Joey Goebel reviewed by FAZ

We were thrilled to see Joey Goebel’s I Know It’s Going to Happen for You Someday reviewed by the prestigious newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ) at the end of June. Here is the link to the article and here are the latest quotes on this book:  

»Joey Goebel’s ten short stories deeply move (their) readers. [. . .] The stories are emphatically and intriguingly told.«
Marcel Emonds-Pool / Aachener Zeitung 

»Unmistakable, brilliantly narrated and deeply humane: Goebel’s protagonists struggle for their piece of happiness – which life has thus far withheld from them – because I Know It’s Going to Happen for You Someday.«
Dagmar Kaindl / Buchkultur, Vienna

Jörg Fauser’s The Snake Mouth #1 on the list of the best audiobooks by hr2 

German public radio broadcaster hr2 chose the audiobook of Jörg Fauser’s The Snake Mouth as the very best audiobook this July (here). The book edition of The Snake Mouth was originally published in 1985, however, this new Fauser edition, which includes an audio edition, has only just been released on the occasion of what would have been Jörg Fauser’s 75th birthday. 

As in the weeks before, the press remains enthusiastic about anything Jörg Fauser ever published:
»As a mostly high as a kite writer, who struggles on as a removal man and night guard, he delivers an authentic image of the 68 generation.«
Neue Zürcher Zeitung am Sonntag

»This strange late 1970s melancholy and the beginnings of the over refined decadence and lethargic indifference of the ‘80s, all of this is accurately captured here. And the key metaphor is cocaine. Brief scenes reminiscent of a screenplay make the book fast-paced.«
Frank Schäfer / Rolling Stone, Berlin 

»An immensely entertaining read, as well as an excellent document of the times around 1968.«
Andreas Schröter / Ruhr Nachrichten, Dortmund 

»Just like you always return to Chandler in American literature, you should refer to Fauser time and again in German literature. It helps to survive.«
Stefan Maelck / mdr2

Just published: Donna Leon Unto Us a Son Is Given

Venice: city of wealth – and of greed . . . Gonzalo Rodríguez de Tejeda – originally from Spain – has made a fortune as an art dealer. Now he is spending his sunset years in Venice. And then? Should his conservative family, who never approved of his permissive lifestyle, inherit his treasures? Or who is his chosen heir? Commissario Brunetti’s father-in-law has a strong sense of foreboding and asks the Commissario for help – plunging Brunetti into the depths of the human heart.

The new case for the international bestseller lists is a delicate matter that calls for all of Brunetti’s tact and precision. 

Though it may not surprise you that Donna Leon’s Unto Us a Son is Given soared to the very top of the Spiegel bestseller list, we find the time she spent there is a phenomenon, even more so for the 28th installment of a series: She was # 1 of the Spiegel bestseller list for four weeks. The US edition of Unto Us a Son is Given (published at Grove Atlantic) made it to the top 20 of ten US bestseller lists, among them # 12 on the New York Times Fiction list.

Now published in translation

János Székely Temptation

Now published in translation

Tomi Ungerer Flix 

We all scream for ice cream!

Love in Case of Emergency # 1 on the Spiegel bestseller list 

Daniela Krien’s Love in Case of Emergency is now a # 1 Spiegel bestseller. Let us seize this opportunity to sum up the success story of this title so far:

Love in Case of Emergency has remained in the Spiegel top 10 for 18 weeks now – and counting. As of today, sales of the original German edition have far exceeded 70’000 copies.

We have also recently sold French rights of Daniela Krien’s Love in Case of Emergency to Albin Michel. This brings the language count to eight. Here’s the full list of foreign publishers to date: 

Catalan (Bromera)
Danish (Arvids)
Dutch (Ambo|Anthos)
English/UK (MacLehose Press)
French (Albin Michel)
Italian (Corbaccio)
Spanish (Grijalbo) 

The press is unanimously euphoric about the book. Aside from the already mentioned recommendations of Süddeutsche, Deutschlandfunk and Brigitte, most recently, German weekly Der Spiegel itself has dedicated a full 3-page review to Love in Case of Emergency. Here’s a quote: 

»Practically every review of Krien's book has been overwhelmingly enthusiastic. And this is [. . .] due to how skilfully and carefully interwoven the stories are. [. . .]«
Maren Keller / Der Spiegel, Hamburg 

Aside from that, Zurich-based daily NZZ also recommended the book:
»This doesn’t happen often in German literature: A book that has no apparent claim to explaining the world – and yet delivers just that.«
Neue Zürcher Zeitung am Sonntag

Austrian public radio Ö1 on The Singer: » ... a forceful approach designed from the end towards an artist and his time« 

The German-speaking press continue to praise Lukas Hartmann’s The Singer – here are the latest quotes: 

»The result is [. . .] a haunting tale which brings us closer to the artist and his era, taking the end as a starting point, narrated movingly and with a light touch.«
Wolfgang Seibel / Ex Libris, Ö1, Vienna

»I lost my breath as I read Lukas Hartmann’s harrowing, vividly narrated chronicle, told from the singer’s perspective. [. . .] It’s practically impossible not to draw parallels with today.«
Torsten Kohlschein / Freie Presse, Chemnitz

»The Swiss author, who repeatedly shows in his novels that the present cannot exist without the past, lambastes his homeland for self-righteously extolling itself as a bastion of democracy throughout history.«
Lilo Solcher / Augsburger Allgemeine

»Yet he [Hartmann] avoids pathos and narrates with moving empathy. As a result, the story of the life and death of Jossele Schmidt assumes a harrowing topicality.«
Ditta Rudle / Buchkultur, Vienna

»[. . .] the book’s real strength lies in its unspoken topicality, this recurring conflict between humanity and a rationally comprehensible yet often cruel political pragmatism.«
Jutta Duhm-Heitzmann / WDR 3, Cologne

»Through these characters, Hartmann asks questions of history, of the Switzerland from that time, and of his readers too. He doesn’t answer them. And that’s exactly as it should be.«
Susanne Kübler / Tages-Anzeiger, Zurich

Our sample translation into English will be ready by the end of August. If you’d like to receive a copy, please let us know. 

Now published in translation

Petros Markaris’ Times of Hypocrisy # 4 on the Corriere della Sera foreign fiction list  

The Italian edition of Petros Markaris’ latest novel has just been published by La nave di Teseo: Times of Hypocrisy. The 12th case for detective Costas Haritos entered the Corriere della Sera foreign fiction bestseller list on # 6 and climbed to # 4. On the list of Italian online retailer ibs.it, it reached # 1. And it is being celebrated by the lead media: 

»A writer of Mediterranean noir in its most sublime and classy sense.«
La Repubblica, Rome

»Again, the author uses a crime fiction plot as a pretext to bring skeletons out of the closets, to drive the scalpel into the evils of his country – and who knows if it’s the scalpel of the surgeon or that of the anatomist. This story tells us about Greece, but the situation is not too different in many regions of the globalised West.«
La Stampa, Turin

Soon on TV: Martin Suter’s Allmen and the Dahlias

Martin Suter’s Allmen series continues to be adapted for TV. On 13 July, German public TV ARD will broadcast the third instalment of the series.

Heino Ferch, award winner of the ›Hessischer Filmpreis‹, plays the lead character Allmen. Ferch took part in an interview in which he gave a few glimpses into which traits Allmen shares with Sherlock Holmes, why the strong female characters in the show are important and what defines this extravagant protagonist: »Allmen is Allmen, namely the exact opposite of us. That’s what makes this character so fascinating.«