Suhrkamp Insel

Theodor W. Adorno

Beethoven

Beethoven is a classic study of the composer's music, written by one of the most important thinkers of our time. Throughout his life, Adorno wrote extensive notes, essay fragments and aides-memoires on the subject of Beethoven's music. This book brings together all of Beethoven's music in relation to the society in which he lived.

Friedrich Ani

Killing Happiness - Novel

Happiness is extinguished completely when 11-year-old Lennard Grabbe doesn’t come home one night during the cold November days in Munich. 34 days later, he is found the victim of a murderer. Former Detective Chief Superintendent Jakob Franck, protagonist of Ani’s previous novel Day Without a Name, delivers the most horrible news of all to the parents – and so, happiness disappears from their house. And so does the happiness of other people connected to Lennard.

Georg Baselitz, Alexander Kluge

World-changing Rage

Rage and obstinacy are closely related. In the work of Georg Baselitz and Alexander Kluge they are fundamental categories. Rage is dynamic: it can grow and suddenly erupt into flaming protests, revolts, revolutions, and war. Within the figure of the hero its energies are concentrated. In this book Georg Baselitz and Alexander Kluge compare the melancholically inclined figure of the occidental hero (and its deconstruction) to the very different ethos of the Japanese hero, the »Antipodean«.

Jurek Becker

On the beach at Bochum there’s a lot going on

Over the course of his life as a writer Jurek Becker has explored many genres. He wrote texts for the cabaret, authored movie scripts, garnered international acclaim with his debut novel Jacob the Liar, published short stories and essays. In his estate drafts were found for most of his works. Among these, drafts for postcards were discovered as well, in which he used the same conceptual approach as he did in his prose works. The number of postcards, which Becker primarily wrote towards the end of his life, shows that his aim in writing them was to bring a moment of joy to friends or family members. Messages of the author about himself were of secondary importance. First and foremost, Jurek Becker was concerned with entertaining the reader for a few minutes. Increasingly, the postcard became the textual form in which the author enjoyed expressing himself. It was, after all, a form that allowed for word games and silliness – and that, on the other hand, off ered the possibility of showing affection without having to disclose too much information about himself.

Timm Beichelt

Substitute Playing Fields

The selection of Russia and Qatar as hosts of the 2018 and 2022 FIFA World Cups have once more shown that the football pitch is never merely a green rectangle on which 22 players chase after a ball. (Professional) football is always a substitute pitch on which politics operate simultaneously: political leaders of all types draw attention to themselves, norms like competitive thinking are rehearsed, national teams are an indicator as to which groups are regarded as belonging to the nation and which groups aren’t.

Ulla Berkéwicz

Beyond Script

Based on Vedic, Jewish and mathematictopological knowledge, Ulla Berkéwicz’ new work, comprised of two corresponding parts which reflect each other, invites us to discern what restricts our consciousness.

Hans Blumenberg

Writings on Literature 1945-1958

Long awaited and now available from the estate: Hans Blumenberg’s reviews, talks and lectures on international literature: Dostoyevsky, Sartre, Greene, Kafka, Jünger, Faulkner, Robbe-Grillet and many others.

Bernd Brunner

The Book of Pomegranates

Next to olives, figs, grapes and dates, the pomegranate belongs to the earliest fruit to be cultivated by humankind. Until today, it is surrounded by mysteries. Was the »forbidden apple« with which Eve tempted Adam actually a pomegranate? Is the pomegranate – botanically speaking – even an »apple«? Is it the universal remedy which many believe it to be? Most likely, the origin of the pomegranate lies in the area south of the Caspian Sea, and its traditional area of cultivation spans from the Himalayas to the Mediterranean. Its rich associations, especially as a symbol of fertility, run through the cultures of antiquity like a golden thread; later, it was used as an attribute of the Madonna figure and in still lives in Renaissance paintings until it was replaced by citrus fruit, which were much easier to process.

Simone Buchholz

Beton Rouge

Chastity Riley is chasing a madman. Or at least that’s what it seems like. Because who else would lock high-ranking executives in a cage in the middle of Hamburg? And so Chastity experiences one of the rare occasions where her bosses stop trying to rein her in and confine her to the tediousness that is her desk. Her investigations take her into the world of publishing and the institutions that form elites. And all the while her friends are driving her crazy, because of all people it’s those that usually give her support who suddenly prove to be a fickle bunch.

Michael Butter

»Nothing is as it seems«

According to most recent empirical studies, fifty percent of the US-American population and a smaller, but not insignificant number of Germans believe in at least one conspiracy theory. Personalities like David Icke or Alex Jones enjoy celebrity status; in his TV show the latter chats to Donald Trump, who for his part undermines the belief in shared interpretations with his attacks on the »Fake-News Media«.

Eva Corino

The Principle of Succession

Here’s the good news: over the past fifty years, there has been an increase of 15 years in the life expectancy of women. But why do they rush through life faster and faster despite the time they gained? The reason for this lies in the fact that what is expected of them has increased in a similar fashion, but unfortunately to an unhealthy degree. Raising children, professional development, university degree, partner, career, social engagement – women should and are expected to deliver and know how to do everything, simultaneously, successively. Lack of time and excessive demand are the harmless, failing relationships or burn-outs the severe consequences of this new, precarious lifestyle.

Sigrid Damm

Time Moves in a Circle

Sigrid Damm’s new book presents a retrospective love for her father. All her life, she was in conflict with him, rejected him. It wasn’t until shortly before his death that a tentative relationship started to develop between the two. More than twenty years later, she begins to trace her father’s life.

Gabriele Diechler

Lavender Dreams

A picturesque village in the Provence, not far from Grasse, the world capital of perfume. But Julia isn’t here to enjoy the beauty of the landscape: her life is falling apart, and she has come here in search of the truth …

Ellen Dunne

Hard Landing

Patsy Logan, 38, German-Irish commissioner with the State Office of Criminal Investigations in Munich, is investigating in a renowned online company. The case quickly attracts attention, media and internal pressure is huge. And Patsy’s private life also becomes increasingly troubled…

Nana Ekvtimishvili

The Pear Field

The Pear Field takes place in the 1990s in Tbilisi, capital of the recently independent country of Georgia. At the heart of the novel is the “School for Idiots”, a boarding school for “mentally deficient children”, actually visitied mostly by children whose parents are either dead or who have emigrated for economic reasons. Even the teachers leave the children and teens to their own devices.

Hans Magnus Enzensberger

Survival Artists

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 too steadfast to bend to the powers that be? Did they owe their survival to their foresight, their intelligence or sharpness, their belief in themselves, their connections or their tactical skill? Was it serendipitous circumstances bordering on a miracle that helped them escape from prison, camps and death, or was it strategies that spanned from ingratiation to disguise? If only it was possible to make a clear-cut distinction!

Didier Fassin

Life

Since antiquity, life, in Adorno’s words, has been the true field of philosophy asking about what the right and good life was. For a little more than a century, however, life has also become a subject of the social sciences. The renowned French physician, anthropologist, and sociologist Didier Fassin proposes a critical dialogue between philosophy and social research.

André Georgi

The Last Terrorist

A young woman is caught in the clutches of terrorism and is sent on a risky mission. Chased by the BKA, the Federal Criminal Police Office, and put under pressure by her comrades, she is forced to make a difficult decision …

Peter Handke

The Fruit Thief - or - A simple Trip into the Interior

The Fruit Thief is nothing less than the book of the world: within it everything is possible, in both a positive as well as a negative sense. And reading it means: to have new experiences beyond everything previously imagined or depicted. In sum: a brand new novel from Peter Handke.

Axel Honneth

Recognition

In his new book, Axel Honneth traces the idea of recognition and the diversity of meanings it has taken on since the beginning of modernity in Europe. Referencing three powerful schools of thought – the French, the British and the German – he traces the way it has in each case experienced entirely different philosophical interpretations and sociopolitical expressions due to various sociopolitical challenges.