foreign Sales:numerous translations into more than 22 languages


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Erich Fried

Mitunter sogar LachenErinnerungen

Sometimes Even LautherMemoirs

192 pages

The memoirs of this great lyricist , political moralist and renowned translator of Shakespeare, who as a young man was driven out of Vienna by the Nazis and found a new home in England.

These stories from real life cover Vienna in the late twenties and early thirties, London as the city of immigration in the late thirties, the years of World War II and the time after.

A book of memory, cool and calm, sometimes tongue in cheek. Exemplary histories that make the reader think twice.

With many photographs.

»The name of Fried will not fall into oblivion, it must not fall into oblivion.«Marcel Reich- Ranicki, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (obituary)

»He was an untiring critic of his time, but also a man bent for love and tenderness.« Brigitte

Erich Fried, born 1921 in Vienna, fled from the Nazis to London in 1938, where he lived until his death in 1988 and where he was buried. After the war he went on countless rea-ding tours through Germany and Austria taking sides with many current political and social issues. He was repeatedly libelled, censored and taken to court and received public recogni-tion only when he was well into his sixties (Büchner- Preis, Österreichischer Staatspreis).

Foreign Sales: Arabia (Kalima Foundation), Italy (Feltrinelli), Japan (Tosui Shobo)

WAT

Erich Fried Mitunter sogar Lachen Erinnerungen

foreign rights catalogue: backlist fiction · [email protected]. verla u agenbach emser str....

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