Foreign Rights Autumn & Winter 2016/2017 Foreign Rights

Rowohlt Rowohlt Hundert Augen Rowohlt · Berlin Kindler Wunderlich rororo Rowohlt Polaris rotfuchs Foreign Rights Autumn & Winter 2016/2017 Foreign Rights

Autumn & Winter 2016 / 17

Leading titles Table of Contents

Fiction 04

Daniel Kehlmann You Should Have Gone

4 Fiction Highlights 2016 26

Werner Plumpe A Cold Heart

Children’s Books 28

Eugen Ruge Follower

Eckart von Hirschhausen Non - Fiction 30 Miracles Making Miracles

David Safier Non - Fiction Highlights 2016 48 Dream Prince

Contacts 51 Fiction Foreign Rights

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Leading title

A spooky story by bestselling author Literature Daniel Kehlmann

Daniel Kehlmann was born in Munich in 1975 and lives in Vienna › One of Daniel Kehlmann’s favourites is The Willows by Algernon and Berlin. His works have won the Candide Prize, the Literature Prize of the Konrad Adenauer Foundation, the Doderer Prize, the Kleist Prize, Blackwood, to which his new novel contains a clear reference. the WELT Literature Prize and the Thomas Mann Prize. His novel Measuring the World was translated in more than 40 foreign › Rights were sold to the US (Pantheon/ Penguin Random House) languages and is one of the biggest successes in post-war German literature. and the Netherlands (Querido). › 2.4 million copies of his novel Measuring the World were sold (rights sold to more than 40 countries).

YOU SHOULD HAVE GONe A young married couple with a 4-year-old daughter has rented an isolated holiday cottage in the mountains in the last few weeks before Christmas. The husband is a script writer whose deadline to submit a new comedy is nearing fast. He forces himself to work using his notepad, and he knows the more furiously he scribbles in it the less he has “A masterfully realized, wonderfully to look after his daughter. entertaining and deeply satisfying novel ... Instead of working, he starts jotting down what he and his wife Addictively readable and genuinely argue about, describes the strained atmosphere, writes about and deeply funny.” Los Angeles Times walking in the hills and records strange things. He sees the inte- on Measuring the World rior where he’s sitting mirrored in a window but he is not in the mirror image. The tap in the bath draws back from his hand when he reaches for it. If he draws a line through the middle of a right angle, the two halves add up to less or more than 90 degrees. Too late, he notices that his notebook contains sentences he didn’t write. Sentences that tell him to leave. The man reacts with nightmares and fear. He wants to leave, but then things take an unexpected turn: his wife’s affair is revealed and she drives off in the car, leaving her husband and daughter alone. Although the man wants to flee with his daughter, the house won’t let him go. The way the daughter’s behaviour is recounted is highly suggestive, including her unsettledness, her incisive questions. Then there’s the man’s self-sacrifice. The mother and daughter leave together and he is left in the house on his own. At the end, compassion outweighs fear. Daniel Kehlmann’s story is not only nightmarish and haunting, it also refuses to loosen its grip on us for a long time after we’ve finished reading. Its depiction of a spiral down into the abyss, into the abysmal, develops an extraordinary pull on our imagina- tion. But most impressive is that, along with the horror is emotional depth: the tensions in this family.

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Leading title

A brilliant Follower Literature

EUGEN RUGE, born in the Urals, studied mathematics in Berlin and › More than 500,000 copies were sold of In Times of Fading Light. became a member of the research staff at the Central Institute for Geophysics in Potsdam. He left the GDR for the West in 1988, where he Rights have been sold to 24 countries so far. began working as a writer and translator. He was awarded the Schiller Prize and stipend by the state of Baden Württemberg for his dramat- › A worthy successor to the internationally acclaimed previous novel ic works. His first novel, In Times of Fading Light, was an international success and received numerous awards, including the Alfred by the winner of the German Book Prize. Döblin Prize, the Aspekte Prize for Literature, and the German Book Prize. 2013 saw the publication of Cabo de Gata. A collection of plays and Approaches: Impressions of 14 Countries followed.

FOLLOWER Coming five years after the international success of his novel In Times Of Fading Light, Eugen Ruge has crafted a new story that could hardly be more different, yet is “East Germany’s major Buddenbrooks also a continuation of his masterful narrative. novel.” DIE ZEIT on In Times of September 2055: a man journeys under an artificial blue sky Fading Light through HTUA China on a mission to market the concept behind his company. Nio Schulz’s remarkable idea is called “The time is ripe for this undisguised, “true barefoot running”. He inhabits a world of big data, gen- humorous and sensitive view on things.” der cameras and self-optimization; he swims through an unin- Süddeutsche Zeitung terrupted stream of information: a climate bomb detonates in Australia; he negotiaties with his almost-girlfriend about the “Already hailed as a Cold War classic.” price of a surrogacy; a news agency announces the death of The Independent on In Times of his grandfather, Alexander Umnitzer, a loner with a hatred of Fading Light progress. Nio is modern, advanced, up-to-date. Already 39, he is fighting to stay abreast of the developments around him. But on the way to a business meeting he disappears before the all-seeing eyes of the officials that monitor everything. What happened? Bristling with creative ideas and studded with surprises, Follower is funny, vivacious and daring yet it has its finger firmly on the pulse of modern times. This darkly brilliant book is a worthy successor to Ruge’s internationally acclaimed novel.

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The universe of a Nobel prize-winning writer Literature / Memoir Chronicling manic depression Literature / Memoir

IMRE KERTÉSZ, born in › This volume completes a trilogy of diary THOMAS MELLE was born › A sparkling narrative and a radical autobio- Budapest in 1929, was extracts covering half a century of a in 1975 and studied applied graphy of extraordinary literary power. deported to Auschwitz and remarkable life, offering a monumental literary studies and philoso- Buchenwald at 14 years old. phy in Tübingen; Austin, › Longlisted for the German Book Prize 2016! developmental narrative of Imre Kertész’ After the collapse of com- Texas and Berlin. His 2012 munism in Europe he thought and writing. debut novel, Sickster, was “While other texts coquettishly wave around became a world-famous Rights were sold to France (Actes Sud), nominated for the German › bits of red cloth, this one reeks of genuine author and was awarded Italy (Bompiani) and Spain (Quaderns Book Prize. 2014 saw the the 2002 Nobel Prize for publication of 3,000 Euros, danger. If you stab it, it bleeds – Thomas Melle Crema). Literature. From this time which was shortlisted for is a great author.” Cicero on Sickster onwards, he lived in Berlin and the German Book Prize. In returned to Budapest in 2012 “A giant of twentieth century literature.” 2015, Thomas Melle received where he died in March 2016. the Berlin Arts Prize, awarded by Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung the city in which he lives.

THE OBSERVER: CHRONICLES 1991–2001 THE WORLD AT YOUR BACK There can be hardly a writer whose work and diaries mesh “If you’re bipolar, your life has no continuity anymore. The together so tightly as those of Imre Kertész. The extracts illness has wrecked your past, and it looms over your from his diaries published to date are, taken literally, exis- future even more threateningly. The life you knew is made tential literature. The opening was provided by his famed more impossible with every manic episode. The person work The Diary of a Galley Slave, a harrowing testimonial you think you are and know has no firm ground under to 30 years of isolation and personal secrecy in socialist their feet any more. You literally can’t be sure of your self. Hungary between 1961 and 1991. This was followed in In this short-circuited, manic state, what otherwise would 2013 by Last Retreat, which spans from 2001 to 2009; it have only briefly flashed through your head before instant- was during this period that he spurned his native Hungary ly being discarded instead becomes action. Everyone pro- and found a new home in Berlin. bably has a chasm in their soul, which they reveal occasion- The Observer contains notes and records from 1991 to ally. Mania is when you go on a tour through that chasm. 2001, closing the gap between the two previously pub- Things you’ve known about yourself for years become lished volumes. They cover the years following the collapse invalid. You don’t just start again from scratch, like when of Stalinist dictatorships in Europe, an era of new begin- you’re bank account’s empty. No, you go down below nings during which Imre Kertész finds a late and unexpect- zero, you’re in the red. You’re no longer connected to any - ed appreciation for his work. Yet during this period he is thing in a reliable way.” also confronted with a resurgence of nationalism and anti- This book offers exceptional insights into what sufferers Semitism in Hungary. go through, offering an arresting chronicle of a disrupted, broken life. M orath O hlbaum The Diary of a I solde

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Literature Literature Four people, one hope: a family on the run Literature

DIRK STERMANN is well-known in Germany as an actor and DAVID WAGNER was born in 1971. His debut attracted sig- as a radio and TV show host. In his adopted country of Austria he nificant critical attention. Four Apples was longlisted for the AKOS DOMA was born in › An enthralling story about a dramatic is famous as the long-standing host of the country’s best-known German Book Prize and for his novel Life he received the Leipzig 1963 in Budapest. His debut escape. talk show. He is also a bestselling author; his novel Six Austrians Book Fair Prize in 2013. In 2014 he was appointed the first novel was published in 2001. in the Top Five sold over 150,000 copies. Friedrich Dürrenmatt guest professor for world literature at the He has translated works › Longlisted for the German Book Prize 2016! University of Bern. He lives in Berlin. and has received numer- AT THE END, THE BOY GETS HOTEL ROOMS ous awards and stipends, “Fast-paced and moving … The novel proves SOMETHING GOOD A man journeys across Europe, all the way to China including the 2012 impressively that this renowned translator of Claude is different to other 13 year olds, even if you and Iran. But all he focusses on is the hotel rooms Adelbert von Chamisso Hungarian texts is also a prominent German ignore his fascination for the history of the death Award and a stipend author.” The Adelbert von Chamisso Prize Jury he stays in along the way. He can’t get enough of awarded by the Prague penalty in Vienna. His father teaches trombone at a them, has an unquenchable curiosity for what he’ll Literary House in 2014. conservatory, his mother is an ethnologist. One day find next. Is there a pencil or a pen lying next to the He lives with his family in “Akos Doma so capably entertains us with his a new man moves into her flat. Walls are hurriedly telephone? In his experience, a sign of high stan- Eichstätt. story that you simply can’t put the book down.” raised. On one side is his mother who lives with dards. Energy-saving measures are often imple- Neue Zürcher Zeitung on his previous title Claude’s brother and her new lover, while on the mented: “I should go into the bathroom to read.” THE WAY OF WISHES other is Claude and his father. The latter soon finds An illustrated cultural history of underwear stands The story begins with a children’s birthday party amongst a new flame, a vegan, German flutist. Before long, on a book shelf. A small frog that he saves from a family. But the shadows of the cherry trees are not the both have moved out. Claude stays, alone. hotel foyer jumps into a fern bush and disappears. only ones being cast over the proceedings. The lives of par- Meanwhile, his grandmother tells him to stop “Or did it want to be kissed?” Happiness at spend- ents Teréz and Károly have become unbearable in commu- moaning and think more about others. The only ing the night in a room in a tall tower with its view nist Hungary. No one can be allowed to find out about person left for Claude is Dirko, the taxi driver who of the lake and the light. Despair at the ubiquitous their plans to escape. Especially not their children, Misi and takes him to his elite high school every day, where plague of embroidered cushions. And why do some Borbála, who are so looking forward to a holiday by Lake Claude is beaten up on a regular basis by the rich of the bathrooms have a set of scales? Balaton and soon wonder why their favourite lake is rush- kids. At a new school Claude falls in love to Minako. David Wagner is a master of finding the poetry in ing past the window. Daringly, the family manage to cross They are determined to start a family, despite both observations of daily life. He shows us over 100 the border into Italy, but the seemingly endless summer in of them being so young. Is their dream doomed to hotel rooms, the kind we all know but have never a reception camp puts them under severe strain. No one is a painful failure? seen quite this way before. A book for travellers left untouched. Károly and Teréz become estranged, and those who offer them accommodation. eight-year-old Misi is confronted full-on with the harshness “I think that Dirk Stermann is one of our “David Wagner finds a wonderful balance of the adult world, and Borbála falls in love for the first greatest.” Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung between the melancholic and the laconic.” time. Events from a distant past lurch jarringly into the pre- Der Tagesspiegel sent. As a young girl, Teréz was forced to flee from the oncoming eastern front; Károly and his mother were forci- bly resettled. The family seems poised to fracture before they have even reached Germany, their destination. Akos Doma, who himself fled Hungary as a teenager, has written an enthralling story about a dramatic escape, told with clear-sightedness and great expressive power. His novel surveys the damage caused to the human soul by insecurity and homelessness, and the dramatic changes they force on their victims.

Rowohlt Hundert Augen November 2016 | 224 pages Rowohlt October 2016 | 122 pages © Hubert Klotzeck Rowohlt·Berlin September 2016 | 336 pages

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Literature Literature An absurd tour d’horizon through abysses Literature

GEORG RINGSGwANDL was born in 1948 and is an icon RAINER SCHMIDT, born in Düsseldorf in 1964, is a journalist of the musical cabaret scene. Until 1993 he was a consultant and author. He has worked for the BBC World Service, Zeit ALBRECHT SELGE was Four men in a Fiat Panda, a microcosm in cardiologist. Since then he has focussed completely on his artistic Magazin, Spiegel Reporter, Vanity Fair and Rolling Stone. His › born in 1975 in Heidelberg. output. His work was panned by critics at the 1994 Bachmann debut was published in 2008. His previous novel, Die Cannabis which the whole world unfolds. He grew up in West Berlin Festival, yet he went on to write several plays. This ist his first GmbH, was widely acclaimed. Rainer Schmidt lives in Berlin. and studied German and › An absurd roadtrip through the South novel. philosophy in Berlin and Tyrolean mountains: grotesque and funny, THE INCOMPLETE MEMOIRS OF DORIS, LEGAL HIGH Vienna. His first novel, exhilarating and universal. THE TOUR SLUT Germany in the year 2018. The chancellor is under Awake (2011), was criti- Ringsgwandl’s first novel tells the story of a woman pressure from all sides to legalise cannabis. The cally acclaimed, and was “The appeal of Albrecht Selge’s prose lies in the nominated for the Alfred who is forced into self-sufficiency at a young age. observations that merge into one another, the health insurers want to save money on medication, Döblin Prize. Albrecht Selge She pays her way through college by working as a while farmers and industry sense an opportunity to is a freelance author and lives reflections and fragmentary thoughts of a tired tour assistant for stand-up comics and rock bands, make billions. When the chancellor hints that it with his family in Berlin. man, a sense of wonder at the world and what working her way up from cable carrier to an expert might be made legal the following year it kicks off holds it all together.” on conducting dodgy dealings and how to discrete- a gold (or green?) rush up and down the country. Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung on Awake ly handle dirty money. Doris is constantly walking a The only one who’s depressed is the Dude. He’s in DRIVING DRUNK narrow path between the life of an artist and that prison for having produced the best marijuana in It begins as a harmless holiday in the summer of 1989. An of an ordinary tax-payer. Over the years she occa- the country. Unfortunately, it was still illegal at the overweight music critic from West Berlin, a world-famous sionally hooks up with a stage technician who time. He watches on, frustrated, as chemical giant pianist from Hanover and a simple-minded law student although unremarkable is reliable. One day she Meduk and energy drink maker Black Devil prepare from Bologna plan to scout around South Tyrol. With them runs off with him hoping to find a little piece of their cannabis products for market. It soon becomes is a somewhat dubious native of the region, a high school happiness somewhere far away. obvious that the winner of this race will be the one teacher who says he knows his way around. With the four Ringsgwandl’s protagonist, Ringsgwandl, finds her who offers the best product. Suddenly everyone is of them squashed into a Fiat Panda they drive around from notes in which she tells us who the biggest arsehole fighting to get hold of the Dude’s legendary weed, one side of the region to the other. Soon the other passen- of them all really is. After a few minor edits by turning him into a pawn in a cannabis-scented gers realise that their chauffeur has got one leg and no Ringsgwandl’s Ringsgwandl, her notes merge to crime thriller. Legal High is a biting social satire idea where he’s going. And that he’s a bit too fond of a form a tragic, comic and touching story about an about greed and hypocrisy in the corridors of tipple. Their tour takes them not only to locked churches almost average woman. power, by turns hilarious, enthralling and frighten- and remote mountain villages but also from one inn to the ingly realistic. next. The four men get talking – sometimes with depth › Dim-witted but jaunty: about the fine and profundity, sometimes humorously. The more they line between rock and roll excess and the › An impassioned social satire – and drink, the more ludicrous their discussions get, oscillating drudgery of ordinary life. very, very funny! from wisdom to mischief and mania to high art and hard life to death and forgetting. When yet another passenger gets in, things come to a head. Will they ever make it back in one piece? M ansouri

Rowohlt February 2017 | 304 pages Rowohlt·Berlin September 2016 | 352 pages © Reza Jan Rowohlt·Berlin Awake September 2016 | 288 pages

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Literature Poetry Literature / Humour Literature / Humour

Andreas Baum PETER RÜHMKORF, born in Dortmund in 1929, was a MAX GOLDT, born in Göttingen in 1958, lives in Berlin. Goldt HORST EVERS, born in 1967 in Lower Saxony, studied We Were the new era literary editor and freelance author who lived in Hamburg. ist known for his grotesque humour and his excellent satiric works. German and communication science in Berlin. He worked odd Berlin in 1990: the Berlin Wall is crumbling, and He received many awards and died in 2008. His latest published works include Female Bosses in Floor-Length jobs as a taxi driver and express parcel delivery man. He has an enchanted country suddenly becomes freely BERND RAUSCHENBACH, literary scholar and author, Denim Skirts (2014) and Ahem *Clears Throat* (2015). In 2008 received the German Cabaret Prize and the German “Kleinkunst” also performs literary works. He has been director of the Arno he was awarded both the Hugo Ball Prize and the Kleist Prize. Prize, amongst others. He has written numerous bestsellers and accessible. But the magic soon evaporates. Even Schmidt Foundation since 1982. lives in Berlin. the group of young people squatting in the late 19th century house on Badstübner street notice THE COLLECTED POEMS WIPE YOUR MOUTH AND SMILE THE CATEGORICAL IMPERATIVE the change. While they manage to defend their “Stay Unshakeable and Resist”, “Where the Gods “Generally, I’m pretty happy with what I get served. IS NOT A SEX POSITION squat against the police, Turn Their Thumbs” – even the titles of his poems But I regularly feel bemusement reading restaurant What’s the best way of facing up to the manifold neo-Nazis and competing exude the evocative melody that make Rühmkorf’s reviews which hardly ever pick up on the fact that pitfalls existence puts in our way? Horst Evers dives squatter groups, relation- verse so unique. This is the voice of one of every hungry person not only has a mouth but also into everyday life and constructs stories rooted firm- ships amongst the squatters Germany’s great poets who juggles with tradition - two legs. In my opinion, a good dining table has ly in the here and now. He changes foreign lan- are anything but amicable. al forms, imbues free rhythms with swing while four legs. Arranged, quite simply, with one at each guages so that you can understand them without The narrator, Sebastian breaking rhymes and then cobbling them back corner. Restaurant tables, however, often have only being able to speak them; he finally finds a compro- Brandt, cannot help notic- together. He doesn’t shrink back from addressing one central support which widens out to a protrud- mise for being respectful to your partner while ing that the political opin- weightier topics, writing “offhandedly about love ing foot that forces the guest to bend their feet out- using your smartphone at the same time. “It’s a ions and ideological slogans and death”, as well as reworking commonplace wards like Charlie Chaplin’s tramp, potentially headband with a smartphone-holder on the front. often mask unadulterated themes in a way that lets them sparkle: “the reflex reducing blood flow to the feet. One hears of peo- She’s wearing my phone and I’m wearing hers. We self-interest. in the morning of a trembling butter knife on a ple who did not notice that their feet had fallen can check our emails while still looking deep into cheek at breakfast”. asleep, and who on getting up broke a foot. In the one another’s eyes. And it’s also better for your Rühmkorf’s favourite place to be was always the posture.” He suggests that the NSA stop monitor- Rowohlt Hundert Augen September 2016 | 320 pages more nostalgia-laden locales strewn with bric-a- space in between, even if that sometimes left him brag guests are forced to sit at old Singer sewing ing him; instead, he’ll scan his own communica- walking a tightrope. This book assembles his machines. Stilettoed women have been known to tions and file a report once in a while, as long as he entire poetic oeuvre in one volume for the first get painfully caught up in them like insects in a spi- gets a share of the cost savings. He also puts ideas Memoir time: from a 1956 leaflet to a volume collated der’s web. of other major thinkers to the test, and comes to shortly before his death in 2008. the conclusion that life is wonderful, but does have the drawback of often being a lot of work. Fil Tägert › A complete one-volume collection of EMPLOYEE OF THE MONTH Rühmkorf’s poetic works. It’s a few years before the fall of the Wall in West › This high-value edition is a must for all › Max Goldt’s best writing – a treasure trove › This wonderfully crafted set of stories Berlin. Nick has a badly paid job at a well-known fans of excellent poetry. for all lovers of the eccentric. brings out the comedy in everyday life. fast food restaurant and also plays in a punk band called “Adolf and the Peoples”. While a sense of apocalyptic foreboding is still very much en vogue, Nick searches for meaning in his life and a new relationship to boot. And he’s certainly got enough time on his hands to let his mind wander. His life takes a confusing new turn when a blow to the head leaves him with no memory for faces. Then an incident occurs at work and Nick is left asking himself if his friends really are his friends …

Rowohlt Hundert Augen September 2016 | 304 pages Rowohl October 2016 | 624 pages Rowohlt·Berlin November 2016 | 512 pages Rowohlt·Berlin February 2017 | 224 pages

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Leading title

The new Safier: A picture-book love story! Entertaining Fiction

David Safier was born in 1966, and is one of today’s most successful › 4.5 million copies of his works were sold so far in Germany and authors and screenwriters. His books Lousy Karma, Suddenly Shakespeare, Happy Family, Moo! and For 28 Days sold millions. His books are also rights to 31 countries. bestsellers in markets outside Germany. He won both the International Emmy and the Grimme Prize for his screenplay for the TV series › A turbulent romantic comedy between reality and fantasy by Berlin, Berlin. He lives and works in Bremen, is married and has two children and a dog. international bestselling author David Safier! › A light and witty picture-book love story full of surprises. Until one day, it becomes reality…

DREAM PRINCE What woman wouldn’t like to draw her perfect man? Comic artist Nellie often has her head in the clouds. Suffering from a broken heart, she finds an old Tibetan leather-bound notebook in which she draws her ideal guy: “The most original book in years! strong, aristocratic and with a three-day beard. When she Ingenious and witty, this book leaves wakes up the next morning the prince has left the page and you wanting more.” stands, alive and well, in front of her wearing chain mail and a The press on his debut Lousy Karma sword. With the impetuous prince by her side, whose name, it turns out, is Retro, she scours Berlin to find out more about the magical notebook. Everything she draws in it comes alive! Although they make an odd couple, Nellie and Retro experience lots of adventures including fights with skinheads and escapes from the police. They soon realise that dark forces are trying to use the notebook to destroy the world! But the biggest adventure they have yet to face is the adventure of true love… A turbulent romantic comedy between reality and fantasy: a great and extremly funny bestseller-to-be!

Lousy Karma:

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The Danny-trilogy: A fictionalized true story Romantic fiction The exceptional debut of a promising author Women’s fiction

JESSICA KOCH was born in › A haunting story about love, confidence, Catharina Junk was › A love story between two young people 1982 in Ludwigsburg. In autumn desperation and the power to let go. born in Bremen in 1973. She who already have some battle-scars from 1999, during the beginning of studied German language life: intense with a strong, humorous her training in architectural › The no.1 e-book hit: and literature, psychology first-person narrator. drawing, she met Danny, a More than 150,000 copies sold! and folklore. Junk spent sev- German American. She experi- eral years working as a pro- › Catharina Junk received the prestigious › More than 25,000 copies of vol. 1 were enced the story recounted in ducer of various television literary award of the City of Hamburg for Close to the Horizon with him. sold within three weeks! programmes and series for this project. It was only 13 years later that the radio. Since 2008 she › Captivating, moving and based on facts she found the courage to pub- has been working as a free- › English sample translation available. lish her manuscript. Jessica Koch of a tragic lovestory! lance scriptwriter. Following lives near Heilbronn. on from numerous screenplays “This book bowled me over. Catharina Junk’s Day Zero is her first novel. story goes straight to your heart, yet is also very funny.” David Safier CLOSE TO THE HORIZON Day Zero The young Jessica enjoys life and can look forward to a Reader reviews on Close to the Horizon: In good health – but not cured. That is Nina’s diagnosis bright future. Then she meets Danny. She is instantly spell- after surviving leukaemia. In her early twenties, to Nina “Probably the best book I’ve ever read.” bound by him; despite his good looks and self-confident this suggests: don’t you dare rejoice too soon. The illness manner he seems to be keeping a dark secret. Jessica slow - “A wonderful book that woke more emotions has changed everything anyway. She and her best friend ly manages to catch glimpses behind Danny’s façade and to in me than any other.” Bahar have fallen out, her little brother has discovered reli- get to know who he really is. An abyss seems to open up gion in a big way and Nina has more trust in a game of “I really am speechless, agitated, devastated, as she discovers that Danny has been traumatized from chance than in her own body. How can she engage with sad, happy and much more besides.” early childhood on. He is fighting for a normal life far away life in a confident way? from his home and family. Despite some setbacks and defy- “I will definitely be recommending this After a year in hospital she initially moves back to her ing all sense of reason, an intimate love develops between book to my friends and acquaintances. small-town family home where at least her old school- Jessica and Danny. But it’s not only his past that is shroud- The world has to read this story.” friend Isabelle hasn’t changed – she is as reassuringly ed in darkness; Danny’s future is already determined for unreliable as ever. But then Nina meets Eric who broaches him. A race against time begins… the subject of illness with ease and openness. Nina feels vol. 1 herself falling in love far faster than her fear of a relapse CLOSE TO THE ABYSS can cope with. So she tramples on such dreams and kicks Danny has just turned ten when his vol. 3 them into the long grass. Until, in spite of herself, she dis- life turned upside down. The keenly covers an urge to fight for Eric, to restore her friendship anticipated follow up tells the vol. 2 with Bahar – and to make her peace with life and living. enthralling story of Danny’s child- Has it come too late for Nina, this recognition that every hood. day she hesitates may lessen her chances of happiness?

Close to the ocean The closure of the trilogy and the all-conquering power of friendship. Can it help to overcome the shadows of the past? va E va Häberle

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Entertaining Fiction Entertaining Fiction The opening of a major new crime series Thriller

RENATE BERGMANN STEFFEN WEINERT A GRAVE MATTER THE NICE ONES SLEEP ALONE Ursula Poznanski, › A new series featuring investigators “What on earth is going to happen when it’s my Christoph is 33 and has never really had much suc- born in Vienna in 1968, start- Salomon and Buchholz by bestselling time to meet the Maker? The man at the bank cess with women. Yet he’s a good, faithful guy ed writing thrillers after the duo Poznanski & Strobel. bought me some shares. I was all in a tizzy, the who can listen and doesn’t smoke. Not that any of tremendous success of her bank man told me that they’d gone up from €30 that helps. In fact, he’s become an expert on how young adult novels. She › Two authors, two voices – one male, to €280 each, and that my €8,000 had turned to deal with a broken heart. He realises that he lives with her family in one female. Vienna. into… Well, you work it out! My dear Lord! I need needs to start over, that he has to stop being a Arno Strobel, › Rights for their previous title Foreign a drink!” Our favourite beta male and awaken the born in Saarlouis in 1962, were sold to the US (St. Martin’s Press), granny has hit the jackpot! alpha dog in him! But when studied IT and began writing Italy (Giunti) and Greece (Klidarithmos) Her new-found wealth is to the 11-year-old boy from when he was nearly 40. be protected from her next door comes to his aid, His psychological thrillers topped “Poznanski and Strobel masterfully crank up daughter Kirsten, toasted he gets an inkling of how the bestseller lists. Strobel lives near the suspense from chapter to chapter. Nothing Trier with his wife. with Gertrud, Ilse and Kurt low he has fallen… is as it seems in this novel. Not even the main and shared with Stefan and ANONYMOUS characters.” dpa on Foreign his boyfriend. Meanwhile, Detest your neighbour? Have a score to settle with your Renate tackles the big ex-wife? Hate your boss? Enough to want him dead? questions in life: who gets Then add him to our list and see if other users vote for what... him. A word of warning: some wishes become reality… Hamburg police detective Daniel Buchholz is called out to rororo August 2016 | 208 pages rororo December 2016 | 288 pages a crime scene in a disused factory. On his arrival he finds not only a horrifically mutilated body but a new colleague: Nina Salomon. The two clash right off the bat. Buchholz is a stickler for Romantic Fiction Entertaining Fiction procedure whose teeth are set on edge by so much as a wrinkly shirt collar. Salomon, meanwhile, doesn’t take con- JULE MAIWALD Tom Liehr ventions – of any sort – all that seriously. But she has an THE DEVIL MAY CARE COUNTRY FOLK excellent instinct and quickly finds an internet forum that It’s just before her 40th birthday when Anne’s Sebastian is a failed journalist from the big city offers users a very special kind of game: add people you friends all gather around to support her on her who takes his wife and daughter off to live in the want to die to our list and the rest of the community votes husband’s funeral. But Richard is alive and doing countryside. Melanie is a psychotherapist and this on “the winner”. Although the next round is already well – with another woman. It’s only after Anne rural area offers just what she needs: a vacancy underway, all attempts to find the person behind the has symbolically buried him that she can get back and lots of people needing therapy. But both are game fail. The site is part of the Darknet, where anonym- on her feet. And she wants to help other women surprised by the realities of living in the back of ity is the only law… in similar situations and beyond. While Melanie starts her own agency for hardly dares venture out divorce rituals. While her onto the street because of new venture soon takes off all the “crazies”, Sebastian in a big way, Anne’s own acquires a liking for the love life picks up, too. But simplicity of their new life… then she gets a commission The dream of bucolic tran- from a woman who wants quillity clashes with the to take revenge on her hus- realities of the life in the band – who turns out to be country – a funny, trench- Anne’s new flame! ant and insightful story. G erster aby G aby

rororo January 2017 | 288 pages Rowohlt Polaris November 2016 | 320 pages © Wunderlich Foreign October 2016 | 384 pages

20 21 Fiction Foreign Rights

Autumn & Winter 2016 / 17

Crime Crime Thriller Thriller

CORNELIA KUHNERT (ED.) THOMAS NOMMENSEN Sophie Kendrick lived in various European countries, Horst eckert, born in 1959, has lived for the last 29 years HUNGRY FOR DEATH A DEADLY WINTER amongst them the UK, where she studied English literature and in Düsseldorf. He studied political science and worked as a TV What do all our favourite detectives have in com- A young woman is found dead in an abandoned did some research on the Brontë sisters. She worked in an agency journalist for 15 years. His novels have been translated into sever- mon? Their distaste for investigating a murder on cemetery in Berlin, hastily buried. Assisted by his for book projects and as a ghostwriter before she published her al languages and won several prizes (including the Friedrich first novel. Glauser Prize and the Krimi-Blitz Prize. Wunderlich has previously an empty stomach! In addition to some thrilling Turkish colleague Mayla Aslan, detective chief published his political thrillers Black Light and Shadow Boxer. cases, Friedrich Ani’s Tabor Süden prepares a meaty inspector Arne Larsen launches his investigation. Schlachtschüssel, Gisa Pauly’s Mama Carlotta cre- Only recently transferred to Berlin, Larsen’s MY KILLER’S FACE WOLF SPIDER ates a tasty fish stew, Susanne Mischke’s Völkxen enquiry leads him to a girl who writes “Help” Clara wakes up from a coma to find that her life The murder of a well-known bar owner in Düsseldorf conjures up a delicious por- twelve times in her school has been rubbed out, deleted. She can neither sets Police Chief Vincent Veth on the tracks of a drug cini risotto while Kuhnert exercise book, and to a remember her own name nor her husband, the ring dealing large quantities of crystal meth. His and Franke’s famed trio secret house, No. 24, part novelist Roland Winter – nor does she know who investigation turns up the name of Ronny Vogt, a dis- cook us a hearty stew with of a secure housing zone the intruder is who is supposed to have knocked tant relative of Vincent’s who puzzlingly pretends soused herring. These inves- built during the Cold War her unconscious. It doesn’t seem like she has any not to know him. Vincent discovers that Ronny is tigators aren’t only gifted for former top GDR politi- friends; Roland is her only connection to the past. operating undercover for the regional criminal inves- sleuths, they’re pretty tal- cians. Larsen and Aslan are And with his support, Clara attempts a new tigations office. A few years before that he was mon- ented in the kitchen, too. as yet unaware that they beginning, until someone tries to murder her and itoring the activities of a violent underground neo- And they even get round to are not the only ones try - she finally realises that she must remember if she Nazi group, the “Nationalsozialistische Untergrund”, solving some pretty tough ing to get to the bottom of wants to survive. Step by step, Clara reconstructs or NSU. Code-named Operation Wolf Spider, the cases… these sinister events... her own life and stumbles across a mysterious investigation evidently left deep marks on Ronny. woman who she was due to meet on the day of Vincent finds out that the drug dealer’s underlings the tragedy. And who has since gone missing rororo November 2016 | 320 pages rororo October 2016 | 416 pages have been responsible for attacks on migrants; sud- without a trace. denly Vincent is unsure of which side of the law Ronny is on. This urgently topical thriller feeds on current contro- Crime Crime versies surrounding the immigration of refugees and the anti-Islam movement Pegida, and calls the offi- cial account of the NSU murders into question... STEFAN KELLER TESS RILEY & CHRISTIAN BRANDT The END OF ALL SECRETS Operation JFK › Intelligent, captivating and thrilling: “Eckert has established his name as one of Heidi Kamemba has just joined the detective force in The JFK assassination has caused controversy for psychological tension at its best! Germany’s major crime writers.” Düsseldorf. And she is the first black female CID decades. Yet the latest information puts the Die Welt Kompakt officer in the country. Of course, if it was up to her, on-going questions about the identity of the killer her colour simply wouldn’t be an issue, but unfortu- into an alarming new context. The forensic inves- nately most of her fellow officers see this differently. tigators of the Time Unit are sent back to the early On her first day at work, a burned corpse is found in 1960s. Unbeknown to the other members of the the woods. With the hunt team, one of them has a for the murderer ongoing, personal interest in both Kamemba’s enquiry soon the JFK case and the mat- turns up some unsettling ter of Kennedy’s affair truths. She finds out that with Marilyn Monroe… her predecessor shot himself with his service weap- on. And Heidi decides to launch her own, private investigation into his death…

rororo February 2017 | 320 pages rororo October 2016 | 448 pages rororo January 2017 | 416 pages Wunderlich September 2016 | 496 pages

22 23 Fiction Foreign Rights

Autumn & Winter 2016 / 17

Historical Fiction Historical Fiction Historical Fiction Historical Fiction

GUIDO DIECKMANN Carmen Korn PETRA HARTLIEB was born in Munich in 1967 and grew MAIKEN NIELSEN was born in Hamburg in1965. She spent THE HEALER OF ARAGÓN DAUGHTERS OF A NEW TIME up in Upper Austria.She studied psychology and history and then a part of her youth on container ships and was taught there by The Kingdom of Aragón in 1364: in the Jewish 1900 was a year with an exceptionally high birth rate worked in Vienna and Hamburg as a press officer and literary her parents. Since 1996, Maiken Nielsen has worked as a writer, quarter of Saragossa, the orphans Floreta and that produced a generation of women that would critic. She and her husband opened a bookshop in Vienna in reporter and announcer for the TV station. The research for this 2004. 2014 saw the publication of her autobiographical book story about her grandfather took seven years. Ceti fight for survival every single day. Only their have to endure two world wars. Henny Godhusen is My Wonderful Book Shop. love of plants and herbs gives the two girls the one of those women. She’s only just turned 18 when resolve to hold on to their dream of one day peace breaks out. Henny is sure that the dark years A WINTER IN VIENNA BELOW US THE WORLD becoming physicians. They find their first teachers are behind her for good. Full of zest for life, she It’s the period around 1910 and Marie works as a Christian Nielsen, a young sailor and a native of the in Pablo, a good-natured begins training as a midwife nanny with a respectable family in Vienna’s island of Sylt on Germany’s North Sea coast, wants Capuchin friar, and Samin, in the spring of 1919 at a ‘Cottage’ quarter. One day she is sent by the fami- nothing more than to float above the earth in a a blind spice merchant. women’s clinic in Hamburg’s ly’s patriarch to pick up a book from a local book- zeppelin. But in 1920s Germany, his dream seems The young women’s dream Uhlenhorst quarter. Henny shop. But she comes back empty handed with her completely unrealistic. Instead he joins the crew of seems to become real until falls in love with the area and clothes soaked through by the snow. The book a yacht owned by an American millionaire and jour- jealousy, intrigue and love its diversity; here, middle- hasn’t arrived yet and Oskar, the bookshop’s owner, neys around the world. While ashore in New York, for the same man threaten class citizens and workers, says he will bring the book personally as soon as a young girl literally falls into his arms; it’s love at to end not only their rich and poor all mix. But the possible. first sight. The young Lil Kimming wants to launch friendship, but also their people who will become When Oskar comes the same afternoon to the a career in journalism in New York and to write lives… most important for her life house in the Sternwartstraße and rings the bell, he about the first circumnavigation of the globe in an are three women. is carrying two books, one for Herr Schnitzler and airship. They don’t have enough time to introduce the other for Marie. It includes a personal note for themselves to each other, but Lil can’t get him out rororo October 2016 | 480 pages Kindler October 2016 | 560 pages the young woman; he would, it seems, like to see of her mind. her again… In May 1937 he is navigator on the Hindenburg’s Petra Hartlieb gifts us a few magical hours of read- fateful journey to Lakehurst near New York where ing pleasure. he hopes to find Lil. But then the zeppelin goes up Historical Fiction Historical Fiction in flames…

REBECCA MALY ROMAN RAUSCH › A bookshop, a famous poet and a snowy › The true story of Christian Nielsen, one THE SISTERS FROM THE ICE RIVER THE BRIDGE ACROSS THE RIVER MAIN winter in Vienna: a wonderful read! of the few survivors of the Hindenburg It’s the middle of winter and Jorun, a young maid- Würzburg’s bridge over the River Main is one of the disaster, as told by his granddaughter. en, has lost her job and is forced to go back to her oldest in Germany. Spanning centuries, this absorb- parents’ farm. She hadn’t planned on seeing her ing tale describes how this unique structure grew, emotionally cold sister ever again. But she soon lived and died. It begins with the stories of its crea- uncovers a well-kept secret. Salbjörg is nursing the tion, from which proceeds a rich tapestry of stories badly injured Erlendur, whom she has hidden in a involving brotherly disputes, war, starvation, witch- remote hut. Her sister had hunts and rebellions, right found him unconscious and up to the bridge’s demoli- almost frozen to death. Yet tion by the Nazis in the face the neighbour’s son is of advancing American wanted for murder and his troops. The historically pursuers are scouring the authentic events depicted countryside for Erlendur, here are augmented with who can’t remember any- accounts of both real and thing. Jorun begins to fall fictional characters, all mas- for the man with the ice- terfully interwoven. blue eyes...

rororo November 2016 | 416 pages rororo April 2017 | 480 pages Kindler October 2016 | 176 pages Wunderlich October 2016 | 448 pages

24 25 Fiction Highlights 2016 Foreign Rights

Autumn & Winter 2016 / 17

Martin Walser’s great late work Literature A dream that takes us back to reality. Literature

Martin Walser was › 50,000 copies sold! Martin Mosebach › Colourful, thrilling, fantastic: a dangerous born in 1927 in Wasserburg was born in Frankfurt am journey full of personal stories! and now lives by Lake › Rights sold to Finland (Lurra) and Main in 1951. After passing Constance. He is among China (Zhejiang). his bar exams to qualify as › Mosebach’s previous works were sold Germany’s most impor- a lawyer in 1979, he to 13 countries. tant literary authors and › More than 200,000 copies were sold established himself as a has received numerous of his Goethe novel A Loving Man and writer in the city of his › English sample translation available. awards, among them the rights were sold to 23 countries. birth, where he still lives Büchner Award and the today. His first novel was “Martin Mosebach is incontrovertibly one of Peace Prize of the German “Walser doesn‘t merely write the most published in 1983. Since the most intelligent, inventive and expressively Book Trade. He has also been beautiful sentences, he also deploys them then, he has published nine powerful writers living today.” DIE ZEIT decorated with the order Pour le within horizons that are thought-provoking.” further acclaimed novels that Mérite and was appointed Officier have been translated into several Neue Zürcher Zeitung de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres. languages.

A DYING MAN Mogador Theo Schadt is 72, a CEO and part-time writer, and one Jumping out of a window doesn’t often become a leap day he is betrayed by the very person who should never into another world. But when successful young banker have betrayed him: the poet Carlos Kroll, his closest and – Patrick Elff jumps out of the window after being interro- for the last 19 years – only friend. His career in ruins, gated at police headquarters, it marks the beginning of a Schadt sits behind the till at his wife’s tango studio, in dangerous journey. With the fraud he has committed is on Munich’s Schellingstraße. Believing, should what has hap- the verge of being uncovered, he flees to Mogador to seek pened to him actually, really be true, that he cannot carry the help of a powerful Moroccan financier who owes him on living, he registers with an online forum for suicidal a favour. people. Here, forum members describe what has hap- But hiding out in this town on Morocco’s Atlantic coast pened to them, and are answered by others who have had proves difficult. To avoid arousing the interest of the local similar experiences. Their mutual topic of interest: suicide. police, he decides to live not at a hotel, but in a boarding One day, as he is sitting behind the cash register, a custom- house run by Khadija. It turns out to be a microcosm of er causes his senses to explode in light. His wife believes our universe, a hidden world with its own laws that are far he’s had a stroke. In fact it was the client’s eyes, her look. removed from the usual norms and standards. Khadija is a Whenever he closes his eyes, he stares into a flood of light, prostitute and a procuress, a money lender, magician and with her at its centre. He finds her address in the customer prophet. Patrick, who sees himself as someone who more files and writes to her; each email is an illusion that or less involuntarily drifted into committing his crime, extends his life. After 38 years of marriage, he moves out. encounters a woman with enormous self-will who has fos- Ethics, proper behaviour and societal standards all now tered a personal cult to the point of idolatry. In one short mean nothing to him. But then he finds out that she lives interval, he twice crosses borders that previously seemed with his betrayer in an open relationship. Is his life a “lost unshakable; he sees the spirit world, and discovers horrors game, a match that can’t be won”? that go far beyond earthly punishments. Martin Walser’s wonderful new novel explores themes of Mogador is part crime story, part soul’s journey and com- aging, love and betrayal; this is an impressively topical bines some incisively keen observation of reality with a book that sparkles with stylistic beauty and develops an sense of the fantastical that includes the demonic in its overwhelming and unique emotional power. dramatic sweep. As always, personal stories take centre stage in Mosebach’s narrative. The voyage to Mogador turns into a dream that brings Patrick back to reality. S chleyer S usanne

26 27 Children’s Books Foreign Rights

Autumn & Winter 2016 / 17

Middle Grade Children Middle Grade Middle Grade

Mara Schindler was born in 1982 and studied German Markus Osterwalder was born in Zurich in 1947. He Holly-Jane Rahlens, a born New Yorker, moved to Joachim Hecker was born in 1964 and is a science editor in Rostock. She has since dedicated herself to living her life to the is art director at the publisher L’Ecole des loisirs in Paris. With his Berlin as a young woman, where she has flourished in the for WDR Radio. For many years, he has managed to fuel young full and finding ways of describing it using words and hands, an stories about Bobo Dormouse, he established a long-selling and German media world. In 2003 her novel Prince William, listeners’ enthusiasm for science with his experimentation pro- adventure that has brought her to some very remote places. bestselling series for the very little ones. Maximilian Minsky and Me earned the prestigious Deutscher gramme Hecker’s Witch Kitchen. He has written two books for Jugendliteraturpreis as the best young adult novel published in children called Experiments and Even More Experiments. The Germany. stunning drawings are by award-winning illustrator Sybille Hein. KREMPE, KOTTEK AND THE THING WITH MERRY CHRISTMAS, BOBO DORMOUSE! Silence of Snow (part 2) THE LITTLE SCIENTISTS’ SPACESHIP: MRS SCHULZ In these four delightful new stories, Markus After their thrilling yet perilous trip to the 23 rd cen- EXCITING DO-IT-YOURSELF EXPERIMENTS Krempe lives with her granddad Kottek in the for- Osterwalder shows us what little Bobo Dormouse tury in Whispering Leaves, reading club members Kim and her friends can hardly believe their eyes mer railway station at the end of the road. The vil- gets up to in those wonderful few weeks in the run- Oliver, Rosa and Iris land safe and sound back home when they find a hamster in the cellar at Kim’s lagers all know one another, everyone’s ready to up to Christmas. He makes a beautiful advent calen- exactly where their story began – or maybe not? house that flies around in its own spaceship! And lend a helping hand. When Kottek starts acting dar with daddy, collects pine cones and twigs in the Everything seems like it always was, yet ... some- that’s not all: the hamster can shrink the children so strangely and keeps forgetting things, everyone woods and makes a traditional German Christmas how it’s different. Before the children even have the that they can join him for some amazing space tries to act as though nothing’s amiss while helping wreath. The Dormouse family also go on an even- chance to figure out what’s wrong, in Silence of adventures. Kim and her friends can’t wait to get Krempe as much as they can. If only there wasn’t ing lantern walk carrying a self-made lantern, bake Snow, Holly-Jane Rahlens’ new science fiction going, there’s so much to learn! How to turn a bal- Mrs Schulz to deal with, the woman from youth ser- cookies and go on a trip to a Christmas-themed novel, they’re whisked away again – this time into loon into a shower, for example. How to break off vices, who takes every opportunity she can to sneak play at the theatre. the distant past. Trapped in a dangerous time warp a piece from a bar of chocolate using a tiny trick – into their house. When Granddad Kottek’s condi- As usual, Bobo falls asleep at the end of every story with Lucia, a mysterious new-girl-on-the-block, our while the bar stays whole. What a microwave does tion becomes known, Krempe is to be taken into – even after the family have unwrapped their pre- three protagonists time travel back 125 years to the to the inside of Kinder eggs… and a lot more care at a children’s home. Krempe is desperate not sents! snowy and blustery winter of 1891. As fate has it, besides. Writing in the entertaining style that has to go! Then an elderly gentleman turns up who it’s the same winter that America’s most famous become his trademark, Joachim Hecker offers a says he knows Kottek well; the two men seem to be and revered author, the brilliant Mark Twain, is liv- wealth of useful things to know about household linked by a secret. Can he help Krempe out of her ing in Berlin’s imperial city. Maybe he can help the objects and gets us all fired up about some intrigu- seemingly hopeless situation? children get back home. After all, he wrote one of ing experiments... A story about a grandfather and his granddaughter, the first time travel novels ever. But then the unfore- with a realistic ending infused with plenty of local seen occurs and the children’s passage home is colour, lovingly and cheerily packaged by the blocked. Will they have to remain in the 19 th century author. › Over 1.6 million copies sold of the series. forever? › Issues surrounding dementia presented in › Includes cookie recipes and creative › Original English-language manuscript › Over 50,000 copies were sold of his previous a child-appropriate way. handicraft projects for the whole family. available! book The House of Little Scientists!

28 29 Non-fiction Foreign Rights

Autumn & Winter 2016 / 17

Leading title

Capitalism: Past and Future Economy

WERNER PLUMPE, born in 1954 in Bielefeld, is a professor of › Is capitalism making a few people richer and many poorer? economics and social history at the Johann Wolfgang von Goethe University in Frankfurt. He was chairman of the German Association Or is it continually making more people less poor? A stunning of Historians until 2012. Since 2010 he has written three books on economic crises, how he became rich and on the Great Depression. analyses with surprising answers. Werner Plumpe also received the 2014 Ludwig Erhard Prize awarded for writing on economic issues. › Plumpe’s previous title on German economic and business history was sold to the US (Palgrave).

A COLD HEART: THE HISTORY AND FUTURE OF CAPITALISM Even before the financial crisis it had become fashiona- ble to make capitalism responsible for just about every- “Werner Plumpe is one of those thing that went wrong anywhere in the world. Renowned thinkers who you believe can stand up economic historian Werner Plumpe repudiates this view by to the complexities of capitalism.” walking us through the history of capitalism and showing how Süddeutsche Zeitung many problems have been solved by the capitalist market economy alone. Capitalism isn’t a system, he explains, but a kind of economy which focusses on consumption, the consumption, in fact, of those who are not well off and for centuries were left to fend for themselves. Without them, economically successful mass production would be impossible. This was widely criticised at first, yet Plumpe shows how the capitalist way of managing the economy reacted and is able to change constantly. As an idea, capitalism has had more profound consequences than perhaps any other; we can’t escape it even if we refuse to engage with it. There’s no evil, nefarious plot at its core, nor is it the sum of all the negative phenomena concomitant with our form of society. Plumpe describes capitalism as a constant state of revolution, as embodying continual innovation and renewal that is as good or bad as we choose. Capitalism is and always was what we make of it. S chneider ichael M ichael

30 31 Non-fiction Foreign Rights

Autumn & Winter 2016 / 17

Biography Biography The farsighted adversary of the Nazis History

GEORG MECK was born in 1967. He worked as the Brussels GERHARD SPÖRL was born in 1960 and studied German in correspondent for Focus magazine and moved to the Frankfurter Heidelberg and Mainz. In 1980 he became a political journalist at Stefan Aust, born in The impressive biography about Hitler’s Allgemeine Zeitung. Georg Meck was awarded the Herbert Die Zeit. Between 1990 and 2015 he worked for Der Spiegel in a › 1946, is the publisher of the Quandt Media Prize in 2002 for his articles on business leaders. variety of roles. Public Enemy No. 1. newspaper Die Welt and was chief executive of the › English sample translation available. TV news channel N24 and › The biography will be made into a film CARS, MONEY AND POWER THERE MUST BE SOMETHING OTHER THAN editor-in-chief at Der for TV. According to Ferdinand Piëch, grandson of the FEAR AND WORRY AND HERR H ITLER Spiegel for many years, as ingenious Ferdinand Porsche, three things matter in Against the wishes of her rich, well-to-do family, well as founder and chief executive of Spiegel TV. life: “Volkswagen, family and money – in that Grete marries Artur, a Jewish car salesman and the “Konrad Heiden was ahead of his time.” He has authored many Deutschlandradio Kultur order”. Ruthless, cunning and abrasive are the kind love of her life, in November 1932. The couple can books, including the interna- of words used to describe how the Piëch Porsche see clearly what’s on the horizon but aren’t about tional bestseller The Baader family have pressed ahead with Volkswagen’s to be fooled or separated. Because he is a Jew, Meinhof Complex. seemingly unstoppable expansion, which began Artur loses his job but with pluck and cunning he with Hitler ordering Ferdinand Porsche to build a manages to bring Grete and their children safely HITLER’S FIRST ENEMY “Volkswagen”, or people’s car. But in early 2015, through the Nazi era. Artur refuses to be a victim; The story goes that Hitler would sometimes refuse to the company was devastated by the most momen- despite all the restraints placed on him he always begin his speeches before the arrival of one of his harshest tous industrial scandal in German history. The fall of manages to find a loophole in the system of his per- critics. That man’s name was Konrad Heiden. As a reporter VW is tied to the firm’s history, and to that of the secutors. Grete and Artur manage to wrest a piece at the respected Frankfurter Zeitung, Heiden was one of family. Meck has has met with all the company’s of happiness from the circumstances arrayed the first journalists to follow and critically examine the directors and spoken with every single protagonist, against them. In the midst of war, Artur builds a Nazis’ rise to power. His two-volume biography of Hitler, making him ideally placed to report on Germany’s house in Görlitz. published in Switzerland in 1936/1937, informed virtually most powerful industrial clan. This is an enthralling The story of how this extraordinary couple manage all subsequent descriptions of the dictator’s life. And yet narrative backed up by his expert knowledge that to preserve their love throughout the Nazis’ mur- today, Heiden is all but forgotten. This is not only an details how one family propelled VW to the highest derous rule, and how with courage and ingenuity insightful portrait of a fascinating man, but also vividly rec- pinnacle of success before pulling it down into the they stand up to their persecutors, finally emerging reates Heiden’s unique perspectives on Hitler’s rise and abyss. victorious, is a truly inspiring read. Gerhard Spörl rule. Heiden, a Social Democrat of Jewish ancestry, had found this unbelievable story in his own family: the already campaigned against the National Socialists as a › From Hitler’s “people’s car” to world- love story between his wife’s grandparents. conquering auto maker: how one family student in Munich in the early 1920s. In a 1932 book pub- brought Europe’s biggest car maker to › A true story of love and courage. lished by Rowohlt, he described Nazism as “marching with- the edge of disaster. out a goal, staggering without being drunk, believing without God; not even its thirst for blood brings it any pleasure.” Forced to flee Germany in March 1933, Heiden continued his struggle against the Nazis, putting his life in danger in the process. In the US he was seen as the preem- inent expert on the regime and as its “Public Enemy No. 1.” He died in New York in 1966. It is high time that we remember the life and work of one of Hitler’s earliest adversaries. S chulze liver G mbH/ O liver M edia 24 N 24

Rowohlt·Berlin December 2016 | 320 pages | illustrated Rowohlt·Berlin November 2016 | 320 pages © Rowohlt October 2016 | 384 pages

32 33 Non-fiction Foreign Rights

Autumn & Winter 2016 / 17

Society Society / Politics In which country do we want to live? History / Society

AMIR BAITAR, born in Syria, began studying maths and IT LAMYA KADDOR was born in 1978 in Ahlen to Syrian immi- until the war made his academic career impossible. In 2015 he grant parents. She is an Islamic studies and religious education Herfried Münkler, Marina Münkler, fled to Germany. professional, chairperson and co-founder of the Union of Liberal born in 1951, is professor born in 1960, is a professor of HENNING SUSSEBACH, born in Bochum in 1972, has been Islam. Her book Ready to Kill: Why Young Germans Are Joining of political science at literature at the Technical a staff writer for Die Zeit since 2001. He has received many jour- the Jihad won the accolade “Political Book of the Year 2016” by Berlin’s Humboldt University Dresden. Her nalism awards. the Friedrich Ebert Foundation. She lives in Berlin. University and is a research has included UNDER ONE ROOF: THE ACID TEST member of the issues surrounding for- A SYRIAN REFUGEE IN A GERMAN HOME While everyone’s talking about how to integrate Berlin-Branden- eignness and intercultural They’re here now, in Germany over a million refu- refugees and immigrants, Lamya Kaddor turns this burg Academy of phenomena. She has writ- gees. Angela Merkel’s now-famous creed was: “We Sciences. Several of ten numerous books, issue around: Isn’t mainstream society also required his books have become including Experiences of the can do it”. But how are we to “do” it? Zeit reporter to change? Shouldn’t liberal principles apply equally bestsellers and standard Stranger or Battlefields: Henning Sußebach and his wife cleared out their to everyone? Kaddor is alarmed to observe a weak- works in their respective fields. Codification of Violence in study to make room for Amir Baitar, a Syrian stu- ening of democracy in Germany caused by a fear of Medial Transformation. dent. Ever since, the Sußebachs, their children and refugees and of Islam. If we stand by while north Amir Baitar have been working at “it”. The family African men are barred from swimming pools, she THE NEW GERMANS: › Integration, refugees, immigrants: facts, were far from naïve – they knew that Baitar, a argues, we run the risk of soon having to discuss A COUNTRY LOOKS TO ITS FUTURE prejudices and orientation. devout Muslim, has a different set of values. The removal of even more fundamental rights. Yet no Germany has been ripped out of its state of comfortable Sußebachs were surprised when Baitar paced › Managing the largest upheaval since Weltanschauung can be permitted to stand above ease. The large numbers of refugees arriving in Germany around their flat with his “Mecca” app. Their guest reunification in Germany. the constitution, yet another danger for democracy. has exposed some fundamental problems in our society doesn’t understand why a wife drives the car to A “constitutional patriot”, Layma Kaddor is con- and shown that the old Germany is, irrevocably, a thing of work while the husband takes a bicycle. fronted every day with the realities of integration. the past. In their remarkably astute and thoroughly Baitar and Sußebach talk honestly about fears, lan- She witnesses the problems yet also sees the oppor- researched analysis, Herfried and Marina Münkler embed guage barriers and misunderstandings. But they tunities that lie ahead for German society. For her, the current situation into historical contexts, pointing out also focus on a sense of familiarity that arises when one thing is clear: We need a new “we” in Germany. that the movement of people, including those fleeing or different cultures meet and engage with each We should be talking more about identity and inte- seeking refuge, is the rule rather than the exception. other. They explain how “it” can work. gration, and less about religion. Germany has always and continually repositioned and readjusted itself. Even today, however, that process will not be possible without creating fractures and problems. › A personal and accessible perspective on the “This multiple award-winning author’s clever, It will also unleash powerful, often divergent, forces in momentous tasks facing a whole society. nuanced deliberations are addressed at every- German society. How can these forces be managed, and one who wants to starve extremism of nourish- how can we confront them proactively? Herfried and ment.” NDR Marina Münkler take a detailed yet realistic look at the risks and dangers while at the same time casting light on the significant opportunities that present themselves. We are the new Germans. Only when we get to the core issues – what kind of country we want to live in, what changes we want to see and which we don’t – will we able to control this upheaval, the largest since reunification.

“The book on what everyone is talking about.” Welt am Sonntag G arbe obias Bohm; Amac T

Rowohlt October 2016 | 192 pages Rowohlt·Berlin October 2016 | 240 pages © Rowohlt·Berlin September 2016 | 336 pages

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Leading title

The bestselling author is back! Health / Humour

Eckart von Hirschhausen, born in 1967, studied medicine and › Read this book: you’ll not only laugh out loud, you’ll probably live longer! journalism. For fifteen years, he’s been a fixture on German stages as a cabaret artist, speaker and author. He is known for his incisive wit cou- The long awaited new book by bestselling author Eckart von Hirschhausen. pled with thorough advice. Under the banner “Humor can heal,” he › founded the German Red Nose Day and helps arrange hospital visits by clowns. His bestselling titles The Liver Grows with Its Tasks, › His previous titles sold 5 million copies! Rights were sold to 12 countries. Happiness Rarely Comes Alone and Where Does Love Go Once It’s Gone Through the Stomach? sold more than 5 million copies, making him one of the most succesful authors in Germany.

MIRACLES MAKING MIRACLES: HOW MEDICINE AND MAGIC HEAL US Long before he studied medicine, Eckart von Hirschhausen was a magician. Graduating through the “Laughter and a sense of wonder rely local youth group of the Magic Circle to the German cham- on playing with expectations, decep- pionships, he developed a deep understanding of the art of tions and switching perspectives. deception. Medicine and psychotherapy also often While science has taken the magic out of medicine, it hasn’t use the same box of tricks. Very much driven it out of us humans. Hirschhausen seeks to resolve the needed are care, hope, humour and ongoing struggle between science-based medicine and support- love. Anyone looking for those qualities ers of alternative therapies. Armed with his trademark sharp wit in tablet form shouldn’t be surprised he explores how we can all take better decisions for our health, when their pills don’t contain these what each of us should be doing to keep healthy and what we miraculous cures.” shouldn’t. It’s time for a bit of plain talking and not more of the Eckart von Hirschhausen inscrutable “advice” enclosed in packets of pills. If we have so many ways of influencing the body through the psyche, why do we seldom do it in a targeted way? Hirschhausen is firmly on the side of the patient and pulls no punches in pointing out the black sheep – on both sides of the argument. He shines a searchlight on the hard aspects of “soft” medicine and the obscure methods by those who call themselves “healers”. In this revealing book, this doctor, comic and science journalist reconciles two warring ideas while offering us some practical, real-world guidance. He playfully switches perspectives, alternat- ing between plain talking and rapier-like wit; between general knowledge and self-experience; and between j’accuse and entertaining anecdotes.

E idel The Liver Grows Happiness Rarely

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Science Science Objectivity and other illusions Science

SVEN C. VOELPEL, born in 1973, is a professor for business FRANCA PARIANEN, born in 1989, works at the Max studies at the Jacobs University in Bremen as well as founding Planck Institute for Cognitive and Neurological Science in Leipzig. Dong-Seon Chang, How we assess people and situations, and president of the WISE demographics network. His research Her research focusses on human social behaviour in neurological, › born in Heidelberg in 1980, focusses on demographic change, diversity and leadership. He hormonal and developmental contexts, as well as social and ethi- why we’re so often wrong. lived for many years in Korea lives with his family in Bremen. cal emotions. She has been active on the science slam scene since and in the US. He studied › The new book by the winner of Science 2014. biology and received a Slam 2014 and FameLab Germany in 2015! HOW CAN I KNOW WHAT I’LL THINK doctor’s degree at the YOU DECIDE HOW OLD YOU ARE! › Brilliant, entertaining and very accessible! Germany is aging quickly. That not only means BEFORE I HEAR WHAT I SAY? Max Planck Institute for social, political, and cultural changes, it’s also a Attraction and love, guilt and shame, anger and biological cybernetics in lenience, horror and ethics: our feelings are con- Tübingen where he still deeply personal issue for many. But what does the works. He has given more term “old age” even mean? Does it have to be syn- trolled by the brain. But what exactly happens in than 100 talks in various for- onymous with poor health and loneliness? What there when we argue, love or go off in a huff? Are mats and won several Science does research know about staying young? we generous even if we post something about it on Slams. In this sagacious yet eminently accessible book, Facebook afterwards? Sven Voelpel explores the criteria for being old as Franca Parianen says that if we want to better YOUR BRAIN HAS A MIND OF ITS OWN opposed to feeling old, and draws on a number of understand ourselves, our feelings and other peo- We’re in constant contact with the people around us. scientific studies to back up his insightful analysis. ple, then we have to better understand our brains Every time we meet someone, we want to know what The good news is that – much more strongly than and how they work. She presents a gamut of fasci- they’re thinking, who they are and what they expect of us. previously thought – we have the power to deter- nating facts and reams of anecdotes to both We make assessments in a fraction of a second based on mine if we are “old” or only aging; Sven Voelpel intrigue and entertain us. someone’s face, clothing, bearing and movements, decid- shows us how. With expert knowledge, verve and wit, Franca ing how likeable, competent and trustworthy someone is Parianen explains how the brain directs our feelings and if we feel good about cooperating with that person. and social lives. Understand yourself. Go ahead, But how reliable are these impressions? What influences just try it. our perceptions and how we perceive ourselves? Neuroscientist Dong-Seon Chang, whose research focusses on how the brain represents social behavior of other peo- › Becoming old is also a matter of the head: › CAUTION: Your brain makes mistakes. ple and agents in the fields of social neuroscience and cog- How can we stay happy and healthy instead (But don’t tell it, you’ll only confuse it.) nitive science, takes a fresh look into our heads. He of becoming embittered and sick? describes how we construct a picture of the world, how › It’s time to change how we think about aging. we form opinions and judgements, and how far we can trust them. After reading this book we can answer questions like: Why do we sometimes still vote for incapable politicans? Why can gestures tell us if somebody is reliable? Why would a blind person who could suddenly see perceive the world completely different than others? S chmalenberger

Rowohlt Polaris November 2016 | 288 pages Rowohlt Polaris April 2016 | 288 pages © Boris Rowohlt Polaris October 2016 | 256 pages | illustrated

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Biography Biography / Food Gender / Society Psychology / Society

Deborah Vietor-Engländer was born in London, VINCENT KLINK was born in 1949. He cooks, writes and MARGARETE STOKOWSKI was born in Poland in 1986 MAXIMILIAN PROBST, born in Hamburg in 1977, is a prize- studied German and French and received her doctoral thesis makes music in Stuttgart, where since 1991 he runs the Michelin and has lived in Berlin since 1988. She studied philosophy and winning essayist and writer for Die Zeit. He studied philosophy, in Tübingen, Germany. She was a freelance writer for the BBC star-winning restaurant Wielandshöhe. social science at Berlin’s Humboldt University. She has written for history and German before moving to Vienna to work for the and has taught at Universities in London and Germany. BALTHAZAR GRIMOD DE LA REYNIÈRE, born in Paris Spex, Tagesspiegel, Missy Magazine, Die Zeit and is a regular col- Passagen publishing house, where he translated works by Paul Vietor-Engländer wrote and edited several books. She lives near in 1758, died there in 1837. He qualified as a lawyer but followed umnist for taz. Since 2015 she regularly creates a stir with her Virilio, Alain Badiou and Slavoj Zizek. Since 2011, the majority of Frankfurt /Main. his passion for the culinary arts. weekly column for Spiegel Online. his journalistic output has appeared in Die Zeit. ALFRED KERR: THE BIOGRAPHY THE FUNDAMENTAL RULES OF FREEING UP DOWN BELOW ON COMMITMENT Alfred Kerr was Germany’s most influential literary GASTRONOMIC DECENCY So what, in fact, happened to the sexual revolu- What career am I going to follow? What partner- and theatre critic. His succinct writing style was as Serving up a feast requires great skill: table set- tion? Are we now endlessly liberal, not batting an ships am I going to commit to? What am I going to unmistakable as his polemics were feared. He ridi- tings, placing of guests, constructing the menu and eyelid when topless models advertise cat food or do this evening? Modern life is about having culed Karl Kraus’ “opportunist ethics” and became the great art of table conversation. But where did DIY stores? Not a bit of it, says Margarete Stokowski. options; it’s never about fate. Commitment is no exasperated with Thomas Mann’s laboriously intri- these laws of entertaining originate? In France, of In the 21st century, we are still tearing down power longer a social necessity. People who are always cate structures and endless chains of sentences. But course: Balthazar Grimod de la Reynière (1758– structures and trying to talk about sex and the gen- available are better liked, more successful and enjoy equally legendary and portentous were his support 1837) was one of the first gourmets, and estab- der roles we go to enormous lengths to play. This higher regard. People who commit, on the other of new, forward-looking developments such as the lished the role of the restaurant critic. Born into a author seeks to free us from outdated role-models hand, are often seen as boring. young Gerhart Hauptmann or the plays of Bertolt wealthy Parisian family, he dedicated his life to gas- and concepts, and to demolish taboos. She deals Maximilian Probst shows us that despite all this, we Brecht. Drawing on a range of newly discovered tronomy. He wrote rulebooks, assessed the quality with questions like: What impact does it have on have a great need for commitment, for reassurance. sources, Vietor-Engländer vividly brings the biogra- of food and wrote reviews of recipes, all the while girls when teen magazines tell them to wear rouge, And while being true to one’s word has become phy of Alfred Kerr to life. She offers an impressively displaying his sharp tongue, exquisite sense of smile and wear sweet little hairclips? Why do men increasingly difficult, it has suddenly become more accomplished description of how the son of a com- humour and enchanting ésprit. And although this feel better able than women to take on leadership valuable than ever. Yet Probst also explains that fortably situated Jewish family from Wrocław aristocrat certainly mourned the passing of old cus- roles? behind a façade emphasising commitment we became the leading literary critic of his generation, toms, he was also an advocate of measured pro- Writing with a stylistic freshness, Stokowski relates sometimes find a reactionary tendency that seeks to and how his voice faded into obscurity after the gress, stating: “The dining table makes us all personal experiences, analyses societal configura- shut off our path towards self-fulfilment. Nazis assumed power. From 1936, Kerr and his fam- equals.” tions and examines how both shame and the roles This playful yet personal book explores why commit- ily lived in London, unable to continue the success Klink here enters into an enjoyable dialogue with we play manifest themselves in all those things that ment and availability are mutually incompatible, and he enjoyed before. He died in Hamburg in 1948. his great predecessor, re-interpreting some old dish- are an integral part of our lives. how we can resolve and constrain this discrepancy. es, creating new recipes for his readers. “Her texts are bitter and funny, personal and “One of his great qualities is that he binds “Everything I never knew about my father. “Balthazar Grimod de la Reynière was the first polemic. She is living proof that feminism and together what can’t be bound up, namely that A brilliant book!” Judith Kerr, author of the modern gourmet.” Vincent Klink humour are not mutually exclusive.” which is connected to a specific time and that bestseller When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit. Süddeutsche Zeitung which is timeless.” The Clemens von Brentano Prize Jury

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Reportage Reportage Reportage Science

Andrea Diener was born in Frankfurt in 1974. She studied BIANCA SCHÄB was born in 1985. The freelance user inter- KATERINA POLADJAN, born in Moscow in 1971, came to FLORIAN HUBER, born in Munich in 1975, studied prehistory English und history of the arts, had a job as a museum guide and face designer lives in Frankfurt. She previously worked as an art Germany as a child and lives in Berlin. Her previous novel was nomi- and early history, anthropology, Nordic philology and ethnology was a blogger. After working at a local news office for a short director with a number of advertising agencies, including Jung nated for the 2015 Alfred Döblin Prize. in Munich, Umeå and Kiel. He was director of the Working Group time she became a staff writer of the cultural section of the von Matt, Interone, Leo Burnett and McCann MRM. In July 2015 HENNING FRITSCH, born in Kassel in 1972, studied German, for Maritime and Limnic Archaeology at the University of Kiel. His Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung newspaper. she embarked on a road trip in her Goggomobil micro car, cover- theatre studies and philosophy. In cooperation with Katerina Poladjan excavations and expeditions have taken him all over the world. ing 3000 km across Germany in 40 days. he organises projects melding elements of literature and theatre. IN THE STICKS I’VE GOT TIME, WHAT HAVE YOU GOT? AFTER SIBERIA DIVING AMONGST THE DEAD LET’S HEAR IT FOR THE PROVINCES! High-flyer business pros are hanging out in ham- If you fly east from Moscow for eight hours, you’re If you think that the golden age of great discoveries The “provinces” generally have a poor reputation. mocks, while students escape exam stress by work- still in Russia. It’s here in Vladivostok that Katerina is over, think again. The underwater world has sur- People are flocking to cities in their droves and then ing in gardens and former workaholics head off on Poladjan and Henning Fritsch begin a journey that prises in store that might yet force us to rewrite the driving out to “the country” at the weekends. a pilgrimage through the countryside. Everyone’s will end at the Chinese border after crossing a vast, history books. Nothing captivates us more than the When we think we’d like to get away to the coun- trying to slow their lives down. And to get there, unknown land between Lake Bailkal and the Pacific unknown, hidden many fathoms below the surface tryside, the provinces are all the places we exclude. Bianca Schäb has got her trusty old Goggomobile Ocean. They experience its extreme climate, let of the oceans, be it ships wrecked many centuries The country is a place of yearning; the provinces micro car (13 hp, 50 kph top speed) and sets off to themselves be overwhelmed by the endlessness of ago or entire cities submerged beneath the sea. aren’t. The country is adorably old-fashioned; the meet people for whom time ebbs by at a more the snowy steppes gliding past the windows of the The underwater archaeologist Florian Huber is pas- provinces are backward. But if like Andrea Diener leisurely pace. How does it affect you when time trans-Siberian railway. They are immersed in a won- sionate about his ongoing mission to uncover the you travel a lot, you’ll see huge swathes of this seems to stand still, like in a cloister nestled in the drous world behind the Urals that has been a place oceans’ hidden secrets. For years he has been globe that are what we call provinces, be it in mountains, or when you have to adapt to its daily of exile and yearning for centuries. exploring wrecked ships, underwater caverns and Japan, Siberia or the forests of Thuringia. Diener’s rhythms, like on a farm? Born in Russia, Katerina Poladjan explores the Russian diving in wells and lakes searching for new scientif- book describes the forgotten regions as well as Bianca Schäb has breakfast at Google’s offices, Far East with her German husband, Henning Fritsch. ic insights. their few remaining inhabitants, whose many sto- meditates on a motorway car park, inadvertently They meet people like a chatty female mammoth Huber’s richly illustrated book reports on his excit- ries are often worth listening to. embarks on a digital detox, uses a raisin to help keeper, a morose fur hat wearer or imposing hotel ing and sometimes dangerous expeditions. Often, with her mindfulness training and can’t stop talking housekeepers. Their experiences are humourously these are journeys into an alien world. while visiting a cloister observing a strict vow of and skilfully told, offering an enchanting panorama silence. At the end of her journey, she realises that of Siberia, the archetypal far-flung, foreign land. a slower pace of life has nothing to do with doing “And every time I think, ‘Helmut, take a break, without… leave your little house and travel somewhere‘, I instead read some of Andrea Diener’s travel “Breathless, percussive and yet soft, atmosphe- “From overgrown wrecks to millennia-old writing. It’s like being there, it’s all you need.” “13 hp makes her the most relaxed person in ric and thoughtful. One of the best books I’ve Mayan bones, this underwater archaeologist Helmut Krausser the world.” Der Tagesspiegel read this year.” Fatih Akin on One Night, searches the depths of the oceans for the undis- Somewhere Else. covered. A fascinating underwater adventure!” Stern

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Politics Memoir Self-Help Psychology

JOHANN-GÜNTHER KÖNIG Henrike Dielen ANTJE GARDYAN Peter Sedlmeier is professor for research methodology THESE BRITS ARE CRAZY! ABDUCTED: IN THE HANDS OF WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR? and evaluation at the Technical University in Chemnitz. His On June 23rd 2016, 52% of referendum voters ISLAMIST TERRORISTS By the time we get to 40, 50 – or definitely by 60 – research studies focus on meditation, assessment mistakes, music stated their wish for the UK to leave the European For 22 years, Henrike Dielen and her partner sailed we all want to be where we’d always imagined we’d psychology, computer modelling of cognitive processes and psychology of time. He has published several articles and books. Union. Is the UK in danger of falling apart? Will a the world’s oceans in their yacht. Their maritime be. But in this phase of life we are often confronted spate of new referenda mean the end of the EU? idyll abruptly comes to an end in 2014, when their with radical transformations, including changes at How will we move forward? And how did we get yacht is boarded by strange men who handcuff our workplace, separation from long-term partners THE POWER OF MEDITATION to this point? König shows how cultural idiosyn - them, violently throw them into a boat and race or the death of our parents. A new hunger for Learning how to meditate is a good idea; lots of crasies, economic hubris, across the sea for over 30 change develops, a desire to people report positive health effects and a feeling fundamental political deci- hours. They are then held in explore new paths. The mid- of well-being. Meditation is in. But what exactly sions and the crumbling of a camp somewhere in the dle phase of our lives, says does it entail? What are the different forms? What vital cornerstones of British jungle for six months. Dielen Antje Gardyan, is rich in effects can meditation have and what is it unable to society have led to an tells of her horrific time as a opportunities we should influence? increasing gulf between prisoner and also remem- take advantage of. This book Peter Sedlmeier answers these and many other the British and the European bers the years before voyag- offers invaluable encourage- questions, offering advice gathered from his own continent. The Brexit vote ing through exotic lands ment while describing how professional experience. Using results from the lat- has revealed the tragedy of with the love of her life. to approach change proac- est scientific studies, he explains in detail how med- a country. tively. itation works, both in the context of Western and Eastern theories.

rororo September 2016 | 128 pages rororo October 2016 | 256 pages rororo January 2017 | 256 pages

› Knowledge instead of belief: a thrilling Reportage Society / Politics Psychology introduction without esoteric or religious super-structure.

NICK HEIN TILL REINERS karen zoller › The effects of meditation written in an BREAKING POINT: THE CRISIS FACING CONCERNED CITIZENS DIFFICULT PEOPLE AND HOW TO DEAL accessible way. GERMANY’S POLICE What’s going on in the heads of people who take WITH THEM Is our criminal prosecution insufficient and there - part in rallies in support of the anti- Islam move- We all know a few. Some people never seem to lis- fore responsible for a new generation of multiple ment Pegida and who enjoy attacking refugees? ten, are easily offended, react in an overly aggres - offenders? Are we going to let a criminal minority Till Reiners wants to understand why Germans are sive way, never clearly state their intentions, seem discredit the vast majority of law-abiding refugees suddenly so afraid, and how prejudice, anger and incapable of keeping promises and often twist and immigrants? This book is a fearlessly honest sometimes even violence arise. He talks to “con - your words. What kind of personality is behind account of Nick Hein’s work cerned citizens”, dives into these traits? Karen Zoller policing Cologne’s main the throng at demonstra- expertly explains the rele- railway station, detailing tions and asks people about vant psychological contexts Cologne’s police struggles their attitudes and opin - and gives concrete advice in with understaffing, absurd ions. Why do prejudices sur- how to avoid becoming a legal loopholes and help- vive? And how should we pawn in their destructive less politicians as well as engage with them? This games. Yet she also shows the conflicts and frustra- book offers an absorbing the importance of being tions. view on a country in the realistic in assessing the throes of dramatic change. chances that someone will change.

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Humour Humour Animals Reportage

PHILIPP SPIELBUSCH STORIES FROM RENATE BERGMANN, Sebastian lotzkat WIGALD BONING “I’VE DELETED THE INTERNET!” TEX RUBINOWITZ AND MANY MORE URBAN WILDLIFE IN A TENT When the family computer finally gives up the NEW YEAR’S PEEVE Groups of wild boar roam through front gardens, Stand-up comedian Wigald Boning spent six ghost, the internet access at the car dealership no Those few days between Christmas and New Year wolves scour through housing estates, deer get months sleeping in a tent on camping sites, in longer works or old ladies suddenly take up the chal- are among the quietest in the year. They offer us lost in underground railway tunnels... Why are parks, on balconies and even on river beds. lenge of learning Photoshop, Philipp Spielbusch is time for calm contemplation and to sort out a few animals we previously only knew from visits to the During his fascinating trek he quickly realised that everyone’s go-to guy when grumpy customers say things. It’s a time to meet old friends, have some zoo suddenly appearing in our urban residential a red tent is not such a brilliant idea when you’re things like, “Everything on my computer is suddenly chats and just wind down a bit. But most years, areas and industrial estates? How are we going to camping out in nature. That a solid week of unin - all mixed up” – of its own things rarely calm down coexist with them and how terrupted rain can put quite accord, naturally… after Christmas Day. Now do they manage to adapt a dampener on your spirits. A funny, entertaining and you’re instantly stressed so astoundingly well to That those biscuits you car- telling book about techno- out and starting to ask “our” living space? Original, ried as emergency rations logical pitfalls and computer- yourself who you’re going humorous and bold, also make a nice little snack aided ignorance. to be celebrating New Sebastian Lotzkat’s book for mice. Wigald Boning is Year’s with, who’s organis- opens our eyes to the new also of the hardy, intrepid ing the fireworks and so neighbours. breed who can even brave on. This is a humorous col- much head-shaking on the lection of stories by some part of his friends and well-known authors. acquaintances…

rororo February 2017 | 256 pages rororo November 2016 | 256 pages rororo October 2016 | 256 pages rororo October 2016 | 272 pages

Humour Humour Self-Help Humour

MALTE WELDING Christian Heynen STEFAN REHBERGER, BALZ WYDLER TANIA KIBERMANIS DOES YOUR MUM HAVE KIDS? EVERY THIRD GERMAN IRONS THEIR HOPMOP: GET FIT WITHOUT GOING TO ECCENTRICS UNITE! In a shop: “I could save a lot if I buy this on special UNDERWEAR THE GYM A jar of pesto for breakfast. Assigning a different offer!” The average German spends 24 years of their life Turned off by the idea of heaving weights at the colour for each day of the week. Writing back- I think for a second. “How much do I save if I sleeping, seven years working and five years watch- gym, attending yoga courses or going aqua jog- wards. Learning orcish. Welcome to the wonderful don’t buy it at all?” ing TV. Some things, though, we’d really rather not ging? Want some exercise but need something you world of life’s eccentrics, the raw diamonds, the Everyone knows the feeling of – for the merest know. Like the fact that he or she, on average, wears can do without having to leave your couch? In this seasoning in the otherwise homogenous human fraction of a second – thinking something utterly their underwear for seven days without washing it. unique fitness self-help book, writer Stefan stew. Tania Kibermanis introduces us to the bizarre stupid. Malte Welding has But some things are much Rehberger and coach Balz parallel universe inhabited given this widespread phe- more uplifting, like the fact Wydler show you 60 exercis- by unconventional people nomenon a name: the that 90.7% of Germans think es you can easily fit into your and their unusual lives out- Microsheep. Following on that children should grow up everyday routine. You will side the mainstream. Her from his first volume, with books. Christian Heynen improve your strength, stam- humorous book shows us Microsheep: One Second of has collected the weirdest ina and coordination while how colourful life can be Stupidity, he has now col - and funniest facts about vacuum cleaning, walking and that being labelled lated a second volume of Germans: what they love, up stairs and, yes, even “eccentric” doesn’t mean thoughts as idiotic as they eat, their fears and hopes watching TV! So there’s no you have to furnish your are short-lived. and much, much more. more excuses not to get iguana’s terrarium with started today… designer furniture.

rororo December 2016 | 224 pages rororo December 2016 | 224 pages rororo January 2016 | 224 pages rororo February 2016 | 224 pages

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Dealing with uncertainty in life Psychology / Humour From Adam to Apple in less than 300 pages. History

Vince Ebert, born in 1968, › A creative plea for the unpredictable: Alexander von › The espresso of history books: strong, rich studied physics in Würzburg intelligent, thrilling and entertaining. Schönburg was born in and stimulating. Everything you need to and worked in a consulting 1969. He worked on the know about world history by bestselling company as well as in mar- › 40,000 copies sold! More than 500,000 staff of the FAZ newspa- author Alexander von Schönburg! ket research before he start- copies sold of his previous books! per, and was editor-in- ed his career as cabaret chief of Park Avenue. › 40,000 copies sold! artist in 1998. His goal is to › For months on the bestseller list, 19 weeks Since 2009 he has been present complex scientific under the top 10! part of the managing edi- › Rights sold to China, Finland, Romania, ideas in a generally compre- Taiwan and Korea! › Rights sold to Korea (Sigongsa). torial team of Bild Zeitung. hensible way in accordance He has written many best- with the laws of humour! He selling books. Alexander von “Schönburg understands how to deliver made a name for himself as a Schönburg lives with his family historical insights in an exceedingly amusing succesful entertainer with his pro- in Berlin. way.” Spiegel online gramme Physics Is Sexy.

UNPREDICTABLE WORLD HISTORY, TO GO Humans have won out over sabre-toothed tigers and sur- Impossible, you might think. Compressing the entire his- vived plagues, built moon rockets and invented the self- tory of the world into 280 pages? Can’t be done. But sharpening potato peeler. How did we become the super- there’s one person who can. Alexander von Schönburg stars of evolution? Was this success predictable? The manages this feat so deftly and with such elegance that answer is a resounding ‘maybe’. There are many complex readers of this book run the risk of becoming addicted to systems whose outcomes we can’t predict, like relation- history. ships, the weather, the football results or a person’s career The author takes us on a spellbinding journey through the path. But is that a bad thing? Vince Ebert shows us that of most important stages in human history, from Babylon to all the living beings on this planet, humans are best at Berlin and New York. He depicts the greatest heroes and dealing with uncertainty, and yet we still find it disquiet- the biggest villains, points out the greatest works of art ing. And that’s the wrong response, claims Ebert, whose and explains a range of discoveries and ideas, from the intriguing thesis is that the desire to confront new things hand axe to the selfie stick. He starts out by rattling is a motor for innovation and advancement. Without it, through the first two million years of human existence in we’d probably never have allowed ourselves to use fire … only ten pages, pushed onward by the question: how did a comparatively insignificant species of ape with a position in the food chain somewhere between sheep and lions manage to subjugate an entire planet? With its many surprising insights illuminating the temporal undergrowth of countless millennia, its incisive anecdotes and telling portraits of leading historical figures (what con- nects Vladimir Putin and Charlemagne?) as well as a pano- ply of interesting historical facts, this book is more than just a great read. It’s a literary experience. And to be honest, anything Schönburg passes over in this book you probably wouldn’t have missed, anyway… ichael M ichael Zargarinejad S ebastian Hänel

48 49 Foreign Rights

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