It is a Diogenes tradition: Authors whose books sold more than one million Diogenes copies receive our award, the ›Golden Diogenes Owl‹. The award ceremony took place yesterday afternoon in the little garden behind the publishing house.

Benedict Wells published his first book Beck’s Last Summer in 2008, when he was barely 24. Then followed Crank, Almost Ingenious and the one that brought him international renown once and for all: The End of Loneliness in 2016, on the Spiegel bestseller list for 80 weeks, awarded the European Union Prize for Literature. His works were published in 38 languages. His next book, The Truth about Lying was one of the very few short story collections that made it to the top ten of the Spiegel bestseller list.

At the age of only 36, Benedict Wells is one of the youngest authors to receive the ›Golden Diogenes Owl‹, here are a few other names in this category: Ian McEwan, John Irving, Donna Leon, Patrick Süskind, Bernhard Schlink, Barbara Vine, Tomi Ungerer.

We are looking forward to his latest book Hard Land, to be published in spring next year – you'll see it in our Foreign Rights List for spring 2021, to be released at the end of October.