Suhrkamp Insel

Hermann Hesse

»›Great Times‹ Leave Behind Great Piles of Rubble«

This volume comprising more than 500 letters sets in few months after the begin of World War II. These letters depict in many dramatic episodes the extent to which Hermann Hesse and his German publisher Peter Suhrkamp were affected by the repressions of the Nazi regime. At least equally as gripping are Hesse’s replies to numerous German correspondents who described their fates vividly to the poet, who had been living in Switzerland since 1912, and asked him for advice and help.

Gunnar Hindrichs

On Critical Theory

Critical theory is perspicacious nonsense. Criticism means examining, differentiating, evaluation. Theory means a knowledge structure. According to Kant, criticism therefore constitutes a »propaedeutic« to theory.

Axel Honneth

The Poverty of Our Freedom

In his new book, Axel Honneth shows what more there is to learn from the philosophical tradition about a reasonable notion of freedom, what is obstructing the implementation of such a freedom and from where we could ultimately get suggestions on a further realisation of freedom.

Rafael Horzon

The New Book

Ten years after Rafael Horzon’s successful autobiography The White Book not much has been reported about the former darling of Berlin’s intelligentsia. It’s become too quiet, in his opinion. And so, he brings himself to try once more: With a new book, he wants to set himself up as the most important intellectual of the 21st century; indeed, even finally win the much longed-for Nobel Prize. But he can’t think of anything to write about.

Hans Joas

Under the Spell of Freedom

How do the history of religion and the history of political freedom relate to one another? The diversity of opinions on this in the fields of philosophy, the humanities and social sciences and in the public is vast and confusing. And yet, the sublime synthesis in which Hegel once united Christianity and political freedom is still of enormous guiding power for many – despite or maybe because of Friedrich Nietzsche’s influential provocations.

Susanne Kaiser

Political Masculinity

»We must re-discover our masculinity,« is the appeal to German men by Björn Höcke, probably Germany’s most famous right-wing politician. With this demand, the AfD politician is not alone: From New Zealand to Canada, from Brazil to Poland, right-wing populists, so-called »Incels«, but also Christian pro-life activists are connecting with one another under the banner of masculinity to push women back to a subordinate place in an allegedly natural hierarchy.

Hg.: KATAPULT

Green Maps to Save the World

How many trees are there per person? And how much of the earth’s surface is covered in concrete? To fly or not to fly? SUV or e-scooter? Paper or plastic? eBook or print edition? Does the individual even determine the future of the planet at all, or is it on politicians to act? Answers to these and many more questions can be found in the alarming, illuminating and inspiring maps created by Germany’s most innovative magazine.

Thomas Kling

Sondages

As the images of the devastating attack on the World Trade Center in New York were flickering across the TV screens on September 11, 2001, Thomas Kling began drafting a laconic lament as a live connection »to the waters of the hudson«: »Manhattan Mundraum Zwei«. The volume Sondages, published in 2002, opens with this poem, which thus arches over the cyclically structured events that followed.

Thomas Kling

Collected Works in Four Volumes

Fifteen years after his early death, it is time to discover the entire œuvre of Thomas Kling. The provocatively-sensitive Thomas Kling of contemporary classics such as the volumes of poetry flavour enhancers and Long-distance Trading. The arbiter of traditions and fearless polemic Thomas Kling in the poetological self-placement Itinerar and in the seminal collection of essays Messenger Substances.

Alexander Kluge

Russia-Container

Not just in light of a currently contested pipeline but also after centuries of both exchange and rejection, Russia and Germany were and are as far away from each other as they are connected. The political present seems critical, the signs point towards conflict and polarity.

Tatjana Kruse

K&K Sister Act

Two tough sisters, a faked suicide and a text message from the grave – once more, things turn tumultuous in Konny and Kriemhild’s newest case…

Bernd Ladwig

A Political Philosophy of Animal Rights

Every year we cause great harm to billions of animals and kill them only to enjoy insignificant benefits such as the taste of their meat. Since this infraction of the rights of animals belongs to the fundamental order of society, for which all of us are responsible, it is a topic for political philosophy. Philosopher Bernd Ladwig, who teaches at the Free University of Berlin, provides a profound overview of the current international debate.

Maya Lasker-Wallfisch

Letter to Breslau

Maya grows up in silence. The German past, the Holocaust that her mother survived as a cellist in the Women’s Orchestra of Auschwitz – nobody talks about these things. And yet, Maya cannot escape the wounds of her parents, a stable life impossible she drifts through 1970s London. The nights too long, drugs, debts, the wrong guys, an escape to Jamaica where she almost dies …

Christian Lehnert

Out Towards the Inward

A »story of the invisible world on single pages« – poet and theologian Christian Lehnert has nothing less in mind for this book. The starting point for his thoughts are nature spirits and lower deities, dualistic notions of angels and demons, the formation of divine hierarchies, border crossings between this world and the other side with mysterious intellectual contraband in tow.

Gertrud Leutenegger

Late Guests

A village near the Italian border. Late in the evening the narrator has arrived there after receiving news of a death. Orion, with whom she shared many years of her life before she ran away with their child, has died.

Stephan Lohse

Johann’s Brother

Paul is arrested by police in a village in Northern Germany. He has beheaded seventeen chickens. Because he refuses to talk about the incident, he is taken to a psychiatric hospital, from where his younger brother Johann is supposed to pick him up – the two men haven’t seen each other in over twenty years. When Paul eventually asks his brother to accompany him on a trip, Johann agrees.

Isabell Lorey

Democracy in the Present Tense

Amidst the crises and threats to liberal democracy, Isabell Lorey develops a democracy in the political present that bursts open political certainties as well as linear ideas about progress and growth.

Benjamin Maack

If That Still Works, Things Can’t Be That Bad

»Am I going to be tired for the rest of my life now?« Benjamin Maack asks as he stands outside a psychiatric hospital with his big black suitcase. Four years prior he had committed himself after a nervous breakdown – the diagnosis: depression.

Nicolas Mahler

Ulysses

Dublin, June 16, 1904: a day in the life of the advertising agent Leopold Bloom and the sensations of the ordinary – James Joyce has created a maximal book from a minimum of matter: Ulysses, the most important novel of modernity, the book of the century. Joyce’s creation, spectacular also in regard to form, has inspired Nicolas Mahler to a story in pictures that is not a mere illustration or adaption of the novel but an independent and equally as inventive work.

Friederike Mayröcker

as I in the morning and moss green. come up to the window

»Esteemed listeners, do not try to lift the secret of this text«, orders Friederike Mayröcker in her new work of prose – but even its title leaves an infallible track.