The Tanners

Suhrkamp | Insel
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English world rights (New Directions), Spanish world rights (Siruela, Paperback Sublicense: Debolsillo), Catalan rights (Proa), Russia (Text), Brazilian Portuguese rights (Companhia das Letras), Portuguese rights (Relogio d’Agua), France (Gallimard), Italy (Adelphi), Netherlands (Koppernik), Sweden (Faethon), Norway (Bokvennen), Japan (Choeisha), Poland (PIW), Czech Republic (Opus), Slovakia (Smena), Hungary (Scolar), Estonia (Loomingu Raamatukogu), Slovenia (Pan), Bosnia (Connectum), Turkey (Can), Greece (Printa), Georgia (Ibis), India (Hindi), Israel (Am Oved)

Previously published in the respective language/territory; rights available again: Bulgaria (Colibri)


The Tanners / Geschwister Tanner
»The Tanners, Robert Walser’s amazing 1907 novel of twenty chapters, is now presented in English for the very first time, by the award-winning translator Susan Bernofsky. Three brothers and a sister comprise the Tanner family – Simon, Kaspar, Klaus, and Hedwig: their wanderings, meetings, separations, quarrels, romances, employment and lack of employment over the course of a year or two are the threads from which Walser weaves his airy, strange and brightly gorgeous...
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»The Tanners, Robert Walser’s amazing 1907 novel of twenty chapters, is now presented in English for the very first time, by the award-winning translator Susan Bernofsky. Three brothers and a sister comprise the Tanner family – Simon, Kaspar, Klaus, and Hedwig: their wanderings, meetings, separations, quarrels, romances, employment and lack of employment over the course of a year or two are the threads from which Walser weaves his airy, strange and brightly gorgeous fabric.

»Walser’s lightness is lighter than light,« as Tom Whalen said in Bookforum: »buoyant up to and beyond belief, terrifyingly light.«

Robert Walser – admired greatly by Kafka, Musil, and Walter Benjamin – is a radiantly original author. He has been acclaimed »unforgettable, heart-rending« (J.M. Coetzee), »a bewitched genius« (Newsweek), and »a major, truly wonderful, heart-breaking writer« (Susan Sontag). Considering Walser’s »perfect and serene oddity,« Michael Hofmann in The London Review of Books remarked on the »Buster Keaton-like indomitably sad cheerfulness [that is] most hilariously disturbing.« The Los Angeles Times called him »the dreamy confectionary snowflake of German language fiction. He also might be the single most underrated writer of the 20th century... The gait of his language is quieter than a kitten’s.« »A clairvoyant of the small« W. G. Sebald calls Robert Walser, one of his favorite writers in the world, in his acutely beautiful, personal, and long introduction, studded with his signature use of photographs.« (book description from the English edition by New Directions)

1907, 381 pages
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Robert Walser was born in Biel/Bienne in Switzerland in 1878 and died on a solitary walk in the snow on Christmas Day 1956, near the Herisau sanitarium.

Robert Walser was born in Biel/Bienne in Switzerland in 1878 and died on a solitary walk in the snow on Christmas Day 1956, near the Herisau...


OTHER PUBLICATIONS

A Slap in the Face and Other Matters
Year of Publication: 2019
Robert WalserYear of Publication: 2019

Robert Walser has always inspired visual artists all around the world, including Thomas Hirschhorn, one of the most provocative and innovative contemporary artists, to whom Robert Walser is a...

Rights sold to:

Spanish world rights (Siruela)

Letters 1-3
Year of Publication: 2018
Robert WalserYear of Publication: 2018

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.


In...

Microscripts
Year of Publication: 2011
Robert WalserYear of Publication: 2011

It is well known that Robert Walser jotted down prose texts, poems and dramatic scenes on more than 500 pieces of paper between 1924 and 1933 in a script that, for decades, was considered...

Rights sold to:

Selections from the Microscripts have been published in several languages. For further information regarding the rights status of individual texts in your territory please contact the respective Rights Manager

In the Office
Year of Publication: 2011
Robert WalserYear of Publication: 2011
Like the office satires of Melville, Gogol, or Kafka, Robert Walser’s short stories about office clerks, collected here for the first time, offer a similarly illuminating and exhilarating light...
Rights sold to:

English world rights (New Directions), Spanish world rights (Siruela), Italy (Adelphi), Bulgaria (Funtasy), Turkey (Profil)

Domestic rights sales: German Audiobook (Diogenes)

The Robber
Year of Publication: 1972
Robert WalserYear of Publication: 1972

»The Robber, Robert Walser’s last novel, tells the story of a dreamer on a journey of self-discovery. It is a hybrid of love story, tragedy, and farce, with a protagonist who sweet-talks...

Rights sold to:

English world rights (University of Nebraska Press), Spanish world rights (Siruela), France (Gallimard), Italy (Adelphi), Netherlands (Koppernik), Sweden (Faethon), Poland (PIW), Czech Republic (Opus), Latvia (Orbita), Turkey (Can), Ukraine (Zhupansky), Azerbaijan (Alatoran)

Previously published in the respective language / territory; rights available again: Portuguese rights (Relogio d'Agua), Denmark (Basilisk), Norway (Bokvennen), Slovenia (Nova Revija)

The Rose
Year of Publication: 1925
Robert WalserYear of Publication: 1925
In The Rose (1925), a collection of short stories, travelogues, fairy tales, dialogues and monologues, literary and humorous observations, the last of the fifteen books that Robert Walser...
Rights sold to:

Spanish world rights (Siruela), Portuguese rights (Relogio d’Agua), France (Gallimard), Italy (Adelphi), Sweden (selection; Ariel – pp), Hungary (Napkut)

Previously published in the respective language / territory; rights available again: Slovenia (Serpa)

The Walk
Year of Publication: 1917
Robert WalserYear of Publication: 1917

A pseudo-biographical »stroll« through town and countryside rife with philosophic musings, The Walk has been hailed as the masterpiece of Walser's short prose. Walking features heavily in...

Rights sold to:

USA (New Directions), UK (Serpent’s Tail), Spanish world rights (Siruela), Catalan rights (El Flâneur), Galician rights (Laiovento), Russia (Ad Marginem), Brazilian Portuguese rights (Editora 34), France (Gallimard), Italy (Adelphi), Netherlands (Lebowski/Dutch Media Group), Denmark (Batzer), Sweden (Faethon), Finland (Teos), Czech Republic (Opus), Slovakia (Premedia), Bulgaria (Critique & Humanism), Croatia (Fraktura / Bodoni), Greece (Gavrilidis), Kosovo / Albanian rights (Pa), Ukraine (Meridian Czernowitz Literature Foundation), Georgia (Ibis), Armenia (Antares), Azerbaijan (Alatoran), Iran (Dastan)

Previously published in the respective language / territory; rights available again: Chinese simplex rights (Shanghai Translation), Norway (Bokvennen), Hungary (Magvetö), Romania (Univers), Estonia (Tänapäev), Belorussia (Logvinau)

Domestic Rights Sales: Audiobook rights (Universal Music / Deutsche Grammophon)

 

Short Prose
Year of Publication: 1914
Robert WalserYear of Publication: 1914
This volume of short prose, published as Kleine Dichtungen in 1914, was written in the years Robert Walser spent in Berlin and Biel; the collection of prose miniatures shows a broad cross...
Rights sold to:

France (Éditions Zoé), Poland (selection; Officyna)

Previously published in the respective language / territory; rights available again: Italy (Einaudi), Slovak Republic (Hronka), Hungary (Napkut)

Jakob von Gunten
Year of Publication: 1909
Robert WalserYear of Publication: 1909
»The Swiss writer Robert Walser is one of the quiet geniuses of twentieth-century literature. Largely self-taught and altogether indifferent to worldly success, Walser wrote a range of short stories,...
Rights sold to:

English world rights (Serpent’s Tail / NYRB), Spanish world rights (Siruela), Catalan rights (Quaderns Crema), Basque rights (Erein), Brazilian Portuguese rights (Companhia das Letras), Portuguese rights (Relogio d’Agua), France (Gallimard), Italy (Adelphi), Netherlands (Lebowski), Denmark (Virkelig), Sweden (Faethon), Norway (Bokvennen), Finland (Teos), Iceland (Translation Centre at the University of Iceland), Japan (Choeisha), Thailand (Lighthouse Publishing), Poland (PIW), Czech Republic (Opus), Hungary (Scolar), Estonia (Tänapäev), Latvia (Mansards), Lithuania (Vaga), Croatia (Naprijed), Serbia (Ultimatum.rs), Slovenia (Beletrina), Bosnia (Gong), Turkey (Dogan), Greece (Printa), Macedonia (Templum), Albania (Pika pa sipërfaqe), Georgia (Ibis)

Domestic Rights Sales: German Audiobook (DAV)

Previously published in the respective language/territory; rights available again: Bulgaria (Narodna Kultura),

The Assistant
Year of Publication: 1908
Robert WalserYear of Publication: 1908
Robert Walser is an overwhelmingly original author with many ardent fans: J.M. Coetzee (»dazzling«), Guy Davenport (»a very special kind of whimsical-serious-deep writer«), and Hermann Hesse (»If he...
Rights sold to:

English world rights (New Directions), Spanish world rights (Siruela, Paperback Sublicense: Debolsillo, Latin American Sublicense: El Hilo de Ariadna), Catalan rights (Ed. 1984), Portuguese rights (Relogio d’Agua), France (Gallimard; French paperback sublicence: Éditions Zoë), Italy (Einaudi), Netherlands (Koppernik), Sweden (Modernista), Norway (Bokvennen), Finland (Teos), Japan (Choeisha), Poland (PIW), Czech Republic (Opus), Hungary (Scolar), Estonia (Perioodika), Lithuania (Pradai), Slovenia (Mihelač), Turkey (Can), Albania (Asdreni), Georgia (Ibis), Azerbaijan (Alatoran)

Previously published in the respective language / territory; rights available again: Brazilian Portuguese rights (Siciliano de Livros), Bulgaria (G. Danov)
Fritz Kocher’s Essays
Year of Publication: 1904
Robert WalserYear of Publication: 1904

These essays, allegedly published from the estate of a deceased schoolboy, mark the beginning of Robert Walser’s literary career.


Rights sold to:

English world rights (NYRB), Russia (Libra), Portuguese rights (Bazarov Edições), France (Gallimard; French paperback sublicence: Éditions Zoë), Italy (Adelphi), Poland (PIW), Hungary (Napkut), Greece (Kritiki), Israel (Hakibbutz Hameuchad)

Previously published in the respective language / territory; rights available again: Spain (Pre-Textos), Latin America (Editorial Universitario), Catalan rights (Acantilado), Netherlands (De Arbeiderspers), Denmark (Arena), Korea (EU), Japan (Choeisha), Slovenia (Serpa)


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