50 Books That Travel

This selection of German titles is show-cased at book fairs all over the world on the German collective stands organized by the Frankfurter Buchmesse in 2018.

Children‘s & YA

______Armstrong: Mr. Happy & Miss Grimm You Can‘t See the Elephants The Adventurous Journey of Herr Glück und Frau Unglück Elefanten sieht man nicht a Mouse to the Moon Lindbergh: ANTONIE SCHNEIDER, German SUSAN KRELLER, German Die abenteuerliche Geschich- Translated by Grace Maccarone Translated by Elizabeth Gaffney te einer fliegenden Maus Thienemann, 978-3522436793 Carlsen, 978-3551582461 Holiday House (US), 978-0823431984, G.P. Putnam’s Sons Books for Young TORBEN KUHLMANN, German 32 pages, 2015 Readers (US), 978-0399172090, Translated by David Henry Wilson 192 pages, 2015 Mr. Happy has just moved in next NordSüd, 978-3314102103 door, and Miss Grimm is not plea- When thirteen-year-old Mascha North South Books (US), sed. Mr. Happy greets the sun each is sent to her grandparents’ for 978-0735842625, 128 pages, 2016 day, works tirelessly in his specta- the summer, she spends her days A long time ago a mouse learned to fly... cular garden, and even whistles to bored and lonely at a nearby and crossed the Atlantic. But what hap- the birds. So much for peace and playground. There she meets the pened next? Torben Kuhlmann‘s stunning quiet! From her gloomy and bar- painfully shy siblings Julia and Max. book transports readers to the moon ren side of the fence, Miss Grimm Mascha begins to suspect that and beyond, to a world where dreams knows one thing for certain: she they are being physically abused are determined only by the size of your wants nothing to do with Mr. Hap- by their father. She tells her grand- imagination and the biggest innovators py. But Mr. Happy knows something parents and the authorities, but are the smallest of all. The book ends too: given kindness and patience, no one believes her. Mascha can’t with a brief non-fiction history of human anything can grow – even a friend- let the abuse go on, so she takes space travel – from Galileo’s obser- ship with lonely Miss Grimm. matters into her own hands. vations concerning the nature of the This beautifully written novel is a universe to man‘s first steps on the moon. haunting and timely tale. 1 Children‘s & YA

______Where Is Grandma? Wo ist Oma?

PETER SCHÖSSOW, German Translated by Sally-Ann Spencer Carl Hanser Verlag, 978-3446249523 Gecko Press (US), 978-1776571543, 64 pages, 2017

Henry visits his grandmother in the hospital and decides to find her room alone. The result is an adventure, on which Henry finds friends, humour, lots of information and, at last, Grandma. Author Peter Schössow has won many awards, including the German Youth Literature Prize.

Fiction ______Displaced Bad Words Against the World Morgenland Schlechte Wörter Gegen die Welt

STEPHAN ABARBANELL, German ILSE AICHINGER, Austrian JAN BRANDT, German Translated by Lucy Renner Jones Translated by Uljana Wolf & Christian Translated by Katy Derbyshire Karl Blessing Verlag, 978-3896675170 Hawkey DuMont, 978-3832196288 John Murray (UK), HarperCollins (US), S. Fischer Verlag, 978-3100005076 Seagull Books (UK), 978-0857423375, 978-1473635548, 336 pages, 2017 Seagull Books (UK), 978-0857424761, 968 pages, 2016 224 pages, 2016 Echoing the fiction of Joseph An unforgettable debut, ‘Against Kanon, Alan Furst, and Daniel Silva, Ilse Aichinger (1921–2016) was one the World’ is an epic account of this deeply intelligent literary thriller of the most important writers of growing up an outsider. Set in the – set in a world still reeling from post-war Austrian and German- East Frisia region of Germany in the World War II – explores how the speaking literature. This volume mid-1970s, this is the story of Daniel actions of a few can change the presents the whole of the original Kuper, the nominal heir to a drug- course of history. British-occupied ‘Bad Words’ in English for the first store dynasty, and his struggle Palestine, 1946: Elderly writer Elias time, along with a selection of to free himself from the petty Lind isn’t convinced by reports that Aichinger’s other short stories of suspicions and violence of small- his scientist brother, Raphael, died the period; together, they town life. The more he tries to prove in a concentration camp. demonstrate her courageous effort his innocence, the fiercer the Too frail to search for Raphael to create and deploy a language accusations against him, until his himself, Elias persuades a contact unmarred by misleading only option is open war against the in the Jewish resistance to send certainties, preconceived rules, or village and its inhabitants. someone in his place. implicit ideologies.

2 Fiction

______Baba Dunja‘s Last Love Go, Went, Gone The Dark Ship Baba Dunjas letzte Liebe Gehen, ging, gegangen Das dunkle Schiff

ALINA BRONSKY, German JENNY ERPENBECK, German SHERKO FATAH, German Translated by Tim Mohr Translated by Susan Bernofsky Translated by Martin Chalmers Kiepenheuer & Witsch, Albrecht Knaus Verlag, 978-3813503708 Jung und Jung, 978-3902497369 978-3462048025 Granta (UK), New Directions (US), Seagull Books (UK), 978-0857420367, Europa Editions (US), 978-1609453336 978-0811225946, 320 pages, 2017 420 pages, 2015 192 pages, 2016 Retired university professor, Richard, In Sherko Fatah’s ‘The Dark Ship’, Government warnings about radiation discovers a new community in we experience an extraordinary levels in her hometown (a stone’s Berlin that he never knew existed: new voice in fiction, which tells the throw from Chernobyl) be damned! a tent city, established by African story of the kind of trauma and Baba Dunja is going home. And asylum seekers. Hesitantly, getting striving that leads a man from she’s taking a motley bunch of her to know the new arrivals, Richard religious extremism to a vain hope former neighbours with her. With finds his life changing as he for redemption. At once a thriller strangely misshapen forest fruits begins to question his own sense and a political narrative, ‘The Dark to spare and the town largely to of belonging. ‘Go, Went, Gone’ is Ship’ tracks the Kurdish experience themselves, they have pretty much at once a passionate contribution from the war-torn mountains of everything they need and they to the debate on race, privilege northern Iraq to the bureaucracies plan to start anew. Life is beautiful. and nationality and a beautifully and mosques of Berlin in a gripping That is until one day a stranger written examination of an ageing journey across land and water, turns up in the village and once man‘s quest to find meaning in his through ideology and faith. again the little idyllic settlement life. faces annihilation.

______The Nightwalker All That Ends Angel of Oblivion Der Nachtwandler Vonne Endlichkait Engel des Vergessens

SEBASTIAN FITZEK, German GÜNTER GRASS, German MAJA HADERLAP, Austrian Translated by Jamie Lee Searle Translated by Breon Mitchell Translated by Tess Lewis Knaur TB, 978-3426503744 Steidl Verlag, 978-3958290426 Wallstein Verlag, 978-3835309531 Sphere (UK), Pegasus Crime (US), Harvill Secker (UK), Houghton Mifflin Archipelago Books (US), 978-0751556834, 256 pages, 2017 Harcourt (US), 978-0544785380, 978-0914671466, 250 pages, 2016 176 pages, 2016 As a young man, Leon Nader ‘Angel of Oblivion’ is based on the suffered from insomnia. As a sleep- The last work of Nobel Prize-winning experiences of Maja Haderlap’s walker, he turned to violence during writer Günter Grass, a witty and family and the Slovenian-speaking his nocturnal excursions and had elegiac series of meditations on minority in southern Austria, many of psychiatric treatment for his condi- writing, growing old, and living in the whom fought as partisans against tion. One day Leon‘s wife disappears world. Only an aging artist who has the Nazis during the Second World from their apartment under mys- once more cheated death can set War. Engaging with themes of terious circumstances. Desperate to work with such wisdom, defiance, tolerance and integration of minority to find out the truth, Leon attaches and wit. A wealth of touching stories communities, the burden of history, a motion-activated camera to his is condensed into artful miniatures the effects of conflicts on survivors forehead at night. When he looks at in a striking interplay of poetry, lyric and their children, and language’s the video the next morning he makes prose, and drawings. This is a mo- role in shaping identity, Haderlap’s a discovery that bursts the borders ving farewell gift: a sensual, melan- novel strikes at problems of of his imagination. choly summation of a life fully lived. paramount importance to our world today.

3 Fiction

______The Moravian Night Superabundance The Sleep of the Righteous Die morawische Nacht Der beruhigende Klang Der Schlaf der Gerechten von explodierendem Kerosin PETER HANDKE, Austrian WOLFGANG HILBIG, German Translated by Krishna Winston HEINZ HELLE, German Translated by Isabel Fargo Cole Suhrkamp, 978-3518461082 Translated by Kári Driscoll S. Fischer Verlag, 978-3100336248 Farrar, Straus & Giroux (US), Suhrkamp, 978-3518423981 Two Lines Press (US), 978-1931883474, 978-0374212551, 368 pages, 2016 Serpent‘s Tail (UK), 978-1781253953, 176 pages, 2015 176 pages, 2016 Mysteriously summoned to a house- Doppelgänger, a murderer’s guilt, boat on the Morava River, a few Alone in New York, separated pulp noir, fanatical police, and im- friends, associates, and collabora- from his girlfriend by the Atlantic possible romances – these are the tors of an old writer listen as he tells Ocean, the nameless narrator of pieces from which author Wolfgang a story that will last until dawn: the Heinz Helle‘s electric debut novel is Hilbig builds a divided nation bat- tale of the once well-known writer’s sinking slowly into crisis. He loves his tling its demons. Delving deep into recent odyssey across Europe. girlfriend but finds himself attracted to the psyches of both East and West Powerfully alive, honest, and at every woman he sees. He is cursed Germany, ‘The Sleep of the Right- times deliciously satirical, with total self-awareness yet can‘t eous’ reveals a powerful, apoca- ‘The Moravian Night’ explores the seem to control his actions. lyptic, utterly personal account mind and memory of an aging ‘Superabundance’ asks: how do of the century-defining nation’s writer, tracking the anxieties, angers, we live when our relationships, our post-war struggles. Hilbig creates fears, and pleasures of a life actions and even our own minds an original, visionary statement on inseparable from the recent history are filled with such heart-breaking the ravages that history can wreak of Central Europe. mystery? on the human mind.

______You Should Have Left: All for Nothing Yiza A Novel Alles umsonst Das Mädchen mit dem Du hättest gehen sollen Fingerhut WALTER KEMPOWSKI, German DANIEL KEHLMANN, German/Austrian Translated by Anthea Bell MICHAEL KÖHLMEIER, Austrian Translated by Ross Benjamin Knaus, 978-3813502640 Translated by Ruth Martin Rowohlt, 978-3498035730 Granta Books & Portobello Books (UK), Carl Hanser Verlag, 978-3446250550 Pantheon Books (US), 978-1786484048, 978-1847087201, 352 pages, 2015 Haus Publishing (UK), 978-1910376751, 128 pages, 2017 120 pages, 2017 In January 1945, the German army An eerie and supernatural tale of is retreating from the Russian Part dark fairy tale, part mystery, a writer’s emotional collapse, from advance. Germans are fleeing Yiza is the story of three homeless the internationally best-selling the occupied territories in their street children on the run. author of ‘Measuring the World’ thousands. But in a rural East One evening, not long after her and ‘F’. Eager to finish a screenplay Prussian manor house, the wealthy arrival in Germany, six-year-old he has been working on, the narrator von Globig family seals itself off Yiza is abandoned at the market of Daniel Kehlmann’s spellbinding from the world. Profoundly evocative where she spends her days. new novel rents a house in the of the period, sympathetic and At a shelter for migrant children she German mountains with his wife yet painfully honest about the meets two boys and together they and four-year-old daughter – a motivations of its characters, run away. Trekking through snowy house that thwarts the expectations ‘All for Nothing’ is a devastating forests and housing settlements, of the narrator’s recollection and portrait of the complicities and they evade police custody, sub- seems to defy the very laws of denials of the German people as sisting on the margins of society. physics. the Third Reich comes to an end. ‘Yiza’ is a pertinent and timely tale of displacement and suffering. 4 Fiction

______Imperium. Collision Babylon Berlin A Fiction of the South Seas Havarie Der nasse Fisch Imperium MERLE KRÖGER, German VOLKER KUTSCHER, German CHRISTIAN KRACHT, Swiss Translated by Niall Sellar Translated by Niall Sellar Translated by Daniel Bowles Argument Verlag, 978-3867542241 Kiepenheuer & Witsch, Kiepenheuer & Witsch, 978-3462041316 Rachel Hildebrandt and Alexandra Roesch 978-3462039146 Farrar Straus & Giroux (US), Unnamed Press (US), 978-1944700195 Sandstone Press (UK), 978-0374175245, 192 pages, 2015 240 pages, 2017 978-1910124970, 544 pages, 2016

In 1902, a radical vegetarian and Miami-based The Spirit of Europe, Berlin, 1929. Detective Inspector Rath nudist from Nuremberg named the third largest cruise liner in the was a successful career officer in August Engelhardt set sail for what world, ploughs through the the Cologne Homicide Division was then called the Bismarck Mediterranean every summer, before a shooting incident in which Archipelago. His destination: offering its passengers a temporary he inadvertently killed a man. the island of Kabakon. His goal: escape from their everyday lives. He is transferred to the Vice Squad to establish a colony based on But life on board the cruise liner in Berlin, a job he detests. There is worship of the sun and coconuts. is not immune to the chaos of the seething unrest in the city and the His malnourished body was found European migration crisis. Vice Squad is ordered to ruthlessly on the beach on Kabakon in 1919. ‘Collision’ is a maritime thriller by enforce the ban on May Day Christian Kracht uses the outlan- one of Germany’s most celebrated demonstrations. The result is dish details of Engelhardt’s life to crime writers, building suspense catastrophic with many dead and craft a fable about the allure of through the eyes of a diverse array injured, and a state of emergency is extremism and its fundamental of memorable characters. declared in the Communist strong- foolishness. holds of the city.

______Melnitz Bricks and Mortar The Fox Was Ever the Hunter Melnitz Im Stein Der Fuchs war damals schon der Jäger CHARLES LEWINSKY, Swiss CLEMENS MEYER, German Translated by Shaun Whiteside Translated by Katy Derbyshire HERTA MÜLLER, German dtv, 978-3423135924 S. Fischer Verlag, 978-3100486028 Translated by Philip Boehm Atlantic Books (UK), 978-1848877665, Fitzcarraldo Editions (UK), Rowohlt, 978-3499135033 640 pages, 2015 978-1910695197, 672 pages, 2016 Metropolitan Books (US), 978-0805093025, 256 pages, 2016 1871. Cattle-dealer Solomon Meijer ‘Bricks and Mortar’ is the story of has made a reputation for himself the sex trade in a big city in the Romania – the last months of the as one of the few honest Jews former GDR, from just before 1989 Ceaușescu regime. Adina is a young in Endingen, a rare Swiss town in to the present day, charting the schoolteacher and returns home one which Jews are allowed to reside. development of the industry from day to discover that her fox-fur rug But his whole life is set to change absolute prohibition to full legality has had its tail cut off. when he answers a knock at the in the twenty years following the The mutilated fur is a taunting sign door in the middle of the night. reunification of Germany. that she is being watched by the ‘Melnitz’ is the saga of the Swiss- The focus is on the rise and fall of secret police – the fox was ever Jewish Meijer family, spanning five one man from football hooligan to the hunter. Images of photographic generations from the Franco-Prussian large-scale landlord and service- precision combine into a kaleido- War to World War II. provider for prostitutes. scope of terror as Adina and her It is a homage to Yiddish culture But many other diverse voices have friends struggle to keep mind and and a celebration of the enduring parts to play in this fascinating, body intact in a world pervaded by spirit of biting Jewish humour. multi-faceted tale. complicity and permeated by fear.

5 Fiction

______The Ice Queen To Die in Spring Sophia Or the Beginning of Tiefe Wunden Im Frühling sterben All Tales Sophia oder Der Anfang NELE NEUHAUS, German RALF ROTHMANN, German aller Geschichten Translated by Stephen T. Murray Translated by Shaun Whiteside List Taschenbuch, 978-3548609027 Suhrkamp, 978-3518424759 RAFIK SCHAMI, German Minotaur (US), 978-1447227427, Picador (UK), FSG (US), 978-1509812851, Translated by 448 pages, 2015 208 pages, 2017 Monique Arav and John Hannon Carl Hanser Verlag, 978-3446249417 The body of 92-year-old Jossi Distant, silent, often drunk, Walter Interlink Publishing (US), 978-1566560313, Goldberg, Holocaust survivor and Urban is a difficult man to have as 480 pages, 2017 American citizen, is found shot to a father. But his son – the narrator death execution style in his house of this slim, harrowing novel – is Set during the tumultuous years near Frankfurt. A five-digit number curious about Walter’s experiences leading up to the Arab Spring, is scrawled in blood at the murder during World War II, and so makes ‘Sophia’ is an intricately plotted, scene. The autopsy reveals an old him a present of a blank notebook lyrical novel about the power of love and unsuccessfully covered tattoo in which to write down his memo- to overcome all barriers of time and on the corpse‘s arm – a blood type ries. Walter dies, however, leaving circumstance. As a young girl, Sophia marker once used by Hitler‘s SS. nothing but the barest skeleton of falls deeply in love with Karim, but Pia Kirchhoff and Oliver Bodenstein a story on those pages, leading his weds a rich goldsmith instead. are faced with a riddle. Was the son to fill in the gaps himself, rightly A few years later, Karim is accused of old man not Jewish after all? or wrongly, with what he can piece an assassination he did not commit Who was he, really? together of his father’s early life. and Sophia saves his life. He promises that she will forever have his loyalty, no matter the risk to himself.

______The Language of Birds Goldfish Memory A Whole Life Die Sprache der Vögel Goldfischgedächtnis: Ein ganzes Leben Erzählungen NORBERT SCHEUER, German ROBERT SEETHALER, Austrian Translated by Stephen Brown MONIQUE SCHWITTER, Swiss Translated by Charlotte Collins C. H. Beck, 978-3406677458 Translated by Eluned Gramich Hanser Berlin, 978-3446246454 Haus Publishing (UK), Droschl, 978-3854207894 Picador (UK), Farrar, Straus & Giroux (US), University of Chicago Press (US), Parthian Books (UK), 978-1910409633, 978-1447283904, 160 pages, 2016 978-1910376638, 160 pages, 2017 250 pages, 2015 Andreas Egger knows every path It is 2003, and Paul Arimond is ser- What does it mean to have a and peak of his mountain valley, ving as a paramedic in Afghanistan. connection with someone? the source of his sustenance, his The twenty-four-year-old has Everyday you see tens and hundreds livelihood – his home. Set in the no illusions of becoming a hero. of faces and overhear countless mid-twentieth century and told Rather, he has chosen the army to conversations. Everyday you pass with beauty and tenderness, escape the tragedies of his past people by. But what makes one Robert Seethaler‘s ‘A Whole Life’ is and his own feelings of guilt. person a stranger, and another a a story of man‘s relationship with As a result, he finds himself in the friend, an accomplice, even a lover? an ancient landscape, of the value same land, now war-torn, where an ‘Goldfish Memory’ is the first trans- of solitude, of the arrival of the ancestor of his, Ambrosius Arimond, lation of Monique Schwitter’s form- modern world, and above all, of a late eighteenth-century traveller breaking work. the moments, great and small, that and ornithologist, once explored With a contemporary style that’s make us who we are. and developed the theory of a cool, quick and funny, this collection universal language of birds. is a refreshing new voice, not to be missed. 6 Fiction

______Kruso The Back of Beyond Before the Feast Kruso Weit über das Land Vor dem Fest

LUTZ SEILER, German PETER STAMM, Swiss SAŠA STANIŠIC, German Translated by Tess Lewis Translated by Michael Hofmann Translated by Anthea Bell Suhrkamp, 978-3518466308 S. Fischer Verlag, 978-3100022271 Luchterhand Literaturverlag, Scribe (UK), Scribe (US), 978-1911344001, Other Press (US), 978-1783783298, 978-3630872438 480 pages, 2017 160 pages, 2017 Pushkin Press (UK), 978-1941040393, 316 pages, 2015 ‘Kruso’ is the lyrical, bestselling 2014 Man Booker International Prize German Book Prize winner. It is 1989, finalist Peter Stamm explores what It is the evening before the feast in and a young literature student it means to be in the middle of the village of Fürstenfelde (popula- named Ed, fleeing unspeakable nowhere, in mind and in body. tion: declining), but not everyone is tragedy, travels to the Baltic island Happily married with two children, asleep. The local artist, the village of Hiddensee. Long shrouded in Thomas and Astrid enjoy a glass of archivist and a retired lieutenant- myth, the island is a notorious wine in their garden on a night like colonel are all wakeful. destination for hippies, idealists, any other. Astrid is called back to And eighteen-year-old Anna, and those at odds with the East the house and, after a brief moment namesake of the feast, prepares to German state. There he is drawn of hesitation, Thomas opens the take her place in tomorrow’s festival towards the charismatic Kruso, gate and walks out. While Thomas of drinking and dancing, eating unofficial leader of the island’s begins a trek across the country- and burning. On this night of mis- seasonal workers. Everyone dances side, Astrid is left wondering where deeds and mischief, the fantastic, to Kruso’s tune – but to what end, he’s gone, when he’ll come back, the menacing, and the inexplicable and at what cost? whether he’s still alive. collide in the most surprising ways.

______Montecristo The Memoirs of a Polar Bear Kingdom of Twilight Montecristo Etüden im Schnee Königreich der Dämmerung

MARTIN SUTER, Swiss YOKO TAWADA, German STEVEN UHLY, German Translated by Jamie Bulloch Translated by Susan Bernofsky Translated by Jamie Bulloch Diogenes, 978-3257069204 Konkursbuch, 978-3887697372 Secession Verlag, 978-3905951417 No Exit Press (UK), 978-1843448303, New Directions (US), 978-0811225786, MacLehose Press (UK), 978-0857054982, 320 pages, 2016 288 pages, 2016 464 pages, 2016

Video journalist Jonas Brand is on A bear, born and raised in captivity, One night in autumn 1944, in a small a rail journey from Zurich to Basel is devastated by the loss of his town in occupied Poland, an SS officer when stock trader Paolo Contini keep-er; another finds herself is shot dead by a young Polish Jew, appears to throw himself from the performing in the circus; a third sits Margarita Ejzenstain. In retaliation, train to his death. Brand sets his down one day and pens a memoir his commander orders the execution footage of the aftermath of the which becomes an international of thirty-seven Poles — one for incident aside to investigate a sensation, and causes her to flee every year of the dead man‘s life. strange coincidence: her home. Through the stories of First hidden by a German couple, two hundred-Swiss-franc bankno- these three bears, Tawada reflects Margarita must then flee the brutal tes bearing the same serial number on our own humanity, the ways in advance of the Soviet army with her have come into his possession. which we belong to one another new-born baby. So begins a thrilling Sensing an opportunity to graduate and the ways in which we are panorama of intermingled destinies from celebrity journalism to serious formed. Delicate and surreal, these and events that reverberate from investigation, he has the banknotes memoirs take the reader into that single act of defiance. analysed, with fatally contradictory foreign bodies and foreign climes. results. 7 Fiction

______A Gushing Fountain Ein springender Brunnen

MARTIN WALSER, German Translated by David Dollenmayer Suhrkamp, 978-3518396001 Arcade (US), 978-1628724240, 368 pages, 2015

This masterful novel by one of the foremost figures of post-war Ger- man literature is an indelible portrait of Nazism slowly overtaking a small town. Semi-autobiographical, it is also a remarkably vivid account of a childhood fraught with troubles, yet full of remembered love. In a provincial town on Lake Con- stance, Johann basks in the affection of the colourful staff and regulars at the station restaurant, until war begins the body count that will include his beloved older brother. Non-Fiction ______The Correspondance Birdmania — A Remarkable Gut: The Inside Story of of Hannah Arendt and Passion for Birds Our Body‘s Most Gershom Scholem Ornithomania: Geschichte Underrated Organ Der Briefwechsel: Hannah einer besonderen Darm mit Charme Arendt / Gershom Scholem Leidenschaft GIULIA ENDERS, German HANNAH ARENDT, German BERND BRUNNER, German Translated by David Shaw Translated by Anthony David Translated by Jane Billinghurst Ullstein, 978-3550081842 Jüdischer Verlag bei Suhrkamp, Galiani Berlin, 978-3869711171, Greystone Scribe Publications (UK), Greystone Books 978-3633542345, University of Chicago (UK), 978-1771642774, 288 pages, 2017 (US), 978-1911344773, 288 pages, 2015 Press (US), 978-0226924519, 336 pages, 2017 Packed with intriguing facts and For too long, the gut has been the Few people thought as deeply or exquisite and rare artwork, ‘Birdmania’ body’s most ignored and least ap- incisively about Germany, Jewish showcases an eclectic and fascinating preciated organ, but it turns out that identity, and the Holocaust as selection of bird devotees who would it’s responsible for more than just Hannah Arendt and Gershom do anything for their feathered friends. dirty work: our gut is at the core of Scholem. And, as this landmark In addition to well-known enthusiasts who we are. “Gut”, an international volume reveals, much of that thinking such as Aristotle, Charles Darwin, bestseller, gives the alimentary canal was developed in dialogue, and Helen Macdonald, Brunner its long-overdue moment in the through more than two decades introduces readers to a selection of spotlight. With quirky charm, rising of correspondence. In a world that less well-known people with a passion science star Giulia Enders addresses continues to struggle with questions for birds, including George Archibald, questions like: why does acid reflux of nationalism, identity, and who performed mating dances for happen? What’s really up with gluten difference, Arendt and Scholem an endangered whooping crane and lactose intolerance? How does remain crucial thinkers. called Tex to encourage her to lay. the gut affect obesity and mood? 8 Non-Fiction

______Upheaval: The Refugee Trek White Magic Blitzed. Drugs in Nazi Germany Through Europe Weiße Magie: Der totale Rausch: Einbruch der Wirklichkeit: Die Epoche des Papiers Drogen im Dritten Reich Auf dem Flüchtlingstreck durch Europa LOTHAR MÜLLER, German NORMAN OHLER, German Translated by Jessica Spengler Translated by Shaun Whiteside NAVID KERMANI, German Carl Hanser Verlag, 978-3446239111 KiWi-Taschenbuch, 978-3462050356 Translated by Tony Crawford Polity Press (UK), 978-0745672533, Allen Lane (UK), Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (US), C. H. Beck, 978-3406692086 352 pages, 2015 978-0241256992, 128 pages, 2016 Polity Press (US), 978-1509518678, In this brilliant new book Lothar The Nazis presented themselves as 100 pages, 2017 Müller describes how paper made warriors against moral degeneracy. In the autumn of 2015, award-win- its way from China through the Arab Yet Norman Ohler‘s gripping best- ning writer Navid Kermani decided world to Europe, where it permeated seller reveals that the entire Third to accompany refugees on the everyday life from the thirteenth Reich was permeated with drugs. ‘Balkan route’. Kermani exposes the century onwards, and how the Methamphetamines, or crystal cultural and political upheaval that paper technology revolution of meth, were used by everyone from has caused people to uproot their the nineteenth century paved the factory workers to housewives, lives, at the same time shining a light way for the creation of the modern and crucial to troops‘ resilience — on Europe‘s inadequate response to daily press. With the proliferation of even partly explaining German the refugees. Interspersed with digital devices, paper may seem to victory in 1940. While drugs cannot powerful images by the acclaimed be a residue of the past, but Müller on their own explain the events of photographer Moises Saman, reveals this humble technology to the Second World War or its ‘Upheaval’ is a much-needed human be the most fundamental medium outcome Ohler shows how they account of a crisis we cannot ignore. of the modern world. alter our understanding of it.

______Farewell to the Horse: The Final Kafka: The Early Years Looking at Pictures Century of Our Relationship Kafka: Die frühen Jahre Von Bildern Das letzte Jahrhundert der Pferde: Geschichte einer REINER STACH, German ROBERT WALSER, Swiss Trennung Translated by Shelley Frisch Translated by Susan Bernofsky, Lydia Fischer Taschenbuch, 978-3596031405 Davis and Christopher Middleton ULRICH RAULFF, German Princeton University (US), Insel Verlag, 978-3458192824 Translated by Ruth Ahmedzai Kemp 978-0691151984, 336 pages, 2016 New Directions (US), 978-0811224246, C. H. Beck, 978-3406682445 144 pages, 2015 How did Kafka become Kafka? Allen Lane (UK), Allen Lane The Penguin This eagerly anticipated third An elegant collection, with gor- Press (US), 978-0241257609, 464 pages, 2017 and final volume of Reiner Stach‘s geous full-colour art reproductions, ‘Farewell to the Horse’ is a moving definitive biography of the writer ‘Looking at Pictures’ presents a discussion of what horses once meant answers that question with more little-known aspect of the to us. Cities, farmland, entire industries facts and insight than ever before, eccentric Swiss writer‘s genius. were once shaped as much by the describing the complex personal, Robert Walser‘s essays consider needs of horses as humans. The inter- political, and cultural circum- famous painters such as Van Gogh, vention of horses was fundamental in stances that shaped the young Manet and Rembrandt, as well as countless historical events. They were Franz Kafka (1883-1924). It tells the discussing general topics such as sculpted, painted, cherished, admired; story from his birth in Prague to the the character of the artist and the they were thrashed, abused and ex- beginning of his professional and differences between painters and posed to terrible danger. Ulrich Raulff‘s literary career in 1910, up until the poets. Each piece is marked by bestseller is a superb monument to the breakthrough that resulted in his Walser’s unique eye, his delicate endlessly various creature who has so first masterpieces. sensitivity and all are touched by often shared and shaped our fate. his magic screwball wit. 9 Non-Fiction

______Summer Before the Dark: The Hidden Life of Trees The Trick Stefan Zweig and Joseph Das geheime Leben der Der Trick Roth, Ostend 1936 Bäume Ostende. 1936, Sommer EMANUEL BERGMANN, German der Freundschaft PETER WOHLLEBEN, German Diogenes, 978-3257069556 Translated by Jane Billinghurst Atria Books (Simon & Schuster) (US), VOLKER WEIDERMANN, German Ludwig Buchverlag, 978-3453280670 978-1501155826, 375 pages, 2017 Translated by Carol Brown Janeway Greystone English (World) (US), btb Verlag, 978-3442715169, Pushkin 978-1771642484, 288 pages, 2016 A deeply moving, humorous story Press (UK), Knopf/Pantheon (US), 978- of a boy who believes in everything Are trees social beings? 1782272038, 160 pages, 2016 and an old man who believes in In this international bestseller Peter nothing. In 1934, a rabbi’s son It’s the summer of 1936, and the writer Wohlleben convincingly makes the in Prague joins a traveling circus, Stefan Zweig is in crisis. His German case that the forest is a social net- becomes a magician, and rises to publisher no longer wants him and his work. He draws on ground-breaking fame under the stage name the marriage is collapsing. So he journeys scientific discoveries to describe Great Zabbatini. Seven decades to Ostend – the Belgian beach town how trees are like human families: later in Los Angeles, ten-year-old that is a paradise of promenades, tree parents live together with their Max finds a scratched-up LP that parasols, and old friends – with his children, communicate with them, captured Zabbatini performing his lover, Lotte Altmann, and reunites with share nutrients with those who are greatest tricks. Max seeks out the fellow writer and friend Joseph Roth, struggling, and even warn each now elderly, cynical magician and who is himself about to fall in love. other of impending dangers. the two develop an unlikely friend- ‘Ostend’ is the true story of two of the After learning about the complex ship. twentieth century’s great writers, a life of trees, a walk in the woods will dazzling work of historical nonfiction. never be the same again.

Planning and organisation

______Planning and organisation: Editing: Contact: Frankfurter Buchmesse For questions, please contact Sheridan Marshall, Epsom, UK Bärbel Becker Braubachstraße 16 Design, setting: E-mail: [email protected] 60311 Frankfurt am Main www.weirauch-mediadesign.de Phone: +49 (0) 69 2102 258 book-fair.com ______book-fair.com/german_collecti- buchmesse.de With support from: ve_stands Federal Foreign Office ______© Frankfurter Buchmesse GmbH, Frankfurt am Main 2018. No reproduction without prior permission of the publisher.