Pugfish

Illustrated by Stefanie Jeschke
Suhrkamp | Insel

Pugfish / Mopsfisch
Illustrated by Stefanie Jeschke
For ages 3 and up
What on earth is going on with the pugfish? A second ago he was purple, now he’s red, and soon he’ll be in a balloon floating overhead? Impatient and curious, he keeps on moving: Can you climb up this wall of ivy? You bet you can: »Pugfish climb/Pugfish race/Pugfish laughs in danger’s face!« And when a second pugfish appears, suddenly, he’s no longer alone: »Pugfish Pugfish number two/Pugfish with some fat to chew!«

Clemens J. Setz composed these wonderful rhyming tercets for...
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What on earth is going on with the pugfish? A second ago he was purple, now he’s red, and soon he’ll be in a balloon floating overhead? Impatient and curious, he keeps on moving: Can you climb up this wall of ivy? You bet you can: »Pugfish climb/Pugfish race/Pugfish laughs in danger’s face!« And when a second pugfish appears, suddenly, he’s no longer alone: »Pugfish Pugfish number two/Pugfish with some fat to chew!«

Clemens J. Setz composed these wonderful rhyming tercets for his young daughter, and they are perfectly complemented by Stefanie Jeschke’s vibrant illustrations.
 
»... a brilliantly absurd children’s book.« Lothar Müller, Süddeutsche Zeitung
»... a brilliantly absurd children’s book.« Lothar Müller, Süddeutsche Zeitung
2025, 32 pages
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Persons

Clemens J. Setz, born in Graz in 1982, studied mathematics and German language and literature at the University of Graz from 2001 to 2009. Today he lives in Vienna. Clemens J. Setz is the author of novels, short stories, poems and plays. He has received numerous awards for his works.
Clemens J. Setz, born in Graz in 1982, studied mathematics and German language and literature at the University of Graz from 2001 to 2009. Today he...

OTHER PUBLICATIONS

 Space in Its Own Fur
Year of Publication: 2024
Clemens J. SetzYear of Publication: 2024
Clemens Setz repeatedly announced that he would never publish poetry in book form again – only to go ahead and produce this volume. But the work collected in this publication belongs to a very special kind of poetry, because it was originally created in a medium that no longer exists: Twitter. Once a legendary microblogging service, since Elon Musk got his mits on it, Twitter has become a thing...
Moons before the Landing
Year of Publication: 2023
Clemens J. SetzYear of Publication: 2023

Worms in the early twenties of the last century. Peter Bender, a former lieutenant pilot in the German Army, makes a name for himself as the founder of a new religious community and with the...

Rights sold to:

Spanish world rights (H&O Editores), Italy (La Nave di Teseo)

Domestic Rights Sales: German Audiobook (Roof Music)

The Triumph of the Clematis in Europe
Year of Publication: 2022
Clemens J. SetzYear of Publication: 2022

Life plans are worrisome worlds apart, transitions and nuances threaten to disappear in the public debate. David is dead, as published by the influencer Tim and some journalists, but from the...

Rights sold to:

Chinese simplex rights (One-Way Street Journal)

The Bees and the Invisible
Year of Publication: 2020
Clemens J. SetzYear of Publication: 2020

Pure meaning, pure poetry – this idea seems to worry and spur on people throughout the centuries. It is the driving force behind the invention of languages like Esperanto, Volapük or...

Rights sold to:

Spanish world rights (H&O Editores), Korea (Eulyoo), Esperanto world rights (Mondial)

 

The Comfort of Round Things
Year of Publication: 2019
Clemens J. SetzYear of Publication: 2019

An Alsatian soldier in the First World War discovers the constellation of the Great Young Kid in the night sky, but it is so awful that he can’t tell anyone about it. A young man, who has fallen...

Rights sold to:

Russia (Symposium), France (Actes Sud), Italy (La Nave di Teseo), Denmark (Vandkunsten), Japan (Kokusho Kankokai), Poland (Filtry), Greece (Gutenberg), Ukraine (Krapky)

Domestic Rights Sales: German Audiobook (Griot)

Bot
Year of Publication: 2018
Clemens J. SetzYear of Publication: 2018

Imagine you’re a famous writer and are asked to give an extensive interview. You’re expected to disclose information about your interests and intellectual preferences, about the premises and...

Rights sold to:

Spanish world rights (H&O Editores)

The Hour Between Woman and Guitar
Year of Publication: 2015
Clemens J. SetzYear of Publication: 2015
In a residential home for people with physical and mental disabilities, a young woman – Natalie Reinegger – is employed as a caregiver to Alexander Dorm. The man is confined to a...
Rights sold to:

France (Jacqueline Chambon), Italy (La Nave di Teseo), Bulgaria (Paradox)

Till Eulenspiegel
Year of Publication: 2015
Clemens J. SetzYear of Publication: 2015
Every child knows the stories about this most famous of pranksters, the one who bakes owls and monkeys, teaches a donkey how to read and fools the Duke of Anhalt. His sly humour, taking everything literally and intentionally misunderstanding everything, with which he keeps lords and masters at bay, has become proverbial. But it’s not only the powerful that fall victim to his rough pranks:...
Happy as Lead in a Corn Field
Year of Publication: 2015
Clemens J. SetzYear of Publication: 2015
There are stories so inconceivable that they cannot be told publicly, explicitly, but can only be recounted. Naturally, by the author himself. Here they are. Forty-five in number, and each of them illustrated by Kai Pfeiffer.


»Some months ago«, writes Clemens Setz, »I found some old stories in a folder that I had written when I was eighteen or nineteen. Leafing through the...
The Ostrich Trumpet
Year of Publication: 2014
Clemens J. SetzYear of Publication: 2014
Why did young women in the nineteenth century like to stick sharp needles in their mouths in the dark? What is it that prevents someone from being a great lover? And what do childless parrots do?

The answers to these and many more questions are to be found in Clemens J. Setz’s new collection of poetry, The Ostrich Trumpet. The same can be said of his uncanny and by turns abyssal...
Indigo
Year of Publication: 2012
Clemens J. SetzYear of Publication: 2012

In the northern part of Styria, Austria, lies Helianau, a boarding school for children suffering from a mysterious condition known as indigo syndrome. Everyone who comes to close to them is struck...

Rights sold to:

USA (W. W. Norton / Liveright), UK (Serpent's Tail), Chinese simplex rights (CITIC Press / Sight), France (Jacqueline Chambon), Italy (La Nave di Teseo), Netherlands (Leesmagazijn), Denmark (Vandkunsten), Korea (Eulyoo), Japan (Kokusho Kankokai), Croatia (Hena Com), Greece (Gutenberg)

Previously published in the respective language / territory; rights available again: Chinese complex rights (China Times), Czech Republic (Fra), Hungary (Europa), Bulgaria (Funtasy)

Domestic Rights Sales: German Audiobook (Roof Music)

 

Love in the Times of the Mahlstädter Child
Year of Publication: 2011
Clemens J. SetzYear of Publication: 2011
A woman who has herself locked in a cage in her own kitchen; a man who lives all by himself in the innermost part of a distant planet; an aging poet in a crib who becomes the core of the collection...
Rights sold to:

Chinese simplex rights (CITIC Press / Sight), Arabic world rights (Al'Asreya), France (Actes Sud / Jacqueline Chambon), Czech Republic (Fra), Hungary (Europa), Bulgaria (Funtasy), Romania (Univers), Macedonia (Blesok)

Previously published in the respective language / territory; rights available again: Denmark (Vandkunsten)

Domestic Rights Sales: German Audiobook (Griot)