Suhrkamp Insel

The Nibelungs

The Nibelungs, written around 1200, is the most famous and most influential German heroic epic. It is part of the canon of the great works of world literature alongside Homer’s Iliad or Vergil’s Aeneid and was the basis for countless literary, musical, artistic and cinematic adaptations. Ever since the global success of Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings, it has also found its way into modern popular culture.

Reineke Fox

Like every year, King Nobel is calling all animals to the great court council right in time for Pentecost. Only one is missing: Reineke Fox. Because he is accused of countless crimes: »If Reineke were dead, we could all live in peace.« He finally faces his trial, but in the end it’s not justice that is victorious but the most cunning and ruthless protagonist, the most talented liar …

Theodor W. Adorno

Aspects of Contemporary Right-Wing Radicalism

On 6 April 1967 Theodor W. Adorno gave a lecture at the University of Vienna as a guest of the Socialist Students of Austria, a lecture which, from today’s point of view, is not only of historical interest. Against the backdrop of the rise of the NPD, which in the first two years after its founding in November 1964 had already seen surprising success at the polls, Adorno analyses the goals, resources, and tactics of the new right-wing radicalism of his time. Contrasting it with »old« Nazi-Fascism, he gives a close examination of the reasons for which extreme right-wing movements were finding a positive reception – 20 years after the end of the war – in segments of the population of the Federal Republic.

Theodor W. Adorno

Remarks on ›The Authoritarian Personality‹ and Other Texts

In 1948 Theodor W. Adorno wrote a text on the authoritarian personality which remained unpublished until today and that is not so much a retrospective look at the barbarism of the Nazis but first and foremost and more generally a reflection on the individual in late capitalism that is forced into immaturity but that also seems to choose it. He discusses the dialectics of Enlightenment and the significance of antisemitism for Critical Theory with particular intensity – issues, that is, that have not lost any of their topicality in light of the current crisis of the political. Next to the »Remarks«, published for the first time, this volume contains further key texts on the authoritarian personality and on public opinion. The introduction and the afterword by the editor explain the context of their creation and draw connections to current debates.

Theodor W. Adorno

Posthumous Writings. Section V: Lectures and Conversations

When Theodor W. Adorno returned to Germany from his American exile in 1949, he not only resumed his teaching and research at the Goethe University Frankfurt and the Institute for Social Research, but he also quickly established a reputation as a public intellectual. Adorno’s considerable influence on the debates of the post-war period was also due to his lectures given outside the context of the university in which he pointedly spoke about different societal developments.

Friedrich Ani

All The Empty Rooms

In Friedrich Ani’s new novel, »the four« must spring into action: Polonius Fischer (the former monk), Tabor Süden (the returned missing person’s investigator), Jakob Franck (the former inspector, now retired, but still the deliverer of the worst news) and Fariza Nasri (the civil servant with Syrian roots, saved from her banishment to the provinces). All of them must employ their unique methods to solve the murder of a woman and the beating death of a police officer, incidents which receive great attention after igniting social and political debates (coming from the right) about the incompetence of the police, migrant children, east and west Germany, and »the system«.

Egon Bahr

What now?

In March 1966, Egon Bahr finished a manuscript. Under the title »What now?«, he outlines a new East German and intra-German policy. Proudly, he hands it to his superior – and the text disappears into a filing cabinet. Willy Brandt feared that in view of the possibility of a grand coalition, the memorandum held too much explosive potential. But the two soon start implementing Bahr’s concept step by step as part of the »Neue Ostpolitik,« the »new eastern policy«: They leave the Hallstein Doctrine, invest in »Change through Rapprochement« and initiate political, social and economic agreements between West Germany and some of the Eastern bloc countries. Brandt’s Warschauer Kniefall, the Warsaw genuflection, is a symbol of this policy to this day. The Chancellor receives the Nobel Peace Prize for it, his most important advisor and closest friends a reputation for being a brilliant analyst of foreign affairs.

Hans Blumenberg

The Naked Truth

Since the early modern period and the Enlightenment divine privilege was meant to be democraticised by the unconditional possession of truth. The revelation of truth was also a theme of the critique of domination. In this late posthumous text, Hans Blumenberg explores the motif of the naked truth through the history of philosophy, but with enhanced awareness for the costs of this act of revelation. Nitzsche, the defender of rhetoric, and Freud, who had pursued the development of his theory without considering the wellbeing of individual patients, are the central antipodes for Blumenberg here.

Karl Heinz Bohrer

Speaking with Daggers

Particularly in recent times, the term »hate« has made a career in public importance. In the journalistic and socio-historical critique of the reaction to the refugee crisis prevalent in Germany and Europe it moved to the forefront of the discourse alongside terms like »identity« and »racism«.

Nora Bossong

Rules of Engagement

2017: After postings with the UN in New York and Burundi, Mira is working for the United Nations Office at Geneva and mediates talks on the reunification of Cyprus. At a reception at the luxury hotel Beau-Rivage, she encounters Milan, with whose family she lived for a few months after her parents’ separation in 1994. Even though Milan is married with a son and is soon going to move his family to The Hague, the two begin an affair.

Emma Braslavsky

The Night Was Pale, the Lights Were Twinkling

Berlin, in a near future. The city thrives thanks to the Hubot industry: Robotics companies create artificial partners indistinguishable from real humans; every kind of wish for a relationship can be fulfilled, unconditional private bliss and the complete abolition of loneliness are just about to become reality. But the number of suicides has increased tenfold. Because the new beings have mastered the art of simulating love, but they can’t take any responsibility for those they live with. More and more people perish of social alienation. That’s why Roberta comes on the market: She is designed to find the relatives of the people who have committed suicide to save the social welfare department the funeral costs. If she fails, she will be taken apart and her components sold to manufacturers of domestic robots. And not everyone is invested in the success of her investigations.

Simone Buchholz

Hotel Cartagena

A chilly hotel bar in the Port of Hamburg. Down on the docks, the lights are shimmering, above the tables are rather sparsely occupied. Suddenly the doors open, twelve heavily armed men hijack the bar, take patrons and staff hostage. Right in the middle of it all: Chastity Riley, who had actually been bracing herself for a painful reunion with old friends, but now she and all the other hostages have to learn that there are injuries that just can’t be repaired…

Helga Bürster

Luzie’s Legacy

Shortly after the invasion of Poland in the autumn of 1939 the Polish soldier Jurek Mazur is captured and deported to Northern Germany as a forced labourer. He ends up on a farm in Lower Saxony. Concurrently, the novel tells the story of the rural worker Luzie Krusenbusch and her family.

Paul Celan

»an entirely personal matter«

Paul Celan’s exceptional oeuvre of letters – half of them unpublished so far: An oeuvre, on par with the poetic works, of immense stylistic range. Biographically insightful and poetologically fruitful.

Paul Celan

Poems

Celan’s collected poems – for the first time in their entirety and with new commentary. Close to 60 more poems than the 2003 edition. The history of their origins, sources, cross-references: broken down with summaries and individual notes.

Hg.: Luca Corchia, Stefan Müller-Doohm, William Outhwaite

Habermas Global

Jürgen Habermas' writings have found an international audience – and not only in academic circles but readers who are interested in politics. The current volume sees the international reception history of the prominent philosopher and public intellectual illuminated by more than 30 authors, who represent more than 15 language and scientific cultures. In so doing, for the first time ever this edition grants a comprehensive look at the international impact of Habermas’ thought, while simultaneously casting a new light on all of his work, which is inseparable from his concept of communicative rationality.

Ann Cotten

Lyophilia

Ann Cotten has grown up, a fact which catapults us somewhat into the future. She claims that all she is interested in now is a constructive approach to a functioning, reasonable life for everyone (if possible). A philanthropic robot, so to speak. But her strangely labyrinthine yet overly respectful way of confronting problems still shows traces of the experiences she gathered as a young poet. In Proteus both the eternally young protagonist and his lover, a successful Slovenian politician with two children, are exported into a parallel universe in which any thought at all becomes reality. In the meantime, however, the aging inhabitants of the settlement asteroid Amore (KAFUN), which went bankrupt shortly after its foundation, continue to hold to clichés and running gags. They hope to discover an end to grief, which proves to be a greater danger than being without the Internet, cosmic radiation or humanitarian instant noodles combined. However, an Antigonelike mission saves the heroes from going to ground in their own survival.

Juan Danilo

Ceviche. The Cookbook

The legendary Peruvian dish ceviche – fish marinated in lime juice and salt – is currently becoming a major trend in international gastronomy. This is not surprising, as ceviche is a culinary sensation: a sophisticated and fresh dish with lots of possible variations – a true explosion of flavour and colour.

Gabriele Diechler

Chocolate Days

Alwy is newly in love, the smart-looking lawyer Leon is her dream man. And it’s looking promising in her job, too. Life could be glorious – if the young patissière didn’t have to fear for her professional existence all of a sudden. The building that houses her cake studio has been sold to an investor who wants to renovate the property and evict the tenants. Her friend and partner Bettina is of little help to Alwy, because she’s got problems of her own: She is pregnant and the future baby daddy’s reaction is not the one she had hoped for. Alwy fights for her shop, not knowing the impact this is going to have on her life …

Hans Magnus Enzensberger

Windfalls

»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 lead us?« As shrewd as he is wise, the author does not claim that his answers to these questions are fruit off the tree of absolute knowledge. »Windfalls« is what he calls them, »which have been collected in various big and small baskets.«