Suhrkamp Insel

Gershom Scholem, Hannah Arendt

Correspondence – 1939-1964

This first-time publication of the correspondence between Gershom Scholem and Hannah Arendt is a unique contemporary historical document: a discussion on crucial questions of Jewish history and self-image after the Shoah led by two of the 20th century’s most significant thinkers of Jewish extraction.

Peter Suhrkamp, Annemarie Seidel

»So Now Farewell! And Take Good Care«

»Authentic-biographical material« by Peter Suhrkamp was, until now, considered »destroyed«, as his first biographers, Siegfried Unseld and Helene Ritzerfeld, stated. As it turned out, they were mistaken: For the correspondence between Suhrkamp and Annemarie Seidel has survived, 450 letters in total. The correspondence between the publisher and the actress called »Mirl«, whom he had been married to since 1935, extends up until Suhrkamp’s death on March 31st, 1959. For the first time, it conveys a candid, detailed impression of his character and his work.

Robert Walser

Letters 1-3

Robert Walser as a letter-writer is yet to be discovered. His letters are not merely the private backboard to his work, but an integral part of it. Therefore, the Bern Edition of Walser’s Works opens with a new, comprehensive edition of his letters. They provide insight to the existential conditions of Walser’s »life as a poet« between Zurich, Berlin, Biel, Bern and Herisau.

Christa Wolf

It’s Quite Comfortable Being Caught in the Middle

»Mail, mail, mail«. This cri de cœur, jotted down in the calendar underneath the date of Sunday, 4th of March 1990, is not unfounded: Christa Wolf was a tremendously productive correspondent. Her letters to relatives and friends, colleagues, editors, politicians and journalists provide a fascinating insight into her thoughts, her writing process and her social engagement. Whether she writes to Günter Grass or Max Frisch, demands to get access to her Stasi-files from Joachim Gauck or leads exchanges with friends like Sarah Kirsch and Maxie Wander, we bear witness to friendships and rifts, disputes and approval and to the reflections of one of the most important authors of the 20th century.