Spring 2020
RIGHTS GUIDE FICTION CONTEMPORARY LITERARY FICTION | DEBUT
OLIVIA WENZEL 1,000 Coils of Fear
A young woman attends a play about the fall of the Berlin Wall – and realizes she is the only Black person in the audience. She and her boyfriend are hanging out by a lake outside Berlin – and four neo-Nazis show up. In New York, she is having sex with a stranger on the night of the 2016 presidential election – and wakes up to panicked texts from her friends in Germany about Donald Trump’s unlikely victory. Engaging in a witty Q&A with herself – or is it her alter ego? – she takes stock of our rapidly changing times, sometimes angry, sometimes amused, sometimes afraid, and always passionate. And she tells the story of her family: her mother, a punk in former East Germany who never had the freedom she dreamed of. Her Angolan father, who returned to his home country before she was born to start a second family. Her grandmother, whose life of obedience to party principles brought her prosperity and security but not happiness. And her twin brother, who took his own life at the age of nineteen.
Heart-rending, opinionated, and wry, Olivia Wenzel’s remarkable debut novel is a clear-sighted and polyphonic investigation into Hardcover where we’re from and where we’re going, what it really means to 352 pages be the odd one out, what it really means to belong and what price March 4, 2020 wanting to belong can exact. S. Fischer Verlag Sample translation available ‘I have more privileges than anyone in my family ever had. And still I’m fucked I’m hated by more people than my grandmother can imagine. On the day of the German elections, I spend twenty
minutes saying exactly this to try to talk her out of voting for a
right-wing party.’ Olivia Wenzel
Olivia Wenzel, born in Weimar in former East Germany in 1985, read Cultural Studies and Aesthetic Practice at the University of Hildesheim and now lives and works in Berlin. She writes drama and prose and makes music as Otis Foulie. Wenzel’s plays have been performed at leading theatres like Munich’s Kammerspiele, Hamburg’s Thalia Theater, Deutsches Theater Berlin and Ballhaus Naunynstrasse. Alongside her writing, she runs workshops for children and young adults. 1,000 Coils of Fear is her first novel.
© Juliane Werner ______S. Fischer Verlage Frankfurt am Main / Germany Rights Guide Spring 2020 www.fischerverlage.de/rights/foreign_rights CONTEMPORARY LITERARY FICTION INGO SCHULZE The Righteous Murderers
What turns an upstanding bibliophile into a reactionary... or a revolutionary? A disturbing tale about all of us.
Norbert Paulini is a highly respected antiquarian books dealer in Dresden whose shop attracts booklovers searching for treasures and likeminded people. As times change and customers grow rare, he continues to defend his position. But Paulini is suddenly transformed into an irascible dogmatist and accused of taking part in xenophobic riots.
This brilliant piece of sleight of hand turns the story on its head. Is Paulini a reactionary or a revolutionary, a tragic figure or a murderer? Ingo Schulze pulls the rug out from under us in virtuoso fashion. How can a reader and booklover become a right-wing criminal? This is storytelling as its most ingenious and disconcerting.
Ingo Schulze’s works have been translated into 30 languages.tlist German Book Prize 272 pp. Hardcover March 4, 2020 “Ingo Schulze is a ‘great storyteller’.” S.Fischer Verlag Günter Grass Sample translation available Rights sold to Peter Holtz: F
(Fayard), I (Feltrinelli), RUM “This is not reunification; this is world literature.” (Europress, SLOW (Hronka) Die Welt on Neue Leben
Shortlist Leipzig
Book Prize
Ingo Schulze was born in Dresden in 1962 and lives in Berlin. His books – 33 Moments of Happiness, Simple Stories, New Life, Adam and Evelyne and, most recently, Peter Holtz. His Own Account of A Happy Life – have been hugely successful, feature on school syllabuses and have been made into films. He has won numerous German and international awards including the Joseph Breitbach Prize, the Leipzig Book Fair Prize, the Peter Weiss Prize, the Premio Grinzane Cavour and the Bertolt Brecht Prize.
______© Gaby Gerster S. Fischer Verlage Frankfurt am Main / Germany Rights Guide Spring 2020 www.fischerverlage.de/rights/foreign_rights
CONTEMPORARY LITERARY FICTION ILIYA TROYANOV Two Tracks A journey into the labyrinth of power
Investigative journalist Iliya is contacted by two whistleblowers from the US and Russian intelligence services within a few minutes of each other. Scoop or trap? He and his American colleague Boris play along and become involved in a two-track investigation that leads them to Hong Kong, Vienna, New York and Moscow.
The leaked documents lay bare an abyss of corruption, deceit and collusion between criminal oligarchs and the mafia, implicating the American and Russian heads of state. How much is to be believed? Who wins if lies are propagated? Are the two reporters merely pawns in the hands of the intelligence services?
The last to join their team is Emi, a journalist who has made a documentary film about sexual abuse of women and children. Is it merely a coincidence that some of the perpetrators’ names crop up in the leaked intelligence documents?
With his unique literary brilliance, Iliya Troyanov juggles fact and fiction in this novel and highlights, as if in passing, how fake news has turned us into accomplices of those in power. 288 pp., Hardcover July 29, 2020 The new novel by international bestselling author S.Fischer Verlag Iliya Troyanov (The Collector of Worlds) explores a web Sample translation available of corruption and collusion between the United States
and Russia.
Rights to previous titles sold to (selection): Kampfabsage: BG (Ciela), Arabic (Mahrousa/Egypt), IND (English: Yoda); Meine Olympiade: PL (Sonia Draga), TWN (Business Weekly); Macht und Widerstand: BG (Ciela), CZ (Akropolis), DK (Tiderne Skifter), E (Acantilado), NL (De Geus), TR (CAN), TWN (Business
Weekly); EisTau: BG (Ciela), BR (Companhia das Letras), DK (Tiderne Skifter), E (Spanish + Catalan:
Rayo Verde), F (Libella), NL (De Geus), SVN (Studentska Zalozba), UK/USA (Verso); Der Weltensammler: published in 23 countries
Iliya Troyanov was born in Sofia (Bulgaria) in 1965 and fled to Germany with his family in 1971 via Yugoslavia and Italy. Having spent periods of time in Kenya, Paris, Munich, Mumbai and Cape Town, he now lives in Vienna. His novels and travel books have enjoyed critical acclaim and commercial success and won numerous prizes. His most recent books with S. Fischer are his epic novel Power and Resistance, his bestselling non-fiction account My Olympiad, and Fleeing, And Then?, part memoir, part political essay.
______S. Fischer Verlage Frankfurt am Main / Germany Rights Guide Spring 2020 www.fischerverlage.de/rights/foreign_rights
CONTEMPORARY LITERARY FICTION UWE PREUSS A Hop, Skip and a Jump
Three Generations. Father, grandfather, the author himself. Professional traders.
And many women. Busy. The men.
Places of this life: Dresden, São Paulo, Prague, Budapest, West Berlin.
Preuss becomes an actor.
Where do you actually come from? Where are you at home?
“First and foremost, with myself!”
Born in Dresden, 1961. Grandad a certified ne’er-do-well. Grandma makes every shopping trip an adventure. Five years in São Paulo with mum and dad. They had their own system. Thanks. Apprenticed as an industrial manager: I’m not stamping all five hundred of these effing dockets. I’d rather be a grave digger. A job requiring no previous knowledge. Main thing no more offices. Kathrin is at the theatre already. Perfect working 176 pp., Hardcover hours. But unless I’ve done military service they won’t let me near March 4, 2020 drama school. So Christmas 1984 it’s the German embassy in S.Fischer Verlag Prague. Emigration. But straight back in for the carnival and for Sample translation available love. And straight back out. Lucky break.
“Everything superfluous must be cut. No-one wants it all explaining. Not even the senses.”
Uwe Preuss
The son of a project engineer and a technical draftswoman, Uwe Preuss grew up in East Germany and Brazil. He tried a multitude of careers, with continual fresh starts: industrial management in the planned economy, boilerman for a church guest house, canteen manager for construction workers, warehouse manager at a steel works, crate builder at a steam sawmill, and accountant, before leaving for West Berlin. There he studied acting. From 1991 he joined the Dresden theatre company and the Berliner Ensemble. Since 2005 he has been freelance, performing on major German
stages. For the last ten years he has mainly worked in front of a film camera. © Volker Roloff ______S. Fischer Verlage Frankfurt am Main / Germany Rights Guide Spring 2020 www.fischerverlage.de/rights/foreign_rights
CONTEMPORARY LITERARY FICTION | BERLIN
THORSTEN NAGELSCHMIDT WORK
Twelve hours on the edges of Berlin’s nightlife
In a Kreuzberg hostel, Sheriff is starting his night shift and once again feels like an underpaid social worker. In the corner shop next door, Anna is being robbed for the third time this year. Ten, the bouncer at Lobotomy, is standing in front of the club and realizes that his work schedule threatens to make his young family slip through his fingers. Then there’s an idealistic paramedic, an angry bottle collector, and a drug dealer with a toothache who wonders whether he still has friends, or just regular customers.
Thorsten Nagelschmidt has written a great social novel about all those people who are awake at night and do their jobs while students and tourists party. He tells of twelve hours on the edges of Berlin’s nightlife and asks questions that are easily forgotten after the third beer: who pays the bill for the changes made by a city that is supposed to be eternally young? For whom does that 334 pp., Hardcover still mean freedom, and who actually cleans up the whole mess April 29, 2020 later? S.Fischer Verlag
Thorsten Nagelschmidt, born in 1976, is an author, musician, and artist. He is the singer, lyricist, and guitarist for the band Muff Potter, and has written the books “Wo die wilden Maden graben” (2007), “Was kostet die Welt” (2010), and “Drive-By Shots” (2015). His most recent publication was the novel “Der Abfall der Herzen” (2018). Thorsten Nagelschmidt lives in Berlin and runs the reading series “Nagel mit Köpfen”.
© Vera Brüning
______S. Fischer Verlage Frankfurt am Main / Germany Rights Guide Spring 2020 www.fischerverlage.de/rights/foreign_rights
CONTEMPORARY LITERARY FICTION
MICHAEL LENTZ Possession: Schattenfroh and the Images
The Novel about a Novel
Eugen Gomringer, the founder of concrete poetry, wrote in a letter to Michael Lentz: ‘For years, decades now, novels have seemed superfluous to me. Until your novel appeared that is. We don’t need to write any more books.’ Burkhard Müller, on the other hand, writing in the Süddeutsche Zeitung, said that Schattenfroh was a waste of time, while Andreas Platthaus in the FAZ considered the ‘longest reading time with the greatest effort ’ worthwhile, and recommended reading the book a second time as soon as you finish it. Andrea Köhler, however, expressed quite a different view in Die Zeit. Throwing up her hands, she can’t decide if it is brilliant, mad or just plain silly. This question is answered by Richard Kämmerlings in Die Welt, who admires the ‘great literary work’. As you can see, even practised readers are somewhat at a loss. Michael Lentz now attempts to remedy the situation by explaining his novel in his Ernst Jandl poetry lecture delivered in Vienna. Yes, that is indeed a bit conceited. But who’s 304 pp., hardcover surprised? Schattenfroh is as well. May 27, 2020
S. Fischer Verlag ‘What was it like to be THERE in 1851, when
Moby-Dick was published? Or in 1913, when Swann’s Way came out? Or in 1922, when Ulysses crashed into our culture like a meteor and changed it forever? [...] Now I know because I was THERE in 2018 when Michael Lentz’s Schattenfroh saw the light.’
English blog The Untranslated
Michael Lentz, born in 1964, is an author, musician and editor. His most recent publications
comprise the novel Pazifik Exil, the play Warum wir also hier sind, the poetry collection Offene Unruh, the essay collection Textleben, the Frankfurt poetry lectures Atmen Ordnung Abgrund and the 2018 novel Schattenfroh. © Andreas Labes ______S. Fischer Verlage Frankfurt am Main / Germany Rights Guide Spring 2020 www.fischerverlage.de/rights/foreign_rights POETRY ESSAYS BIOGRAPHIES ILLUSTRATED POETRY
UWE KOLBE Imago: Poems
Is there a simple way of speaking that isn’t simpleminded? Cover Speech that leaves zealousness and anger behind without becoming too comfortable? Speech that constitutes calm asides to the information and personal opinion all around, that finds words to express vital matters?
In Uwe Kolbe’s new poems, a rambler brings nature and the sky into his song. As in his successful Psalmen, it is feathered companions, in particular, who abound: crows and their racket, the blackbird with her plaintive song, and the buzzard flying high above. Literary convention combines with awareness of the fragile balance of the planet.
Fragile, too, is the everyday life of me and you. When Uwe Kolbe’s poems approach this everyday world they take a dramatic turn, and his verses have to pull themselves up by their bootstraps. 124 pp., hardcover March 4, 2020 S. Fischer Verlag ● Uneasy texts that rub up against the present age
‘For many years now, one of the most important poets writing in German today.’ Hubert Spiegel,
Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung
Uwe Kolbe, born in East Berlin in 1957, moved to Hamburg in 1988 and now lives in Dresden. Since 2007, he has been a poet in residence in the US several times. He has been awarded the Villa Massimo Scholarship, the Preis der Literaturhäuser, the Heinrich Mann Prize and the Meran Poetry Prize for his work. S. Fischer Verlag recently published the following: the novel Die Lüge (2014), the essay Brecht. Rollenmodell eines Dichters (2016) as well as the poetry collections Lietzenlieder (2012), Gegenreden (2015) and Psalmen (2017).
______S. Fischer Verlage Frankfurt am Main / Germany Rights Guide Spring 2020 www.fischerverlage.de/rights/foreign_rights MEMOIR |ABUSE
JOSEF HASLINGER
My Case
‘My parents entrusted me to the Cistercian Lay Brothers because they wanted the best for me and couldn’t provide it themselves. I frequently secretly cursed them because they did not prepare me for what the best would be…’
As a ten-year-old, Josef Haslinger became a pupil at the boys’ choir school in Zwettl. He was religious, in fact, he was even convinced that he wanted to become a priest. He loved church. His love was answered by the brothers. First by one, then by others.
At the end of February 2019, Haslinger appeared before the office of the ombudsman of the archdiocese in Vienna for victims of violence and sexual abuse in the Catholic Church. He had to narrate what happened to him three times over to variously constituted committees until a clerk finally asked him to write it down himself. 128 pp., hardcover January 29, 2020 S. Fischer Verlag
Josef Haslinger was born in 1955 in Lower Austria. He is highly regarded as a writer of essays,
fiction and drama, often based on the Austrian social and political scene, and has received many literary prizes in Austria and Germany for his work. His political thriller, Opernball, brought world-wide recognition and was filmed for television. He has been Professor of Literary Aesthetics in Leipzig since 1996.
______S. Fischer Verlage Frankfurt am Main / Germany Rights Guide Spring 2020 www.fischerverlage.de/rights/foreign_rights
COMMERCIAL FICTION FICTION
ORKUN ERTENER What happened so far (and never should have)
Finn and Paul have been inseparable since early childhood. Now, Cover shortly before their A levels, everything is different. Their future is uncertain, and this frightens them. And then there’s Khalil, who has suddenly come between them. Unpredictable and erratic Khalil, whom Paul idolises, and Finn doesn’t trust an inch.
After Paul has a bad accident, he has to accept that his memory doesn’t extend beyond a day. In the rehab facility, Paul receives an alarming letter from Khalil, which leads him to fear the worst. Paul convinces Finn that they must stop Khalil. So, they embark on a road trip, which takes them from Cologne via Berlin and London to the G20 Summit in Hamburg. And changes everything forever.
“Being young is like a thriller. Orkun Ertener’s new novel sets standards for the genre”. 336 pp., hardcover Max Annas June 24, 2020 Scherz Verlag Sample translation available ● A book about friendship and how it feels when a single moment changes everything forever ● The new novel by Orkun Ertener, recipient of the prestigious Grimme Preis television award ● For readers of Blackbird, The Goldfinch and Why we Took the Car
Orkun Ertener, born in 1966, lives with his family in Cologne. He writes predominantly for TV and has received numerous awards for his work, e.g. the Adolf Grimme Preis for the series KDD-Kriminaldauerdienst, which he developed. His first novel, Lebt, was number one on the crime fiction bestseller list, and was praised by critics and readers alike.
______S. Fischer Verlage Frankfurt am Main / Germany Rights Guide Spring 2020 www.fischerverlage.de/rights/foreign_rights THRILLER
STEPHAN LUDWIG Underground
A remote village on a hot summer’s day...
‘The village lay in a valley and looked almost picturesque from above. But only one path led in, and, as he was soon to discover, Cover none led out…’
It is pure curiosity that leads Elias Haack to set off into the remote village on a hot summer’s day. Volkow is a dying place at the edge of an opencast-mining district with just a handful of inhabitants. One is Elias’s grandfather, Wilhelm, whom he hasn’t seen for over thirty years. But their reunion doesn’t last long. Wilhelm dies unexpectedly. While searching for his origins, Elias gets stranded in the village. Why do the inhabitants hold out while the excavators draw closer by the day? What do they have to hide? And what does it all have to do with Elias? Gradually, he finds himself on the trail of something horrendous that reaches far back into the past. 400 pp., trade paperback February 26, 2020 Scherz Verlag ● Cleverly plotted, extremely nail-biting and with a
Tarantino-like showdown
● The first stand-alone novel by the author of the
bestselling series Zorn
● Over 500, 000 copies in the Zorn series sold ● Each volume a top ten bestseller
Stephan Ludwig was supposed to become a musician. As a child, he learned to play violin, and as a youth double bass. He played in orchestras and later in a punk band. In 2012, the first of his nine thrillers about Inspectors Zorn and Schröder appeared. After a failed trip to Lusatia, which concluded when his car broke down in an opencast-mining district, he decided to write something different for a change. Underground is the result.
______S. Fischer Verlage Frankfurt am Main / Germany Rights Guide Spring 2020 www.fischerverlage.de/rights/foreign_rights
CRIME FICTION
KLAUS-PETER WOLF Rupert Undercover: Frisian Mission
Rupert has always wanted to join the Federal Criminal Police. But they didn’t accept him. And now they need him, because he’s the double of an international drug lord. For Rupert, this is a lifetime Cover opportunity. He can finally prove what he can do. A dangerous undercover operation gets underway. All on his own, he soon notices that nothing is as it appears to be and that the situation is more dangerous than they thought. Can he even survive without the help of his East Frisian colleagues?
● Number 1 for suspense – over 11 million books sold
● Number 1 on the bestseller list 9 times over
● Finally, Rupert in the main role
352 pp., paperback
June 18, 2020 Fischer Taschenbuch Verlag Rights to previous titles sold
(selection):
WEL (Manilla), EST (Atlex), F (Piranha), NL (Sybesma), NL (Stortebeeker), P (Medina Rodzina), TR (Yurt Kitap)
Klaus-Peter Wolf is one of the most successful crime fiction writers in Germany. His Ann Kathrin Klaasen novels are mega-bestsellers, regularly occupying first place on the Spiegel Online Bestseller List. The freelance author and scriptwriter lives in the East Frisian town of Norden, in the same neighbourhood as his fictional DI, Ann Kathrin Klaasen.
______S. Fischer Verlage Frankfurt am Main / Germany Rights Guide Spring 2020 www.fischerverlage.de/rights/foreign_rights THRILLER
MARK RODERICK MORBUS
Hardboiled tension in an idyllic setting
The old, idyllically situated manor house among the vineyards exudes comfort and cosiness. The village is even more welcoming Cover and just the right place for journalist Mara Flemming to escape her old life in the city. But why are the locals always talking about the ‘ill-fated house’? And what happened to the two girls who disappeared without a trace some time back? Mara increasingly has the sense that someone else is in the house, watching her, waiting for her.
● The new book by the author of the Spiegel Online 448 pp., paperback bestselling series Post Mortem April 29, 2020 ● Roderick’s first stand-alone book Fischer Taschenbuch Verlag ● For fans of Sebastian Fitzek and Andreas Winkelmann
Mark Roderick is a pseudonym. His gripping thrillers originate in the early hours of the morning, when nothing and no one can disturb his writing. Mark Roderick lives near Stuttgart with his family.
______S. Fischer Verlage Frankfurt am Main / Germany Rights Guide Spring 2020 www.fischerverlage.de/rights/foreign_rights HISTORICAL CRIME FICTION
TILMAN SPRECKELSEN The North Sea Trap A Theodor Storm Crime Novel
In 1844, a murder in Husum and the legend about the sunken town of Rungholt lead lawyer Theodor Storm and his secretary Cover Peter Söt to the island of Föhr, where the Danish King is spending the summer. The author Hans Christian Andersen is in his entourage. What is the significance of the mishaps in which Andersen becomes involved? Are there court intrigues against him? Does he know anything about the lost treasure map of Rungholt? During his investigations, Storm confronts powerful adversaries – and almost overlooks the greatest danger - the North Sea itself.
240 pp., paperback ● The call of power and the power of the sea June 24, 2020 ● The fourth book in the successful North Sea crime series Fischer Taschenbuch Verlag featuring Theodor Storm ● More than 80,000 books in the series sold
‘It’s like experiencing the real Theodor Storm in his own era.’
Radio Bremen
Tilman Spreckelsen, born in 1967, studied German and History in Freiburg and is a journalist for the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. His first crime novel, Das Nordseegrab was awarded the 2014 Theodor Storm Prize of the City of Husum.
______S. Fischer Verlage Frankfurt am Main / Germany Rights Guide Spring 2020 www.fischerverlage.de/rights/foreign_rights CRIME FICTION | ITALY
ANDREA DI STEFANO Tutto Bene
The scent of pines, espresso and the ghost of the past: A German ex-policeman gets involved in his most personal case yet at Lake Maggiore. Cover
The boats rock in the harbour, behind the medieval rooftops the lake shines sky-blue – but high above Lake Maggiore, something dark is brewing. Lukas Albano Geier has left his life as a witness protector in Munich behind. On his beloved Lake Maggiore, he’s devoting himself to music until a woman’s body is discovered in the small town of Luino with his telephone number inscribed on her arm.
● The first Lake Maggiore crime novel 320 pp., paperback March 25, 2020
Scherz Verlag
Andrea Di Stefano is the pseudonym of brothers Andreas Lebert and Stephan Lebert, who are both journalists. When the author duo write novels together, they not only slip into another life but other names. They penned the bestselling thriller trilogy Der Regler as well as Die Siedlung der Toten im Tessin as Max Landorff, and the paperback series Holly as Anna Friedrich. The first Lake Maggiore crime novel comes dangerously close to their real lives, as in the last ten years they have spent a lot of time at the glacial lake in the Alps.
______S. Fischer Verlage Frankfurt am Main / Germany Rights Guide Spring 2020 www.fischerverlage.de/rights/foreign_rights
CRIME FICTION | FRANCE
PIERRE LAGRANGE Gritty Provence A New Case for Albin Leclerc
Cover
Provence was never so gritty: a new case for Commissar Albin Leclerc.
A series of murders rocks the Provence. Three men are already dead: a banker, a priest and a restaurant owner. 25 years ago they all testified against Louis Rey. Now the former gangster boss is out of prison and seeking revenge. When Albin Leclerc embarks on the investigation, he believes his private problems are the only ones he has. But things take a serious turn for the Commissar, since he is the fourth man that the gangster wants to take out.
416 pp., trade paperback ● The fifth in the Spiegel bestseller series featuring April 29, 2020 Commissar Albin Leclerc Scherz Verlag ● Over 200,000 books in the series sold
Pierre Lagrange is the pseudonym of a well-known German writer who has already published a number of crime novels and thrillers. In the district of Avignon, his mother runs a small hotel on an old country estate, which is famous for its provençal cuisine. The successful series about the endearing Commissar Leclerc and his chubby sidekick Tyson have been published by Fischer.
______S. Fischer Verlage Frankfurt am Main / Germany Rights Guide Spring 2020 www.fischerverlage.de/rights/foreign_rights CRIME FICTION | GREECE
NIKOS MILONÁS Cretan Abyss A New Case for Michalis Charisteas
Under the hot August sun in Crete a cold-blooded murderer strikes in the Samaria Gorge: Detective Cover Inspector Michalis Charisteas investigates his second case
It’s the hottest August for years. Even for us locals, Detective Inspector Michalis Charisteas thinks, looking sympathetically at his German girlfriend Hannah, who is visiting the harbour city of Chania for the first time in high summer. Then he has to start an investigation at 40 degrees in the shade, after a young woman is found murdered in the famous Samaria Gorge. An act of jealous rage, it seems, and a suspect without an alibi is quickly apprehended. Too quickly for Michalis’s liking. But when another body is found in the tranquil town of Paleochora, it becomes clear that something deadly violent is afoot on the island.
384 pp., trade paperback May 27, 2020 ● The only holiday crime series set on Crete Scherz Verlag ● Year on year, Crete is one of the most popular holiday destinations
Nikos Milonás is the pseudonym of Frank D. Müller, who fell in love with the Mediterranean island of Crete when he first visited it as a seventeen-year-old. Having left behind a North German summer, he was overwhelmed when he caught sight of the coastline from the ship as the intensive scent of wild thyme blew across the ocean. Since then he has spent as much time as possible on Crete and has taken the island and its people into his heart. In his German life, the Hamburg-born writer lives in Munich, works as an assistant producer and documentary filmmaker and co-authors various TV shows (among others, München 7). Cretan Abyss is the second case for Detective Inspector Michalis Charisteas, following Kretische Freundschaft.
______S. Fischer Verlage Frankfurt am Main / Germany Rights Guide Spring 2020 www.fischerverlage.de/rights/foreign_rights
WOMEN’S FICTION | HUMOR
ALEXANDRA HOLENSTEIN Time Out for the Abendrots
This can’t be happening to me, Helene thinks. But her husband, Josef Abendrot, has just left her at a motorway service station. He needed time out from their marriage, he said. Helene finds out that Josef’s time out is called Nathalie, his junior doctor. What a Cover shock! But then Helene decides to do all the things Josef never wanted to do. She heads off to Provence and Tuscany, meets new people and does things that surprise even herself. Helene’s world suddenly becomes quite exciting. And when Josef, slightly rumpled by fate, tries to win her back, Helene wonders if she can and wants to find love again in her marriage.
● The perfect book for female readers over 50 400 pp., paperback ● Just the right kind of humour for women who’ve May 27, 2020 experienced life – readers of Ellen Berg and Dora Heldt Fischer Taschenbuch Verlag
‘Funny and entertaining.’
Tina
Alexandra Holenstein lives in Tessin, near Lake Maggiore. As in her first novel, Das Heinrich-Problem, she takes a humorous look at relationships in Time Out for the Abendrots. She has encountered quite a few of her characters in real life.
______S. Fischer Verlage Frankfurt am Main / Germany Rights Guide Spring 2020 www.fischerverlage.de/rights/foreign_rights WOMEN’S FICTION | ISLAND GARDENS
PATRICIA KOELLE The Time of the Fireflies
The start of a new series by this bestselling author
An island that teaches you to dream. A garden that unfolds its magic. And the magic of nature, which makes life special. Only Cover Patricia Koelle can write so well about how fulfilling it is to listen to your heart.
Pictures of fireflies, butterflies, bees and dragonflies on an old, beautifully hewn wooden desk inspire the journalist Taru and the young student Remy to realise their dream. Since these delicate insects are now under threat, the two women decide to establish a garden to provide all rare lifeforms with a home. On the island of Rügen, they design a wonderous place, which unfolds its magic and bestows strength. But will they succeed in moving others with their idea? Taru and Remy must open their hearts to bring the island garden to life. 480 pp., paperback Volume 2 will appear in autumn 2020. April 29, 2020 Fischer Taschenbuch Verlag
● All of Patricia Koelle’s books have been on the Spiegel bestseller list ● Over half a million copies of her work sold
● Trending topics: nature, conservation of nature and
insects
Patricia Koelle is a Berlin-based author who is passionate about the sea – and about writing, in which she expresses her constant amazement for life, people and our wonderful, improbable planet. Fischer Taschenbuch has published her Baltic trilogy, consisting of Das Meer in deinem Namen, Das Licht in deiner Stimme and Der Horizont in deinen Augen, as well as the stand-alone novel Die eine, grosse Geschichte. Wenn die Wellen leuchten, Wo die Dünen schimmern and Was die Gezeiten flüstern are the three volumes of her North Sea trilogy set in Amrum. The Time of the Fireflies is the first volume in her island gardens series. ______S. Fischer Verlage Frankfurt am Main / Germany Rights Guide Spring 2020 www.fischerverlage.de/rights/foreign_rights
WOMEN’S FICTION | ROMANCE
LISA KEIL There and Not Back
Romance full of humour, lightness and a vet
Rob Schürmann works day and night as a vet, and steals the hearts of female pet and horse owners. But he only wants one woman, and she marries another man. Cover Anabel from Berlin starts helping out in the Schürmann practice with mixed feelings. With her tattoos and her assured appearance, she is a misfit in sedate Neuberg, and most certainly at the side of the charming vet. Between bandaging hooves and operating on paws, however, the two of them clash again and again. And they become closer. But suddenly a dramatic emergency comes between them and changes everything.
‘Lisa Keil’s books are realistic down to the smallest detail, unbelievably funny, very sexy. A vacation for the soul!’ Florian Valerius @literarischernerd
● Charming, fresh and authentic 432 pp., paperback ● 50, 000 copies of previous novel Bleib doch, wo ich bin March 25, 2020 sold Fischer Taschenbuch Verlag
‘It’s a long time since I soaked up a story like this and felt for the characters. And it’s a long time since I’ve recommended a book so urgently.’
Mona Ameziane, Westdeutscher Radio
Lisa Keil entered the bestseller list straightaway with her first novel Bleib doch, wo ich bin. She lives with her husband, two children and two horses in North Rhine - Westphalia. The author works in her dream job as vet in a country practice. ______S. Fischer Verlage Frankfurt am Main / Germany Rights Guide Spring 2020 www.fischerverlage.de/rights/foreign_rights
NON FICTION NON FICTION | PHILOSOPHY
MARTIN HARTMANN Trust
An Appeal for a Value in Crisis
It’s coveted by everyone everywhere – in banks, politics, science, the internet and love: our trust! Yet there’s a crisis of trust. Many feel betrayed by the media, political parties and companies.
Philosopher Martin Hartmann analyses this crisis in an inspiring diagnosis of the present. And he discovers a fundamental dilemma: We glorify trust, we miss it and lament its loss. But many are afraid of the vulnerability that goes hand in glove with it. New forms of surveillance are undertaken and apparently confirmed opinions are adhered to. This leads to conflicts, insecurity and gridlock. Reason enough for trust-building initiatives!
An illuminating read that helps us to understand what trust really is and its meaning in our lives. Martin Hartmann encourages us to dare to trust more again – for a better coexistence.
304 pp., Hardcover March 4, 2020 ● An appeal for a value in crisis S. Fischer Verlag ● By an expert – Hartmann has been researching trust for Sample translation available years ● Realistic, comprehensible and concrete
Martin Hartmann, born in Hamburg, Germany, in 1968, is Professor of Practical Philosophy at the University of Lucerne. He studied philosophy, comparative literature and linguistics and sociology at the University of Constance, the London School of Economics and Political Science and the Free University of Berlin. In 2001, he completed his PhD at the Goethe University in Frankfurt, and he qualified as a lecturer there in 2009. His post-doctoral thesis, Die Praxis des Vertrauens, was published by Suhrkamp in 2011. He is presently finishing a manuscript on the impact of inequality on our capacity to empathize (How Inequality Feels, forthcoming with Oxford University Press). He is a regular contributor to Die Zeit, the FAZ, the NZZ and Merkur. Martin Hartmann lives with his family in Lucerne and in Frankfurt am Main.
______S. Fischer Verlage Frankfurt am Main / Germany Rights Guide Autumn 2019 www.fischerverlage.de/rights/foreign_rights NON FICTION |PHILOSOPHY
ROBERT PFALLER The Flashing Weapons: The Power of Form
‘A speaker must not only fight with sharp weapons but with flashing ones.’ Quintialian Cover
Quintilian already knew that in order to speak convincingly good arguments alone are not enough. They need to be presented in a certain way. This power of form is obvious in everyday life at many levels. For instance, why do we love certain cars – and frequently not the most useful ones? Why do certain artworks move us while others leave us cold? Why do some advertising slogans seduce us and others do not? How should good advice be formulated to be effective?
In his new book, the philosopher Robert Pfaller examines the function, meaning and effect of form to uncover its secret – and its power.
‘I am impressed at how unerringly Pfaller strikes at the 256 pp., hardcover heart of current debates.’ May 27, 2020 S. Fischer Verlag Svenja Flassböhler, Deutschlandfunk Kultur on Sample translation available Erwachsenensprache Rights to previous titles sold (selection): KR (B Books), HR (Mizantrop), RU (Gaidar)
Robert Pfaller, born in 1962, studied Philosophy in Vienna and Berlin, and following guest
professorships in Chicago, Berlin, Zurich and Strasbourg, became Professor of Philosophy at the
University of Art and Design in Linz. From 2009 to 2014, he was also Professor of Philosophy at the University of Applied Arts in Vienna. Fischer has previously published his highly regarded study Warum es sich zu leben lohnt. Elemente materialistischer Philosophie, and, most recently, Erwarchsenensprache. Über ihr Verschwinden aus Politik und Kultur.
______S. Fischer Verlage Frankfurt am Main / Germany Rights Guide Spring 2020 www.fischerverlage.de/rights/foreign_rights
BIOGRAPHY | ART
JULIA VOSS “To astonish humanity”: Hilma af Klint
A radical force, ahead of her time: Hilma af Klint, a pioneer of abstract painting
She created more than 1,000 paintings, drawings, and water-colors, revolutionizing art. A forerunner to Kandinsky and Mondrian, the Swedish painter Hilma af Klint created abstract works with deeply striking forms and colors. She was a fiercely independent and determined woman who refused to bow to the rules of the male-dominated art world. Klint knew she was ahead of her time: at the age of seventy, she decreed that her works should only be exhibited 20 years after her death. The rediscovery of her work has caused a sensation in the art world over the past years. In this thoroughly researched account of Klint’s life, Julia Voss recounts the unconventional life of this exceptional artist, destroying clichés and myths while painting a portrait of an era in 572 pp. with color illustrations which art, as well as politics, was set into turmoil. Hardcover February 26, 2020 ● The very first biography of Hilma af Klint S. Fischer Verlag Sample translation available ● Portrays the unconventional life of an exceptional artist akin to Frida Kahlo or Camille Claudel Rights sold: WEL (Chicago ● A major rediscovery in art history, with recent exhibitions UP), ROK (Pungwoldaong), S at the Guggenheim and Lenbachhaus, Munich - and (Bonniers) upcoming ones in Paris and Amsterdam
Julia Voss encountered Hilma af Klint’s work ten years ago in Stockholm. Since then, she has learned Swedish and visited many archives in Europe to conduct research on Klint and has carefully analyzed the artist’s 125 notebooks. Her research has taken Voss to Stockholm, Amsterdam, Florence, London, and Switzerland. Julia Voss was an editor in chief at the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. In 2005, she received a PhD in art history. She is the recipient of multiple writing awards, including the Sigmund Freud Prize for academic prose awarded by the Deutsche Akademie für Sprache und Dichtung. She currently holds an honorary professorship at Leuphana Universität in Lüneburg and writes an art column titled “Ask Julia Voss” for the Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung. © Isolde Ohlbaum ______S. Fischer Verlage Frankfurt am Main / Germany Rights Guide Spring 2019 www.fischerverlage.de/rights/foreign_rights NON FICTION | HUMANITARY KATJA RIEMANN Everyone has. No one shall. Project Trips
“Katja Riemann meets people with an intensity and closeness that speaks of humanity. She gives people a voice.” — Claudia Berger, UNICEF National Committee, Germany
For 20 years Katja Riemann has been out and about in the world, as UNICEF ambassador: on the ground, up close. She describes the work of non-governmental organizations and talks about people she admires because they’re making a difference. For years she has observed the work of Molly Melching, the founder of Tostan International, which is bringing about the end of female circumcision in Senegalese village communities. Alongside Nobel Peace Prize winner Dr. Denis Mukwege and physician and activist Dr. Kasereka Lusi, she was able to get an idea of how rape is used as an instrument of war in eastern Congo. “Drugs can be sold only once, people many times,” she reports from Nepal, where the daughters of lower caste families are brought to 400 pp., Hardcover Kathmandu by human traffickers to serve as maids. And finally, Katja February 26, 2020 Riemann finds her own history in Lebanon, where her father lived and S. Fischer Verlag taught for a long time. Sample translation available
Katja Riemann’s confidence provides hope, her dedication is infectious, her humor is intoxicating. She shows that change is possible.
“The title of my book is inspired by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Almost all 30 articles begin with the words ‘Everyone has...’ or ‘No one shall...’
‘Everyone has the right to life, liberty, and security of person.’ (§ 3) ‘No one shall be held in slavery or servitude.’ (§ 4)”
Katja Riemann is one of Germany’s most famous actresses. Since 2000 she has sponsored children through UNICEF, supported Plan International and Amnesty International among others, and advocated for an open society and human rights, especially those of girls and women. For her commitment she received the Federal Cross of Merit in 2010 and the Bad Iburger Courage Prize in 2016. © Mirjam Knickriem/photoselection
______S. Fischer Verlage Frankfurt am Main / Germany Rights Guide Spring 2020 www.fischerverlage.de/rights/foreign_rights
NON FICTION | MEDICINE
URBAN WIESING The Science of Healing: The Promises of Modern Medicine
Whether you believe it or not: the best of all times is nigh! Cover
Personalised medicine, gene technology, artificial intelligence – the desired victory over illnesses, yes the improvement of human kind are on our doorstep, so Silicon Valley, the elite universities and research labs of the world tell us. In these modern cathedrals, new apostles declare the happy news, and we receive it gladly. But why? And what does this say about us and current times? Urban Wiesing shows that a great human need for healing exists, which in our time medicine alone appears to be able to satisfy. But what can we realistically expect from medicine as a science? An unflinching appeal to the basic virtues of medicine as science and an exciting examination of the present.
160 pp., hardcover ● A contribution by one of the most renowned experts in April 29, 2020 medical ethics in Germany on the most-discussed question S. Fischer Verlag in medicine: Where do its limits lie?
‘Urban Wiesing does away with the notion that medical progress is always only good.’
Deutschlandfunk Nova
Urban Wiesing, born in 1958, is Director of the Institute of the Ethics and the History of Medicine at the Eberhard Karls University in Tübingen. He studied medicine, philosophy, sociology and the history of medicine in Münster and Berlin. From 2004 to 2013, he chaired the Central Ethics Committee of the German Medical Association, and since 2009, he has been a member of the Medical Ethics Committee of the World Medical Association.
______S. Fischer Verlage Frankfurt am Main / Germany Rights Guide Spring 2020 www.fischerverlage.de/rights/foreign_rights
NON FICTION | COMMUNICATION
HEKTOR HAARKÖTTER Notes: Thinking and Writing in the 21st Century
Notes include shopping lists, crib sheets, jottings, sketches, index cards, Post-its. They capture fleeting thoughts for memory and yet they are themselves provisional, uncomplicated and temporary. They organise knowledge. For the first time, Hektor Haarkötter tells the cultural history of notes from their origins until today, and he develops a theory in the process. Whether a political medium for communication among RAF prisoners, a structural framework of literature, a laboratory notebook in science, or a link online, the note constitutes a recording system, hardware and software in one. But, at the same time, the note also constitutes a medium that enables forgetting. Its significance for the cultural history of thought, however, cannot be underestimated after reading this book.
● The first cultural history and theory of notes 448 pp., hardcover ● Outlines the central significance of notes for thought November, 2020 S. Fischer Wissenschaft
Hektor Haarkötter, born in 1968, is a professor of communications studies at Bonn-Rhein-Sieg University of Applied Sciences. He studied philosophy, history, and German philology in Rome, Düsseldorf, and Göttingen and works as a journalist and writer for television. He has received a number of awards for his work, including the Alternativen Medienpreis (Alternative Media Award) in 2015.
______S. Fischer Verlage Frankfurt am Main / Germany Rights Guide Spring 2020 www.fischerverlage.de/rights/foreign_rights NON FICTION | SOCIETY AND ENVIRONMENT REMO H. LARGO Living together: The Fit-Principle for Community, Society and the Environment We are better off than ever before. Yet many of us are worried about what the future might hold. Remo H. Largo, the great humanist and medical doctor, demonstrates in an extremely Cover urgent appeal that a new way of thinking and acting is required.
Remo Largo explained the Fit-Principle in his book Das passende Leben: Everyone attempts to bring their individual basic needs, gifts and assumptions into harmony with the environment. In his new book, he now asks how society and the economy would have to be constituted to permit the greatest number of people to live in such a way. The Fit-Principle is not only valid for people but for all living things on the planet, which want to live in harmony with the environment for which they have been made. We are responsible for making that happen. The Fit-Principle is a core principle of everything that lives.
Simply a beautiful utopia? No, because Remo H. Largo makes concrete suggestions, from new forms of cohabitation to a reformed democracy and a mindful interaction with nature. The time has come. 208 pp., hardcover April 29, 2020 ● The new book by the well-known Swiss paediatrician and S. Fischer Verlag bestselling author Remo H. Largo ● A deeply humanistic plea for a society that grants all Rights to previous titles sold citizens a good life (selection): NL (Bezinge), ES ● The sequel to the Spiegel bestseller Das passende Leben (Debate), CH (Ginkgo), UK (Penguin)
Remo H. Largo, born in Wintertur in Switzerland in 1943, studied medicine at the University of
Zurich and developmental paediatrics at UCLA. Since 1978, he has headed up the Department of Growth and Development at the University Children’s Hospital in Zurich. He is the author of numerous academic publications and bestsellers concerned with human development. Remo H. Largo’s books (among others, Babyjahre, Schülerjahre and Jugendjahre) are considered classics of educational literature. In 2018, S. Fischer published his book Das passende Leben. Was unsere Individualität ausmacht und wie wir sie leben koennen (The Right Life: Human Individuality and Its Role in Our Development, Health and Happiness). ______S. Fischer Verlage Frankfurt am Main / Germany Rights Guide Spring 2020 www.fischerverlage.de/rights/foreign_rights
NON FICTION | HISTORY
HERMANN MÜCKLER Australia, Oceania, New Zealand New Fischer World History Volume 15 Between Asia and the South Sea – the Continent of Dreams Cover
They are regions of longing: Australia, New Zealand and the Oceanian islands. Hermann Mückler tells their history from the first settlement around 50,ooo years ago until the present day.
Shaped by the sea, the dotted islands and the expanses of Australia, the people there – the Aborigines, the Maori and the South Sea Islanders – developed unique cultural practices and rituals as well as fascinating survival strategies. Discovery and later colonisation by Europeans changed their way of life drastically. Alongside the US, China is an increasingly dominant factor in the region. But a new self-confidence characterises the descendants of the original inhabitants, who face great challenges today, not least due to climate change. A comprehensive guide 640 pp., hardcover through regions which, for many Europeans, remain dream June 24, 2020 destinations. S. Fischer Verlag
Hermann Mückler, born in 1964, an ethnologist and historian, is a professor in the Institute of Cultural and Social Anthropology at the University of Vienna. Since 2012, he has been president of the Anthropological Society of Vienna. His most recent publications, among others, include Entkolonisierung und Konflikte der Gegenwart in Ozeanien (2013) and Die Marshall-Inseln und Nauru in deutscher Kolonialzeit (2016). He co-edits the Journal of Comparative Cultural Studies.
______S. Fischer Verlage Frankfurt am Main / Germany Rights Guide Spring 2020 www.fischerverlage.de/rights/foreign_rights
NON FICTION | SOCIAL STUDIES
ANNELIE RAMSBROCK Closed Society: Prison as Social Experiment - a Federal German History
Prison as a Mirror of Society
Prison is an institution which challenges our society: Imprisonment cuts off personal freedom, the most valued commodity in a democracy. Annelie Ramsbrock writes of how the West German state after 1945 tried to address this dilemma: Prison was no longer to be only a punishment. It was supposed to re-socialise the offender.
Punishment was liberalised through work and education, visiting rights, correspondence, arts activities and sports facilities. Life outside was replicated as far as possible.
But prison is quite a strange place, where people live together strongly regulated in the narrowest of spaces. Annelie Ramsbrock describes this world close-up and asks, in the end, if resocialisation is at all possible. Can people be taught how to behave in society while they are locked away and excluded? 368 pp., hardcover June 24, 2020 S. Fischer Geschichte ● Prison life close-up, based on numerous, partly personal, documents
Annelie Ramsbrock is a historian and research associate at the Leibniz Centre for the Study of Contemporary History in Potsdam. She received a scholarship from the Gerda Henkel Foundation and was Visiting Fellow at St. Antony’s College Oxford. In 2012, she received the GINT translation prize for her dissertation. For the resulting book, she evaluated many judicial documents, prisoners magazines and life stories.
______S. Fischer Verlage Frankfurt am Main / Germany Rights Guide Spring 2020 www.fischerverlage.de/rights/foreign_rights
NON FICTION | CULTURAL STUDIES
CHRISTIAN METZ Tickle: Genealogy of a Human Sensation
Cover Tickling not only has history, it makes history. But, above all, it makes stories.
Being tickled is a strange phenomenon. As a mixed sensation, it produces delight and pain simultaneously. As a touch, tickling is so fleeting that it leaves no trace behind. No wonder, then, that it hasn’t been studied up till now. In his brilliant study, Christian Metz shows that tickling has played a very important role: from Aristotle via Plato to Descartes, from Grimmelshausen to Jean Paul, and from Hegel to Darwin and Nietzsche, it has had a significant impact in the field of culture. Metz methodically traces tickling, tracking down its narratives through the centuries, and gives a fascinating insight into its anthropological, philosophical, art-historical and – as narrated tickle – literary influence. Tickling, so much is clear, will have to be fully re-evaluated in light of this study. 608 pp., hardcover June 24, 2020 S. Fischer Wissenschaft ● The first philosophy and aesthetics of tickling
Christian Metz, born in 1975, studied biology and German studies and is an adjunct professor in German Studies at the Goethe University of Frankfurt. He was recently a Humboldt scholar at Cornell
University and at the LMU in Munich, and he is a literary critic for the Frankfurter Allgemeine
Zeitung. S. Fischer published his book Poetisch denken. Die Lyrik der Gegenwart in 2018.
______S. Fischer Verlage Frankfurt am Main / Germany Rights Guide Spring 2020 www.fischerverlage.de/rights/foreign_rights
NON FICTION | FRIENDSHIP
WALID NAKSCHBANDI You and I: The History of a Friendship
A male friendship across cultures
Nadim and Christian meet for the first time in Germany in 1981. They come from different worlds and immediately become friends. 35 years later – after a long separation – Christian is hospitalised. Nadim drops everything and goes to see him. This gives rise to a conversation about life, which culminates in an urgent question: Are they still real friends today? Or have social and personal changes destroyed their relationship? Can shared memories prevail over current differences in opinion, or does the present obscure the past?
Walid Nakschbandi writes urgently of how the private is politicised by the public and can lead to the alienation of former friends. He writes about love, longing, shared trips and an unforgettable concert at the Loreley. Can this friendship continue 224 pp., hardcover to exist today? April, 2021 S. Fischer Verlag
Walid Nakschbandi, born in 1968, is a political scientist. He works for the Holtzbrinck Publishing Group and is a film producer. Recently S. Fischer published his book Deutschland – die herausgeforderte Demokratie.
______S. Fischer Verlage Frankfurt am Main / Germany Rights Guide Spring 2020 www.fischerverlage.de/rights/foreign_rights
COMMERCIAL NON FICTION COMMERCIAL NON FICTION | SELF HELP
SABINE KALOFF Fear is not for Cowards: My Exit from Panic
‘A friend recently told me she also knew what panic was. Only recently, she’d got stuck in a lift. But that’s not what I mean by a panic attack, I said. Just imagine that everything you experienced in that lift – the claustrophobia, the fear, outright terror, a racing heart, shaking, sweating, shaky legs – happens to those experiencing panic attacks just out of the blue. They’re permanently stuck in an internal lift, no external trigger is needed. That’s the difference.’
Popular life-style journalist Susanne Kaloff describes openly and honestly how it feels to be trapped in a vicious circle of fear. She writes about fearful moments, her silence and hiding, of her friends’ and family’s helplessness, of detours, setbacks, therapies, and fear of fear itself, of failing and of her eventual triumph over fear.
256 pp., paperback March 25, 2020 ● Common illness - fear Fischer Taschenbuch Verlag ● The big subject from the perspective of someone affected
by it, which shows ways out of fear
‘Had I known that fear wouldn’t kill me, I’d have been less fearful.’ Susanne Kaloff
SUSANNE KALOFF writes for several editorial offices as a lifestyle and style author. She has been writing weekly columns in Grazia for the last six years and is an expert for the sensual things in life: eating, drinking, love, fashion and beauty.
______S. Fischer Verlage Frankfurt am Main / Germany Rights Guide Spring 2020 www.fischerverlage.de/rights/foreign_rights COMEDY
MARIO BARTH Happy Wife, Happy Life
The naked truth about the relationship between men and women
Why is it that women win every argument? When is lying Cover permitted in a relationship? And what are the riskiest answers to the question: Do you love me? Men can lead a happy life provided they adhere to this simple formula: Happy wife, happy life.
If a woman is happy, so is her husband. Through entertaining infographics and texts, Mario Barth tells the whole truth about men and women’ lives together and reveals how true happiness can be achieved.
● Four-colour layout with entertaining infographics ● The ideal gift for men and women, i.e. everyone 256 pp., gatefold cover ● By Germany’s leading comedian for the past 20 years February 26, 2020 ● Recipient of 11 comedy awards Fischer Taschenbuch Verlag ● Over 8 million fans at 6 stage shows ● Over 2 million books sold
According to a 2018 study on German humour, Mario Barth is the only comedian who is more popular with women than with men. Barth is also a bestselling author. In October 2004, he published the Langenscheid translation aid Deutsch-Frau / Frau Deutsch: Schnelle Hilfe für den ratlosen Mann. The first print run sold out in a day, and up till now this translation aid for women’s talk has sold over two million copies, and translations of the book have also been published in South Korea, the Netherlands, the Czech Republic, Japan and Poland.
______S. Fischer Verlage Frankfurt am Main / Germany Rights Guide Spring 2020 www.fischerverlage.de/rights/foreign_rights
COMMERCIAL NON FICTION | DEATH
CHRISTOPH KUCKELKORN Death is your Last Big Appointment: An Undertaker Talks about Life
Only death gives meaning to life: inspiring insights from someone who should know
Grief and joy, hilarity and despair, life and death. Christoph Kuckelkorn leaps almost effortlessly back and forth between these extremes – and, when his diary permits, sometimes within the space of just a few hours, preparing for a funeral in the morning, attending a meeting of the carnival festive committee at noon, a conversation with bereaved people in the afternoon, and a magnificent carnival session in the evening. His occupation teaches him every day just how fragile our existence is, how suddenly everything can change. And he also had personal experience of this when his first wife died in an accident.
Through many gripping and moving stories, Christoph Kuckelkorn shows us from his unique perspective how we can lead a good life while fully acknowledging our mortality.
256 pp., trade paperback ● Master mortician and president of the Cologne carnival January 29, 2020 festive committee Fischer Taschenbuch Verlag ● Member of the team of specialists who assisted after the 2004 tsunami ● Moving end-of-life stories
Christoph Kuckelkorn, born in Cologne in 1964, has been directing his family’s well-known funeral business, now in its fifth generation, since 2002. He regards his work as a vocation, and assists people in their most difficult hour. He has buried several celebrities amongst them Cardinal Meisner. Kuckelkorn was a member of the ten-person Deathcare embalming team which, in December 2004, organised the return of the German victims of the flood disaster in Asia. He is president of the Cologne carnival festive committee, and from 2005 to 2017, he led Cologne’s Shrove Monday procession. He lives with his wife in Cologne.
______S. Fischer Verlage Frankfurt am Main / Germany Rights Guide Spring 2020 www.fischerverlage.de/rights/foreign_rights
COMMERCIAL NON FICTION | MEMOIR
MEHDI MATURI with Kerstin Greiner Off to Iran - On Foot and Without a Passport: In Search of my Mother
‘I told almost no one what I intended to do. I didn’t want anyone to worry about me. Or stop me.’
All his life, Mehdi Maturi had thought his mother was dead. When he finds out that he was abducted by his father shortly after his birth and taken to Germany and that his mother is still alive, he wants to get to know her. But over 4000 kilometres and eight countries separate him and his mother in Iran. And he can’t get a visa. So he walks – in the opposite direction to the refugees. He has no idea how hard the journey will get and how he will get back. Only one thing matters to him: his mother’s smile.
● As captivating and inspiring as Christopher Schacht’s 272 pp., paperback Around the World on 50 Bucks, as moving as Fabio Geda’s February 26, 2020 In the Sea There are Crocodiles Fischer Taschenbuch Verlag
Mehdi Maturi, born in 1987, was abducted and brought to Germany by his Iranian father as a four-month-old infant, and grew up in Schwäbisch Hall. Since 19, he has worked as an events manager for clubs and music events in Munich, Berlin and Ibiza. When he discovered in his mid-twenties that his mother was still alive, he gave his all in order to finally get to know her. Together with prize-winning journalist Kerstin Greiner he has now written about his experiences.
______S. Fischer Verlage Frankfurt am Main / Germany Rights Guide Spring 2020 www.fischerverlage.de/rights/foreign_rights
COMMERCIAL NON FICTION | BUDDHISM
VERENA REICHLE The Fundamental Principles of Buddhism
Spiritual Answers for our Lives
Buddhism conveys a holistic view of the world and the human psyche. Buddha was concerned with practical help in the course of his own inner development and in the evolution of consciousness. In this book, ethnologist Verena Reichle outlines the basics of Buddhist philosophy and the core of this great edifice of ideas. She is not concerned with religious convictions, myths, customs and habits but, rather, insights that can be explained and understood.
● Buddhism for beginners
144 pp., paperback September 23, 2020 Fischer Taschenbuch Verlag
______S. Fischer Verlage Frankfurt am Main / Germany Rights Guide Spring 2020 www.fischerverlage.de/rights/foreign_rights COMMERCIAL NON FICTION |MINDFULNESS
ALICE HUTH (ED.) The Big Book of Mindfulness
Beautiful Texts to Make you Pause
Spiritual Answers for our Lives
Mindfulness is one of the big topics in our hectic times. Deceleration, relaxation and peace and quiet need to be learned and preserved. Tracing the thoughts of great authors, this book leads us through the decades to inner clarity – a small amount of time out that frees up the mind and creates space for new energy.
Paperback September 23, 2020 Fischer Taschenbuch Verlag
______S. Fischer Verlage Frankfurt am Main / Germany Rights Guide Spring 2020 www.fischerverlage.de/rights/foreign_rights ISRAEL Foreign Rights The Deborah Harris Agency Ms. Efrat Lev Team POB 8528 9108401 Jerusalem Israel [email protected] Myriam Alfano ITALY T: 0049 / 69 / 60 62-346 | Berla & Griffini Rights Agency [email protected] Barbara Griffini English language territories | Asia | Belgium | Via Stampa, 4 20123 Milano France | Italy | Latin America | Portugal | Italy | Russia Spain [email protected]
Katrin Meerkamp JAPAN The Sakai Agency T: 0049 / 69 / 60 62-308 | Mr. Harumi Sakai [email protected] 1-58-4F Kanda-Jimbocho, Chiyoda-ku Arabic World | Eastern Europe and the Balkans Tokyo 101-0051 Japan | Greece | | Iran | Israel | Netherlands | [email protected] Scandinavia | Turkey
SPAIN, LATIN AMERICA (not including Brazil) International Editors’ Co. Postal address: S. Fischer Verlage, Jessica Zuan Còrsega, 288, 1r 2º Hedderichstraße 114, 60596 Frankfurt / 08008 Barcelona Main, Germany Spain www.fischerverlage.de [email protected]
POLAND
Graal Literary Agency
Mr. Tomasz Berezinski ul. Pruszkowska 29/252 02-119 Warsaw Poland [email protected]
SCANDINAVIA Agents Schøne Agentur Ms. Anna Richter Charlottenstr. 13 GREECE 04317 Leipzig Kléoniki Dougé [email protected] Agence Littéraire Kléoniki Dougé 46 rue Jeanne d’Arc ROMANIA 75013 Paris International Copyright Agency France Mrs. Simona Kessler [email protected] Str. Banul Antonache 37 Bucharest 1 HUNGARY Romania Kátai & Bolza Literary Agents [email protected] Mrs. Orsi Mészarós Szerb u. 17-19 TURKEY Budapest 1056 Anatolialit Agency Hungary Ms. Amy Marie Spangler [email protected] Caferaga Mahallsi Gunesli Bahce Sk. No: 48 Or.Ko. Apt. B Blok D:4 34710 Kadikoy Istanbul Turkey [email protected]