Spanish world rights (Anagrama)
Previously published in the respective language / territory; rights available again: France (Gallimard), Italy (Einaudi), Denmark (Hovedland), Poland (Wydawnictwo Literackie), Bulgaria (Atlantis), Romania (Universitara), Greece (Scripta)
Joachim is a level-headed young man aged 30, a successful economic expert, who in the autumn of 1990 gets caught in the clutches of a fairly dominant old lady, who at 75 can look back on a grand career as a singer. She is a woman who is not prepared to hold herself back. Josefine’s views, which she advocates without heed for convention of logic, both incense and fascinate him.
What is the truth behind her glittering stories? Is Josefine fantasizing? Is she lying? Can she even sing? What does she live off and what role does her ancient Polish maid Fryda play? Joachim, who visits her regularly following their first encounter, becomes a detective, a researcher, and also finds his own life and outlook cast into doubt by this lovable monster. When, 20 years later, the narrator comes across the diary in which he noted down his Josefinian adventure, he has to concede: »I really miss her, that strident voice. Such a great stance. So little sentimentality. I would wish anyone who is 30 today to meet a Josefine. But I fear that people like her no longer exist.«
With this book Hans Magnus Enzensberger has dared advance a new genre. Josefine and I is a tragicomic narrative – a story that treads the thin line between art and politics, clairvoyance and obfuscation.
Hans Magnus Enzensberger was born in Kaufbeuren in 1929. He died on November 24, 2022, aged 93, in Munich. As a poet, essayist, writer, biographer, editor and translator, he was one of the world’s most influential and internationally renowned German intellectuals.
Hans Magnus Enzensberger was born in Kaufbeuren in 1929. He died on November 24, 2022, aged 93, in Munich. As a poet, essayist, writer,...
Babel! A word seemingly born from chaos in its alliterating, rolling urgency. The poet pulls several examples of how deception and self-deceit, misjudgements and failing routines determine...
Bengali rights (Parampara)
»How’s the confidence of the financial astrologers doing? What does the gibberish of the daily papers tell us? How much reality is contained in the mythical models of contemporary physics and cosmology? Towards which ultimate goal is our contemporaries’ pathological mobility drifting? What is the ubiquitous craze for abbreviations hiding? And down which garden path are the fine arts trying to...
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Nature has treated people somewhat like a stepmother would. Other animals are stronger, can swim and fly better, give birth less awkwardly and do not need as much time to become adults. How can it be then that this weak creature came to be the strongest on earth? The answer, if you believe the author, has to do with the division of labour. Thanks to this trick every one of us, he believes,...
The hitherto unpublished and unknown correspondence between Ingeborg Bachmann and Hans Magnus Enzensberger allows one to relive how, after the Second World War, two of the most prominent writers in the German language chose to depict and regard the world, literature and the publishing industry, but also how they wished to present and be regarded themselves.
One was...
»It is hard to shake off one’s date of birth. M. drags his around with him, too.« The first twenty years of life are baggage that a person is forever stuck with. But...
Spanish world rights (Anagrama), France (Gallimard), Serbia (Laguna)
The 20th century was the heyday of writers who had survived state terror and purges with all the ethical and political ambivalences that this entailed. How did they manage to do that? Were they...
English world rights (Seagull), Spanish world rights (Altamarea), France (Alma), Italy (Einaudi), Serbia (Laguna), Turkey (Iletisim)
Domestic Rights Sales: German Book Club rights (Büchergilde Gutenberg)
English world rights (Seagull), Spanish world rights (Anagrama), Catalan rights (Edicions 62), France (Alma), Italy (Einaudi), Japan (Shobunsha)
Domestic Rights Sales: German Audiobook (Der Hörverlag)
In 1963 the author took his first trip to Russia and unexpectedly became a guest at Khrushchev's dacha in Gagra. The result was a detailed portrait of the man and the Soviet »Thaw«...
English world rights (Seagull), Chinese simplex rights (Beijing Fonghong Books), Brazilian Portuguese rights (Todavia), France (Gallimard), Italy (Einaudi), Denmark (Gyldendal), Croatia (Disput), Greece (Hestia)
Previously published in the respective language / territory; rights available again: Spanish world rights (Malpaso)
Domestic Rights Sales: German Audiobook (Der Hörverlag), German Entire Radio Reading (HR), German Book Club (Büchergilde Gutenberg)
English world rights (Seagull), Spanish world rights (Anagrama), France (Alma)
Domestic Rights Sales:German Audiobook (Der Hörverlag), German Radio Play (Hessischer Rundfunk)
Previously published in the respective language / territory; rights available again: Italy (Einaudi)
In his new book, Hans Magnus Enzensberger, the master of the political and literary essay, discloses information about matters big and small, daily and commonplace themes, astounding his readers...
English world rights (Seagull), France (Alma)
Previously published in the respective language / territory; rights available again: Spanish world rights (Malpaso), Italy (Einaudi), Korea (Orot)
Chinese simplex rights (Beijing Fonghong Books), France (Gallimard),
Previously published in the respective language / territory; rights available again: English world rights (Seagull), Spanish world rights (Anagrama), Catalan rights (Arcadia), Portuguese rights (Relogio d'Agua), Italy (Einaudi), Netherlands (Cossee), Denmark (Hovedland), Sweden (Karneval), Norway (Valdisholm), Croatia (Meandarmedia), Greece (Nefeli)
Russia (selection; Obedinennoe)
Previously published in the respective language / territory; rights available again: English world rights (Seagull), Spanish rights Latin America (Capital Intelectual), Italy (Einaudi)
Previously published in the respective language / territory; rights available again: English world rights (Seagull), Italy (Einaudi)
In 1959, just after Uwe Johnson’s relocation to West berlin and the publication of his debut novel Speculations About Jakob, the correspondence and friendship between Johnson and Hans Magnus Enzensberger commences. Over the course of eight years they communicate about the situation of literature and politics and discuss the scopes of political activism. At the same time,...
Previously published in the respective language / territory; rights available again: Denmark (Gyldendal)
English world rights (Upper West Side Philosophers)
Previously published in the respective language / territory; rights available again: France (Jacqueline Chambon)
English world rights (Seagull), Spanish world rights (Anagrama), Chinese simplex rights (Beijing Fonghong Books), Brazilian Portuguese rights (Companhia das Letras), France (Gallimard)
Previously published in the respective language / territory; rights available again: Italy (Einaudi), Netherlands (Cossée), Denmark (Gyldendal), Sweden (Norstedts), Norway (Press), Japan (Shobunsha), Poland (Swiat Ksiazki), Croatia (Disput), Serbia (Prometej), Turkey (Everest), Greece (Kastaniotis)