Donna Leon a #1 Spiegel bestseller for the 16th time, now with Give Unto Others

Both a New York Times and a Sunday Times bestseller, the Diogenes edition of Give Unto Others by Donna Leon topped the Spiegel bestseller list in May. Give Unto Others is the 31st case in the mystery series and the 16th to make it to #1 of the Spiegel bestseller list.

Press quotes: 

»The pace of this novel is slow and stately but save it for the weekend when you don’t have to put it down even for a meal.«
Margaret Cannon / The Globe and Mail, Toronto

»[...] reading Leon is always an uplifting experience, like a perpetually refilled first glass of champagne.«
Mark Sanderson / The Times, London

»There has always been another reason to read Leon: the elegance and wit of her prose. Virtually every page contains a sentence that demands to be quoted.«
The Sunday Times, London

»It may be Donna Leon’s 80th birthday this year but it is her readers who will be getting a present, in the form of a new Commissario Brunetti novel, Give Unto Others.«
Financial Times London

»Another moving meditation on the vagaries of human relationships posing as a mystery novel. (starred review)«
Bill Ott / Booklist, Chicago

»There is a central mystery, to be sure, but the characters and their evolving relationships are the driving force of the series as it explores Venice, its history, its culture and, of course, its crime.«
Bruce Tierney / BookPage, Nashville

»Give Unto Others is no less mysteriously compulsive than its 30 predecessors… Thanks for giving such civilised pleasure for half a lifetime.«
The Tablet, London

»A joy to read and to follow her nimble work in this literary fine fabric.«
Frank Dietschreit / rbb Kultur, Berlin

Rights sold:
Catalan (Edicions 62)
Dutch (De Bezige Bij)
English/UK (William Heinemann)
English/US (Grove /Atlantic)
Finnish (Otava)
French (Calmann-Lévy)
Polish (Noir sur Blanc)
Spanish/world (Seix Barral)
 

Praised by the press: For a Lifetime by Christoph Poschenrieder

We were very pleased to see that more major German language media enthusiastically reviewed Christoph Poschenrieder’s For A Lifetime:

»An incredibly gripping read.«
Felix Münger / SRF 1 Radio, Zurich

»We have to provide the answers for ourselves, but Poschenrieder provides plenty of food for thought in For a Lifetime - a sometimes disturbing, yet simultaneously captivating and moving read.«
Ulli Wagner / SR 3, Saarbrücken

»It could be your average mystery novel, but Christoph Poschenrieder came up with a crafty form as well.«
Klaus Sturm / SWR 3, Stuttgart
 

Stefanie vor Schulte invited to the Festival du Premier Roman in Chambéry, English sample of Snakes in the Garden

We have just received the English sample for Stefanie vor Schulte’s Snakes in the Garden, done by the accomplished Charlotte Collins, who also translates Bernhard Schlink, among many others. Please let us know if you would like to have a look, too.

There is further good news concerning Stefanie vor Schulte: With her debut novel Boy with a Black Rooster, she was invited to the Festival du Premier Roman in Chambéry in France (12 May until 22 May 2022) – as one of 23 authors. The festival was held for the 35th time.

English sample of Shelly Kupferberg's Isidor ready

We have just received the English sample of Shelly Kupferberg’s Isidor. Ruth Martin translated it, of which we were very happy, because her strong point is historical fiction and nonfiction of the 20th century. Please let us know if you would like to read it.

Just published: Bear Loves Hippo

Brothers Julian and Timon Meyer have done it again! After Bear & Hippo in the Snow, Bear & Hippo on Holiday and Bear & Hippo Celebrate a Birthday, the newest adventure of the unlikely friends is out now – and it is a particularly heart-warming one: Bear and Hippo give us a tribute to friendship and a celebration of being different. A declaration of love in rhyme:

Bear loves stuff that’s  
Super crazy  
Loud and fast and  
Oopsie-daisy  

Bear loves that  
From head to paw  
But Hippo  
He loves even more

Gem from our backlist: Death of a Queen by Magdalen Nabb

The protagonist in Death of a Queen by Magdalen Nabb has nothing to do with the Elizabeths and Margrethes of our times, but is a dragqueen. Thís book takes the reader to a parallel society in Florence: Death of a Queen was published in 1994, so almost 30 years ago – but already back then, it was a matter close to the author's heart to do her research directly and talk to the people implied, as the acknowledgements show. If you read it today, you will be repelled by the bigotry that reigned in the Italy of the 1990s, when transsexual women had to pay exorbitant rents in order to keep their landlords quiet. But you will also be fascinated by the fact that LGBTQ+ is definitely not a topic that somehow came up in the last five years, but has been there for quite some time. This year, we decided to give this book a whole new cover in our catalogue. If you would like to see the original black-and-yellow detective cover, just to see the long way this book has come, have a look here. To cut long things short: Tolerance is always en vogue. PS: If you would like to see where the whole series takes place, please have a look at our interactive map.

Now published in translation: Andrey Kurkov's Grey Bees in Estonian

Estonian edition by Tänapäev, Tallinn

Andrey Kurkov is portrayed by the New York Times Magazine, among others

The stream of media taking interest in our author Andrey Kurkov, who famously authored the bestsellers Death and the Penguin and Grey Bees, does not dry up. The New York Times Magazine dedicated an eight-page-feature to Andrey Kurkov and his fight for Ukraine. This merely being one of many major international press tributes in recent weeks: 

For The Times, Andrey Kurkov writes an article about the differences between the Ukrainian and other European perspectives. Meanwhile, Buenos Aires’ Infobae sums up Andrey Kurkov’s life today between a little village in the Carpathians and the audiences of PEN America. The Hindustan Times in New Delhi interviews Andrey Kurkov on the harsh realities of war, such as poets turning to soldiers. Time Magazine prints a slightly abridged version of Andrey Kurkov’s Arthur Miller Freedom to Writer Lecture (which seems to him more like a George Orwell lecture), while the The New Yorker portrays Andrey Kurkov’s astonishing career on the same occasion, starting with six tons of Kazakh paper and technically being self-published. If you are keen on listening to New York Public Radio WNYC holding a talk between Andrey Kurkov and PEN America CEO Suzanne Nossel, in which they focus on how wars and polarizations are reflected in our media – in Ukraine and in the US, you will find it here. Furthermore, also European media are keeping on making their voices heard for Andrey Kurkov: Swiss paper Aargauer Zeitung publishes Andrey Kurkov’s article Whose side are the Odessa dolphins on? and prestigious German newspaper FAZ publishes an article by Andrey Kurkov concerning the contrast between war and farming.

Moreover, Andrey Kurkov appears in a feature on French-German TV station Arte with the title Fight against Moscow’s dictate, where he summarizes: »I will still write in Russian, but I will only be published in Ukrainian, English and other languages.«

Andrey Kurkov’s most recent work, crime novel Samson and Nadezhda, will be published in 11 languages to date:
English/world (MacLehose)
French (Liana Levi)
Croatian (Božičević)
Greek (Kastaniotis)
Italian (Marsilio)
Polish (Noir sur Blanc)
Portuguese/PT (Porto)
Russian (Folio)
Spanish/world (Alfaguara)
Ukrainian (Folio)
 

Just published and praised by the press: Nadja Niemeyer's Counterattack

The more globalised the world becomes, the more vulnerable we are as human beings. Homo sapiens knows this, and yet still we carry on as always. We eat too much meat, we use pesticides, we drive cars every day. But one day all those cute kitties, good-natured cattle and shy squirrels will launch a counterattack.

»Great how much fun fury can be!«
Stern, Hamburg (four-star review)

Please find further insights into the reading pleasure that is Counterattack in the most recent instalment of our podcast Wer soll das alles lesen? (in German) here.

 

20k copies sold of hit crime debut Deep Dark Blue by Seraina Kobler

Great news regarding the start of Seraina Kobler’s Zurich crime series: after shooting into the top ten of the Swiss bestseller list and remaining there for five weeks so far, we are thrilled to announce that we’ve sold 20’000 copies within the first month – a spectacular figure for itself, but all the more so for the very first book in a series.

English (UK) rights to Deep Dark Blue are sold to Pushkin Press, and the book is getting lots of positive feedback from the media. Swiss national TV SRF broadcast a feature which is available here. 

You can also find a review by the German radio station WDR here, an interview with the Swiss online magazine bluewin.ch here and this approving press quote:
»Alongside poetic descriptions of Zurich, there is also a hard-hitting portrayal of its contradictions. Instead of portraying an ›ideal world‹ her literature describes a society that is deeply divided, also on questions concerning genetic research.«
Rainer Rönsch / Sächsische Zeitung, Dresden

150k copies sold of Luca Ventura’s Capri crime series up to now – film rights to the series are under option

We are excited about our crime series by Luca Ventura, of which the third instalment, In a Hidden Cove, has heralded the beginning of a beautiful summer in Capri as well as elsewhere. 150’000 copies of the first three episodes accompanying Capri crime-fighters Enrico Rizzi and Antonia Cirillo on their quests have already been sold. And we can now hope to encounter the two investigators on screen, too, as the film rights have been optioned for the series. Keeping our fingers crossed for a near and thrilling encounter in Capri!  

French edition of Grey Bees by Andrey Kurkov praised by the press

The French edition of Grey Bees by Liana Levi continues to be very warmly received by the press: 

»The Ukrainian writer depicts with unsettling simplicity the day-to-day life of isolated pensioners in their deserted villages, in the heart of a ›grey zone‹ which divides the pro-Russian separatists from the rest of the Ukrainians on the front line.«
Isabelle Mandraud / Le Monde, Paris

»The novel doesn’t provide an answer. But it reminds us not to forget the poetry, courage and imagination of a country that is much more than the battlefield it is today.«
Flavie Philipon / Elle, Paris

»Somewhere between realism and dream, Andrei Kurkov has penned a great, absurd and philosophical novel about the chaos of the world, and about the brotherhood between a simple man and his bees.«
Sophie Joubert / L’Humanité, Saint-Denis

»The novel Grey Bees is essential reading in this time of war. Literature as an antidote to barbarism and hopelessness.«
Philippe Chevilley / Les Echos, Paris

»Somewhere between political fable and sparks of ›bucolic‹ philosophy, this is a wonderful book that says so much about how high the stakes are where war is concerned.«
Jacques Lindecker / L’Alsace, Mulhouse

»Grey Bees makes the reader laugh, with tears in their eyes.«
Cécile Dutheil de la Rochère / AOC, Nîmes

»Armed with the hilarious animal metaphors that populate his books, Kurkov depicts a humorous and scathing satire of the post-Soviet world, and of a Ukrainian society rediscovering itself, independent and riven by mafia, chaos and corruption.«
Laurent Rigoulet / La Chronique, Bruxelles

Now published in translation: Kalmann by Joachim B. Schmidt in English

The English edition by Bitter Lemon Press (London) was very warmly received by the Crime Fiction Lover newsletter – or to say it in their own words:
»Moving, intriguing and different, Kalmann is recommended reading.« 

It was also featured at the LoveReading LitFest, and topped the May newsletter by Bitter Lemon Press. If you would like to see Joachim B. Schmidt talk about his book in English, have a look at this video.