Diogenes' books rank high on the all-year Spiegel bestseller list

The all-year hardcover fiction Spiegel bestseller list of 2021 makes for a most pleasant start into the new year: there are no less than seven Diogenes titles on the hardcover fiction list, six of which we hold world rights for. Four of them made the top 40:

Hard Land by Benedict Wells (#5)
The Granddaughter by Bernhard Schlink (#14)
Transient Desires by Donna Leon (#25)
The Fire by Daniela Krien (#38)

Furthermore, Fickle Flames by Ingrid Noll ranks on #70, Why Are We All So Serious? by Martin Suter and Benjamin von Stuckrad-Barre made it to #58.

Fourth month of overwhelming press response for Patricia Highsmith's Her Diaries and Notebooks

»These secret diaries take us inside Patricia Highsmith's brilliant yet twisted mind.«
David Sexton / The Sunday Times, London

»Patricia Highsmith: Her Diaries and Notebooks, out from Liveright and compiled by Highsmith's longtime editor Anna von Planta, provides stunning access to the mind of a notoriously secretive author.«
Keziah Weir / Vanity Fair, New York

»The author left 38 notebooks and 18 diaries, which the heroic Anna von Planta has decoded and cut into this vast, engrossing collection.«
Lucy Atkins /  The Sunday Times, London

»Although the originals of the diaries have been available to scholars for some years [...], for the interested reader this volume of previously unpublished material breaks new ground, providing us with a chance of glimpsing at last the real Patricia Highsmith.«
Christopher Priest / The Spectator, London

»The truth about her is infinitely more interesting and complex, as can be seen in this selection from her 8'000 pages of diaries and notebooks, which she maintained from the age of 19 to the end of her life.«
Craig Brown / Daily Mail, London

»But nothing, as Schenkar suggested, in those [earlier biographical] volumes compares with the galvanic thrill of reading Highsmith’s raw first-person accounts, of following the writer as she tries to make sense of her self over the course of
half a century.«
Melissa Anderson / Bookforum, New York

»Editor Anna von Planta has succeeded in this incredible feat, creating one of the most outststanding books of the year.«
Anton Thuswaldner / Salzburger Nachrichten, Salzburg

»An untiringly insightful, soul-nourishing book that narrates a long journey into solitude.«
Gregor Dotzauer / Der Tagesspiegel, Berlin

Happy Birthday, Petros Markaris!

Petros Markaris turned 85 on 1 January – happy birthday! Born in Istanbul in 1937, he is a playwright, who worked as a screenwriter with Theo Angelopoulos (director of Eternity and a Day, Ulysses’ Gaze etc.), and translated the works of German dramatists like Brecht and Goethe. He began writing crime novels later on, in the mid-1990s, and became an international success. His accolades include the ›Pepe Carvalho Prize‹, the ›Goethe Medal‹ and an honorary doctorate from the University of Thessaloniki. Petros Markaris lives in Athens.

His birthday was reason to celebrate him and his works on Deutschlandfunk (in German). 

»With every new Haritos novel, you understand modern-day Greece better.«
Kurt Kister / Süddeutsche Zeitung, Munich
 

Just published: One of You by Martin Suter

Bastian Schweinsteiger, the hero of the 2014 World Cup Final in Rio, is the hero of Martin Suter’s latest novel. The author narrates true (and almost true) details about the life of a man whose starting point made him unlikely to become a great footballer, and he tells us how Basti, through his joy and determination, achieved immense success regardless.

Russian, Serbian and Croatian rights of The Fire by Daniela Krien sold

With these three more sales, the book is going to be published in nine languages.

Foreign rights sold:
Catalan (Bromera)
Croatian (Fraktura)
English (UK, MacLehose)
French (Albin Michel)
Italian (Garzanti)
Norwegian (Forlaget Press)
Russian (Foliant)
Serbian (Booka)
 

Gem from our backlist: Diary of an Eternity by Petros Markaris

In this thoughtful and insightful book, Petros Markaris remembers the intense collaboration on the film Eternity and a Day with Theo Angelopoulos, the celebrated Greek auteur film director, who passed away ten years ago. The two long-standing companions co-wrote several of his celebrated films across a timespan of nearly two decades. Among these films was Eternity and a Day which won a ›Palme d’Or‹ in Cannes in 1998 – one of Theo Angelopoulos’ masterpieces, starring Bruno Ganz and Isabelle Renauld.

Now published in translation: The Art of Horror in Italian

Italian edition by La Nave di Teseo, Milan

Stefanie vor Schulte's Boy with a Black Rooster is awarded the ›Mara Cassens Prize‹

Stefanie vor Schulte has been awarded the ›Mara Cassens Prize‹ by the Hamburg House of Literature for Boy with a Black Rooster. The winner of the ›Mara Cassens Prize‹ receives EUR 20'000 – the highest honorarium of all German language literary awards for debut novels. With this very generous award the Hamburg House of Literature aims to provide successful debut authors with an opportunity to dedicate themselves fully to their writing career. This year the jury, comprised of 15 members, chose from a longlist of 65 debut novels.
 
The jury says: »Boy with a Black Rooster is a fascinating, exciting story full of poetic power, which creates pictures in a language reduced to its essence. This makes the book the best debut novel of the year.« The award ceremony was held on 12 January 2022 at the Hamburg House of Literature.

Furthermore, Boy with a Black Rooster is shortlisted for the prize ›Das Debüt 2021‹ – one of five at the moment – and for the ›Rauris Prize of Literature‹.

Moreover, we have sold Serbian and Spanish (MX) rights. Here's the full list of rights sold:

French (Héloïse d'Ormesson)
Italian (Mondadori)
Serbian (Plato)
Spanish (MX, Seix Barral)

»A great rhythm, beautiful sentences, atmosphere: a joyful cultural experience.«
Thomas Andre / Hamburger Abendblatt, Hamburg

»Boy with a Black Rooster is gripping, uncanny, a look into the human abyss. And yet, there is magic in this child.«
Peter Helling / NDR Kultur, Hamburg

»Stefanie vor Schulte's novel is full of poetic power and with a language characterized by images.«
HR2 Kultur / Frankfurt

»This appears light as a feather, yet elaborately crafted all the same.«
Rose-Maria Gropp in her laudatory speech for the Mara Cassens Prize

 

Italian rights of Kalmann by Joachim B. Schmidt sold to SEM Libri

We sold Italian rights of Kalmann by Joachim B. Schmidt to SEM Libri in Milan. This means that, as of today, Kalmann will be published in ten languages. Here’s the list of foreign publishers:

Arabic (Al-Arabi)
Czech (Prostor)
English/world (Bitter Lemon Press)
French (Gallimard)
Icelandic (Forlagið)
Italian (SEM Libri) 
Slovak (Literárna Bašta)
Spanish/world (Gatopardo)

For those who had been wondering how Icelandic Kalmann really is – here's proof, Joachim B. Schmidt presenting the book in Icelandic.

Meanwhile, we are busy preparing the launch of Joachim B. Schmidt's new book Tell. If you are interested in knowing more, watch him here talking about Tell (in English), or ask us about the English sample of Tell.

Bernhard Schlink's The Granddaughter goes to Books at Berlinale

Bernhard Schlink's The Granddaughter is going to be one of 10 books presented to a professional audience of producers and filmmakers at ›Books at Berlinale‹ on 14 February. It was chosen as one of ten out of 190 participants, please find the full list in this article of Publishing Perspectives and their website here. 

Furthermore, Gallimard snapped up French rights of The Granddaughter. Here's the list of foreign rights sold:

Bulgarian (Kryg)
Czech (Euromedia)
French (Gallimard)
Greek (Kritiki)
Italian (Neri Pozza)
Romanian (Polirom)
Serbian (Plato)

Rights for seven more languages are currently being negotiated.

On the domestic market, the book continues to be in high demand: It's been in the top 10 of the Spiegel bestseller list for 12 weeks now and has now climbed to its highest rank so far, #3. 

»Bernhard Schlink has written a novel that you will carry with you everywhere, just in case you have a spare moment to continue reading.«
Annemarie Stoltenberg / NDR Kultur, Hamburg
 

Just published: The Terrible Zebra by Klaus Cäsar Zehrer

Old photos can inspire the imagination of the contemporary viewer in a captivating way. Veering from strange to touching, they continually pose the question: What on earth was going on? Klaus Cäsar Zehrer was inspired by pictures like these to create short stories, scenes and poems – from tender to ruthless, from poetic to unreservedly silly.

Here's to the letter Z! The Zebra by Zehrer!

Reiner Zimnik (1930–2021)

Reiner Zimnik passed away on 8 December, just a few days before his 91st birthday, on 13 December. Reiner Zimnik was one of the great German children’s book authors and illustrators: his books such as Bill’s Balloon Ride or The Bear on the Motorbike are children’s classics. 

Reiner Zimnik was born in Bytom in 1930 and grew up in Lower Bavaria. He had been drawing since he was four years old. He settled down in Munich and lived as a poet, an illustrator and a painter, after an apprenticeship as a carpenter and a few years at Munich’s Academy of Arts. Reiner Zimnik was decorated with numerous awards. His oeuvre, for which Diogenes holds worldwide translation rights as well as film rights, has been published in 15 languages.

On the occasion of his 90th birthday, The Bear on the Motorbike was published as a new edition this past April 2021.

Now published in translation: Times of Hypocrisy by Petros Markaris in French

French edition by Seuil, Paris