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Kruso

Novel
Suhrkamp | Insel
Rights sold to:

English world rights (Scribe), Spanish world rights (Anagrama), Catalan rights (Club Editor), Russia (Text), France (Verdier), Italy (Del Vecchio), Netherlands (Meridiaan / Dutch Media Group), Denmark (Batzer & Co.), Sweden (Norstedts), Norway (Gyldendal Norsk), Japan (Hakusuisha), Poland (Jagiellonian UP), Hungary (Europa), Bulgaria (Atlantis), Romania (RAO), Lithuania (Kitos Knygos), Slovenia (Sodobnost), Turkey (Bence), Greece (Patakis), Macedonia (Goten), Armenia (Antares)

Previously published in the respective language / territory; rights available again: Chinese simplex rights (Horizon), Serbia (Laguna)

Domestic Rights Sales: German Audiobook (Hörbuch Hamburg), German Entire Radio Reading (NDR), German Book Club (Büchergilde Gutenberg + Club Bertelsmann)


Kruso / Kruso
Novel

Winner of the German Book Prize 2014

#1 on the Spiegel Bestseller List

»Kruso had been right. No one was lost. No one stays missing forever.«

 

After the accident, Edgar Bendler decides to step out of his own life. He becomes a dishwasher on Hiddensee, that legendary island which is said to lie outside of time and »beyond the headlines«.

And it is there, in the dishwashing station of The Hermit, a bar high above the sea, that Ed meets Alexander Krusowitsch – Kruso – and a difficult, yet tender, relationship begins. Kruso, master of ceremonies and godfather of the island, initiates Ed into the rituals of the...
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After the accident, Edgar Bendler decides to step out of his own life. He becomes a dishwasher on Hiddensee, that legendary island which is said to lie outside of time and »beyond the headlines«.

And it is there, in the dishwashing station of The Hermit, a bar high above the sea, that Ed meets Alexander Krusowitsch – Kruso – and a difficult, yet tender, relationship begins. Kruso, master of ceremonies and godfather of the island, initiates Ed into the rituals of the seasonal workers and the rules that govern their nights, thereby conducting Ed toward his own sexual awakening. The secret heart of the confraternity is Kruso’s idea of utopia, which in just three nights promises to carry each and every one of the land’s (and life’s) shipwrecked souls to the Roots of Freedom. However, the events of the autumn of 1989 do not fail to shake the island. A struggle between life and death ensues – and a promise.


Part island adventure story and part story of an extraordinary friendship: Lutz Seiler’s first, long awaited novel draws a line from the summer of 1989 into the present. The exceptional investigations that form the basis of the novel attempt to follow the traces of those who went missing in their escape attempts across the Baltic Sea, and in so doing, leads us all the way to Copenhagen and to the catacombs of the Danish state police.

»The storm raged unimpeded across the slender isle, as if it were to be cleansed once more before the final decline.«

»There was no sign, no password. Just before midnight they would simply come into his room. They would stand there in the dark, no one would turn on the light, Viola would play the national anthem.«

»The German poet Lutz Seiler has brought all his art, linguistic ease, flair for dazzling images and master of what he describes as ‘the nervous systems of memory’ to this extraordinary debut novel […] Kruso is an exciting, expansive work of German literature; it may well prove one of the major novels of the 21st century.« Eileen Battersby, The Irish Times

»Kruso [is] the first worthy equivalent to Thomas Mann’s Zauberberg in contemporary German literature.« Der Spiegel

»This novel on the historical summer of 1989 is a lighthouse, not an ivory tower.« Süddeutsche Zeitung

»Mr Seiler draws cleverly on the fiction of enchanted islands or refuges [...] Above all, he evokes the moods of Hiddensee with visionary power and precision. Although a sophisticated fable of liberty and its discontents, Kruso roots every idea in the salty, sandy landscapes [...]. An outstanding debut novel.« The Economist

»Seiler delivers a debut novel with which he manages to assert himself in the top ranks of this country’s authors.« Die Zeit

»Seiler’s novel Kruso shows what German literature can accomplish when it’s accomplished.« Welt am Sonntag

»A rare book that will persist.« Frankfurter Rundschau

»A sublime book that is far more than just the novel of the year.« Deutschlandradio Kultur

»Seiler delivers a debut novel with which he manages to assert himself in the top ranks of this country’s authors.« Die Zeit

»[Kruso is] the rare treasure of a great novel.« Potsdamer Neueste Nachrichten

»This novel has a historical-philosophical dimension: it is a significant contemplation on different forms of freedom as well as a wonderfully poetic exaltation of a concrete historical event – a truly great book.« 3sat Kulturzeit

»Seiler’s novel is lyrical and powerful in its eloquence. Already he is to be counted among the great contemporary German literary figures.« WDR 5

»A multi-layered philosophical novel that poses a major question to us and our present: In what way is freedom possible?« Die Zeit

»Lutz Seiler’s writings trace back to Uwe Johnson’s poetry and reflect the German past, present and future beyond the surface of ›simple truths‹. [...] In Kruso Lutz Seiler visualises the hopes and restrictions of a whole country by means of one singular place, Hiddensee, and within a short time frame, June until November 1989.« from the statement of the Uwe-Johnson-Prize 2014 jury

»Readers might doubt whether Robinson Crusoe can work in a German setting — they might even feel affronted that it’s been attempted — but Seiler’s novel springs from his own experience in a way that underlines the universality of the tale.« Maggie Ferguson, Newsweek

»Kruso is ultimately an honest meditation on grief, the ways in which people lose, find, lose (and so the cycle continues) each other, rendered beautifully by Seiler’s vivid, unusual prose.« The Culture Trip

»The German poet Lutz Seiler has brought all his art, linguistic ease, flair for dazzling images and master of what he describes as ‘the nervous systems of memory’ to this extraordinary debut novel […] Kruso is an exciting, expansive work of German literature; it may well prove one of the major novels of the 21st century.« Eileen Battersby, The Irish Times

»Kruso [is] the first worthy equivalent to Thomas Mann’s Zauberberg in contemporary German...

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DISCOVER

Nachricht
The German Academy for Language and Literature has awarded the Georg Büchner Prize 2023 to Lutz Seiler.
Nachricht
The German Academy for Language and Literature has awarded the Georg Büchner Prize 2023 to Lutz Seiler.

DISCOVER

Nachricht
The German Academy for Language and Literature has awarded the Georg Büchner Prize 2023 to Lutz Seiler.

Persons

Lutz Seiler was born in Gera, Thuringia, in 1963 and today lives in Wilhelmshorst near Berlin and in Stockholm. He underwent training as a mason and a carpenter and completed his studies in 1990. Since 1997, he has been the literary director and custodian of the Peter Huchel Museum. He was writer-in-residence at the Villa Aurora in Los Angeles and at the German Academy in Rome. His many prizes include the Ingeborg Bachmann Prize, the Bremen Prize for Literature, the Fontane Prize, the Uwe Johnson Prize, and most recently the Georg Büchner Prize.

Lutz Seiler was born in Gera, Thuringia, in 1963 and today lives in Wilhelmshorst near Berlin and in Stockholm. He underwent training as a mason...


OTHER PUBLICATIONS

script for blind giants
Year of Publication: 2021
Lutz SeilerYear of Publication: 2021
After publishing two novels, Lutz Seiler returns to the home port of poems. Back to the voices of childhood, to the Waldstadion, to the »bone park« and to the question of where our...
Rights sold to:

Sweden (Edda)

Star 111
Year of Publication: 2020
Lutz SeilerYear of Publication: 2020

»November 1989. The Berlin Wall has just fallen when the East German couple Inge und Walter, following a secret dream they’ve harboured all their lives, set out for life in the West....

Rights sold to:

UK & Commonwealth (And Other Stories),  USA & Canada (NYRB), Arabic world rights (Kalima), France (Verdier), Italy (Utopia), Netherlands (Meridiaan), Denmark (Batzer), Sweden (Norstedts), Bulgaria (Black Flamingo), Lithuania (Hieronymus), Slovenia (Sodobnost), Greece (Patakis)

Domestic Rights Sales: German Audiobook (DAV), German Entire Radio Readings (rbb & NDR), German Book Club (Büchergilde Gutenberg)

in field latin
Year of Publication: 2010
Lutz SeilerYear of Publication: 2010
in field latin or in other words: to exist in a field of language, and at the same time explore a landscape’s legends, how they come to one’s ears, in walks, in whispers, in silence....
Rights sold to:

English world rights (Seagull), Italy (selection, Del Vecchio), Sweden (selection, Faethon)

The Time-Balance
Year of Publication: 2009
Lutz SeilerYear of Publication: 2009
Whether in the story of a play-acted shooting or in the everyday drama of a real-life separation – all the texts in The Time-Balance are about decisive turning-points, about the...
Rights sold to:

Catalan Rights (selection, Club Editor), Arabic world rights (Al'Asreya), France (Verdier), Italy (Del Vecchio Editore)

Turksib
Year of Publication: 2008
Lutz SeilerYear of Publication: 2008
Lutz Seiler first came to be known thanks to his two poetry collections, pech & blende (2000) and vierzig kilometer nacht (2003). For the Ingeborg-Bachmann-Prize in 2007 he offered up his first short story, Turksib, and was subsequently declared the winner.

  Ilma Rakusa describes the text’s allure: »With poetic-grotesque...
In Case of Loss
Year of Publication: 2004
Lutz SeilerYear of Publication: 2004

»In Case of Loss gathers the best of Lutz Seiler’s non-fiction from last twenty-five years, revealing his essays to be different to, but on a par with, his fiction and poetry....

Rights sold to:

English world rights (And Other Stories), Italy (selection, Del Vecchio)

forty kilometres of night
Year of Publication: 2003
Lutz SeilerYear of Publication: 2003

Lutz Seiler‘s poems, created between 2000 and 2003, undertake a journey through forty kilometres of night, they lead out of the native landscape, destroyed by uranium mining, depicted in pech...

Rights sold to:

English world rights (And Other Stories)

Pitch & Glint
Year of Publication: 2000
Lutz SeilerYear of Publication: 2000
»On its original publication in 2000, Pitch & Glint was widely hailed as a landmark in German poetry. Rooted in Seiler’s childhood home, an East German village brutally...
Rights sold to:

English world rights (And Other Stories)


DISCOVER

News
17.06.2023
Since 2001, June 20 has been celebrated as World Refugee Day.
News
On June 8, 2023, Lutz Seiler celebrates his 60th birthday.
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