English world rights (Pushkin Press), Spanish world rights (Salamandra), Chinese simplex rights (Folio [Beijing] Culture & Media), France (L'Association), Italy (Clichy), Czech Republic (Argo)
Mahler's sublime graphic biography of Kafka
By the master of minimalism – original, witty, and insanely funny
Minimal drawings, maximal fun
Franz Kafka not only wrote prose, he was also passionate about drawing: »Did you know I was once a great drawer,« he wrote about his artistic ambitions, half ironic, half proud, to his fiancée Felice Bauer in 1913. Drawing had at one time »satisfied him more than anything else«. So what could be more appropriate than to honour him on his anniversary with a comic biography? By no other than Nicolas Mahler, whose cultivates drawing style is similarly...
Franz Kafka not only wrote prose, he was also passionate about drawing: »Did you know I was once a great drawer,« he wrote about his artistic ambitions, half ironic, half proud, to his fiancée Felice Bauer in 1913. Drawing had at one time »satisfied him more than anything else«. So what could be more appropriate than to honour him on his anniversary with a comic biography? By no other than Nicolas Mahler, whose cultivates drawing style is similarly minimalist?
In his inimitably witty and pointed manner, Mahler portrays Kafka’s life and work and does not shy away from the big questions: Why did Kafka’s plan to write a series of cheap travel guides fail? Who wrote the sequel to one of his most important works, »The Retransformation of Gregor Samsa«? And what was the »white slave« all about? The answers to this and much more can be found in Completely Kafka.
»A life and an oeuvre that Mahler assembles as a small Gesamtkunstwerk – at once celebrating and analysing the myth of Kafka.« Fritz Göttler, Süddeutsche Zeitung
»With every new Mahler volume, there is an undeniably satirical approach … His [comics] lay bare some of the constructions and predilections – if not the obsessions – of the major writer he is engaging with. At the same time, though, he avoids making an unsophisticated spoof of the work, viewing it in a thoroughly analytic fashion.« Ralph Trommer, taz. die tageszeitung
»Mahler is slowly establishing himself as a genius« Peter Pisa, Kurier
»In Completely Kafka, Nicolas Mahler takes on the author with a wonderfully dry sense of humour. … Utterly entertaining!« der Freitag
»A life and an oeuvre that Mahler assembles as a small Gesamtkunstwerk – at once celebrating and analysing the myth of Kafka.« Fritz Göttler, Süddeutsche Zeitung
»With every new Mahler volume, there is an undeniably satirical approach … His [comics] lay bare some of the constructions and predilections – if not the obsessions – of the...
Persons
Nicolas Mahler
Nicolas Mahler, born in 1969, lives in Vienna where he works as a comic artist and illustrator. His comic strips and cartoons have been published by newspapers and magazines such as DIE ZEIT, NZZ am Sonntag, Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung and Titanic. He has received numerous awards for his extensive oeuvre, including the Max-und-Moritz Prize for Best German-Language Comic Artist in 2010 and the Preis der Literaturhäuser in 2015 and the Sondermann Prize in 2019.
Nicolas Mahler, born in 1969, lives in Vienna where he works as a comic artist and illustrator. His comic strips and cartoons have been published...
OTHER PUBLICATIONS
My Therapist is a Psycho
Black Mirrors
Suhrkamp represents the rights for Nicolas Mahler’s contribution to the volume. The underlying rights to the work by Arno Schmidt are represented by the Arno Schmidt Foundation.
Thomas Bernhard
»Thomas Bernhard is born in Heerlen (the Netherlands) on February 9, 1931. The afterbirth has the shape of Austria.« – thus begins Bernhard’s biography as drawn by comic artist Nicolas Mahler.
The grand master of minimalism, who has previously and »congenially« adapted Bernhard’s Old Masters and The World-Fixer, takes readers on a wickedly funny tour...
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:...
English world rights (Seagull), Chinese simplex rights (Horizon), France(L’Association)
The Little ABC of Survival
Sometimes, it just hits you and you don’t even know why. That’s when life seems nothing but chaotic, devastating and confusing. Fighting this, however, is profoundly pointless – and anything but funny. If, yet again, you’ve rushed into one of those crises at full throttle and can’t find your way out, you should take a look at The Little ABC of Survival. From »Age« to »Work«, from...
In Search Of Lost Time. Adapted from Marcel Proust
Marcel Proust’s Recherche is one of the most important French novels, if not the most important – reading it can be life changing. Nicolas Mahler’s comic is not a retelling, not a...
English world rights (Seagull), Chinese simplex rights (Horizon)
Party Fun With Kant
English world rights (Seagull), Chinese simplex rights (Horizon)
Previously published in the respective language / territory; rights available again: Czech Republic (Archa)
Lulu and the Black Square
In his brilliant new graphic novel Nicolas Mahler purges Frank Wedekind’s tragedies Earth Spirit und Pandora’s Box and creates a black comedy about the corporeality of women, the possessive mentality of men, and Kazimir Malevich’s Black Square.
Frank Wedekind’s man-eating Lulu once again finds herself in a Suprematist’s atelier. Struggling back and...
The World-Fixer
English world rights (Seagull), Czech Republic (Archa)
The Man Without Qualities
English world rights (Seagull), Spanish world rights (Salamandra), Chinese simplex rights (Horizon)
Previously published in the respective language / territory; rights available again: Italy (Edizioni Clichy), Czech Republic (Archa)
Poems
Poems worthy of Beckett, Cioran and Wittgenstein’s praise
Written by the »existentialist...
English world rights (Seagull), Czech Republic (Archa)
Alice in Sussex
English world rights (Seagull), Spanish world rights (Salamandra), Russia (Boomkniga), Slovenia (VigeVageKnjige)
Old Masters
English world rights (Seagull), France (L'Association), Sweden (Staka), Serbia (Bulevar)
Previously published in the respective language / territory; rights available again: Spanish world rights (Sinsentido), Poland (Proszynski), Czech Republic (Archa)