Sabina has come to Zurich from Russia to be treated by Dr. Carl Gustav Jung at the University Psychiatric Clinic – and becomes his lover. 
Fritz, a carpenter’s son, dreams of building a better society. He pushes Switzerland to the brink of revolution, and later in Russia he saves Lenin’s life.
Sabina and Fritz are courageous, torn, full of contradictions; both ceaseless breakers of new ground. Their paths interweave and mirror one another – even as they slip away into the darkness of European history. 

Martha was a formidable woman who rose from a poor background to achieve modest prosperity. But she could never forget the memories of her deprived childhood as a child labourer with a farming family in the Bernese hinterlands: Show no weakness. Work relentlessly. Be tough on yourself and others. These beliefs also influenced her sons, who were determined to succeed in the post-war period, and her grandchildren, who rebel and, for the first time, dare to dream of a different, freer life.

The most personal novel by the Swiss bestselling author.

A gripping novel about the unexpected kindling of love, about wavering certainties and destroyed ideals. In November 1918, shortly after the end of the World War I, Europe is in turmoil. In Switzerland, just as the general strike begins, chance brings together a young soldier and a Russian woman. Elena Gogobaridse belongs to the diplomatic delegation of the young Soviet Union in Berne. Samuel Brülhart, a village teacher in his civilian life, is entrusted with bringing her and the other Communist diplomats out of the country in a vehicle convoy. When it comes to background and political conviction, Elena and Samuel could not be more different. But during the three days of an eventful journey across Switzerland, they are drawn closer and closer together.

Who was Emily Ruete, alias Salme of Zanzibar? The Arabian princess who left her home in 1866 out of love for the Hamburg salesman Heinrich Ruete? The woman who took on a new name and a new religion, beginning a new life in Germany? The young widow who had to raise her three children alone in a foreign land? The pawn of political interests, caught up in Germany's scheming for the island of Zanzibar? These are the questions that Emily's children ask themselves to the very end: Said, Antonie and Rosalie. Their life lines run between the Orient and Occident, Islam and Christianity, royal heritage and bitter poverty, German discipline and unbridled exoticism – and lead directly into the catastrophic events of the 20th century.

The portrait of a fascinating personality: In 1798, Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi establishes a home for war orphans in Stans in the Swiss Canton of Nidwalden which has been laid waste by the French Revolutionary Army. In a dilapidated wing of the Capuchin convent, he cares for up to eighty children at times – a never-ending fight against cold, hunger and neglect. Then he has to vacate the convent: It is transformed into a military hospital, and Pestalozzi is accused of being incapable as an educator. He breaks down. Lukas Hartmann depicts the great educator as a passionate and contradictory man. The book has been awarded the ›Book Prize of the City of Berne‹ and the ›Book Prize of the Schiller Foundation‹.

From global star to refugee – the incredible story of Joseph Schmidt, one of the most beautiful voices of the 20th century.

His voice filled concert halls, beguiled women, captured an audience of millions in Germany, Europe, and America, where they called him »the small man with the great voice«.
Joseph Schmidt, the son of orthodox Jews from Czernowitz, Ukraine, made an incredible success of himself. What a journey from an unknown Eastern European Shtetl to the famous Carnegie Hall! In 1942, however, fame and talent are worth nothing.
On the run from the Nazis, the famous tenor becomes ill and is just one of thousands of exhausted refugees stuck at the Swiss border. Will he make it to the other side, to safety?

A millionaire heiress and a genius painter: a scandalous belle époque love affair. Lukas Hartmann has written a novel about the fate of a woman who breaks with the conventions of her time.

She is intelligent, fascinated by art – and after the death of her father, the »railway king« Alfred Escher, she is the richest woman in Switzerland. She is married to the son of a powerful politician. She is prepared to put all that at risk out of her love for an artist. Who is Lydia? No one knows her better than Luise, the maid who stays by her side through all of life’s twists and turns. And yet Lydia remains a mystery to her.

›Literature Prize of the Canton of Berne‹

English sample translation available.

A village in the 14th century. For weeks, rumours have been heard about a terrible disease. And then it reaches the village. The helpless people try to stop the dying through faith, superstition and magic. Nobody knows why so many die and only a few survive. A young girl, Hanna, and her brother, Matthis, bury their grandmother and, although it is forbidden, flee into the forest. On the way, they meet a flagellant procession, and Matthis joins the religious fanatics, while Hanna continues her flight. She finds refuge with an old, silent fisherman, for whom she sells fish on the market. There, she repeatedly sees a child who smiles at her. She soon has the feeling that she must follow this mysterious child ...

A psychological novel about a family shaken by the realization that their tenant is a dangerous criminal. Lukas Hartmann forges a sensitive link between a portrait of a woman in crisis and a psychological study of a criminal. When their son Sebastian moves out, Margret and Gerhard Sandmaier are left behind. Margret in particular finds the empty house oppressive. Gerhard has his work as a history professor, but Margret’s part-time job at a bookshop and the German lessons she gives for refugee children are not enough to satisfy her. And Sebastian, having fled the nest, maintains a painful distance. The Sandmaiers decide to rent out the annex where their son used to live. They soon find a suitable tenant: a young bicycle mechanic, unobtrusive, polite, taciturn. But Margret begins to develop suspicions when stories hit the headlines about a man attacking young women with a knife.

London 1781. By order of the admiralty, John Webber delivers a portrait of her husband to the widow of James Cook. Outraged, the widow refuses to accept the present, claiming that she does not recognise her husband in it. Although shocked, Webber can sympathise with the woman. Upon the return of Captain Cook's ship »Resolution«, the admiralty issued a complete ban on mentioning the details of the circumstances of Cook's tragic death. And the portrait too only serves one purpose: to perpetuate the heroic memory of the great captain and to make sure that he will go down in history as one of England's noble explorers. But Webber knows the truth about Cook's four-year long journey, his third and last voyage around the world, and all the tormenting images, which he has been prohibited from drawing, will haunt him for the rest of his life.

A moving novel about security and loss, about family bonds which we cannot escape and those of our own making. 11 August, 1999 – total eclipse of the sun. Like thousands of others, a family of five drives to Alsace where the natural spectacle is particularly impressive. Only the youngest son, however, returns from this excursion alive. In the night Eliane Hess, psychologist and single mother, is called to the hospital: eight-year-old Yves, miraculously unscathed, is in shock. He chatters nervously on and on – just not about what really matters. What does he remember of the accident? Did his father smash the car into the tunnel wall on purpose? Piece by jigsaw piece, Eliane is discovering a picture of a family headed towards catastrophe with their eyes open. And it is becoming increasingly difficult to keep a professional distance. Yves's fate horrifies and fascinates Eliane – in the same way the Isenheim Altarpiece has since her youth, of which it is said that a solar eclipse is represented on its first panel. When a tug-of-war over the boy's future begins between his relatives, Eliane reaches an unorthodox decision that will irrevocably change her life and that of her two daughters.