Wonderful 27 September

Poems
With an afterword by Christa Wolf
Suhrkamp | Insel
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Serbia (Radni Sto)


Wonderful 27 September / Der schöne 27. September
Poems
With an afterword by Christa Wolf
The most famous volume of poetry by Thomas Brasch
Wonderful 27 September was published in 1980, the same year he was awarded the FAZ Prize for Literature. The jury states the following: »In Wonderful 27 September, Thomas Brasch combines delicacy and elegiac eroticism with sobriety and severe criticism of the times. These verses, which are characterised by both great musicality and sharp astuteness, contribute to the modernisation of traditional forms of German poetry, especially the lied and the ballad, and identify Thomas...
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Wonderful 27 September was published in 1980, the same year he was awarded the FAZ Prize for Literature. The jury states the following: »In Wonderful 27 September, Thomas Brasch combines delicacy and elegiac eroticism with sobriety and severe criticism of the times. These verses, which are characterised by both great musicality and sharp astuteness, contribute to the modernisation of traditional forms of German poetry, especially the lied and the ballad, and identify Thomas Brasch as the poetic spokesman of his generation.«

Peter Schneider gave a more personal account: »In this work, we see a writer who is influenced by many ways of speaking and a master of many listening inently to his own voice and writing himself toward a day, an hour, a moment; the ›Wonderful 27 September‹, as the titular poem puts it.« This poem is also presumably a response to one of Christa Wolf's one-day protocols collected in the anthology One Day a Year.

»Thomas Brasch was all that. And a whole lot more. First and foremost a great writer, one of the most important of his generation.« Fritz J. Raddatz, DIE ZEIT
»Thomas Brasch was all that. And a whole lot more. First and foremost a great writer, one of the most important of his generation.« Fritz J. Raddatz, DIE ZEIT
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1980, 86 pages
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Persons

Thomas Brasch, poet, playwright, filmmaker and translator, one of the most distinctive figures of contemporary German literature, was born in Westow/Yorkshire (UK) in 1945 as the son of Jewish emigrants. He lived in East Berlin until he left the GDR in 1976. He died in Berlin in 2001.
Thomas Brasch, poet, playwright, filmmaker and translator, one of the most distinctive figures of contemporary German literature, was born in...

OTHER PUBLICATIONS

»You Have to Walk against the Wind«
Year of Publication: 2025
Thomas BraschYear of Publication: 2025
This volume brings together Thomas Brasch’s published and unpublished fictional and essayistic prose (stories, speeches, criticism, commentary, opinion pieces) from 1956 to 2000 – with the exception of the novel material published as Child Killer Brunke. From his first publication in the Lausitzer Rundscahau (in 1956, when Brasch was just 11), the fairytale Fox, Eagle and Hippo,...
Cassandra
Year of Publication: 2020
Christa WolfYear of Publication: 2020

Cassandra, daughter of the King of Troy, is endowed with the gift of prophecy but fated never to be believed. After ten years of war, Troy has fallen to the Greeks, and Cassandra is now a...

Rights sold to:

English world rights (Daunt Books), Spanish world rights (Spain: Malas Tierras; rest of the Spanish world: Cuenco de Plata), Brazilian Portuguese rights (Estação Liberdade), Sweden (Lind & Co.), Turkey (Kültür), Georgia (Sulakauri), Marathi rights (Walden Publication) 

Domestic Rights Sales: German Book Club (Büchergilde Gutenberg)

Previously published in the respective language / territory; rights available again: Russia (AST), Portuguese rights (Cotovia), Netherlands (Van Gennep), Korea (Munhakdongne), Japan (Kawade Shobo), Thai (Mahidol UP), Romania (Univers), North Macedonia (Magor Doo), Albania (Instituti i Dialogut dhe Komunikimit)

Medea: Voices
Year of Publication: 2020
Christa WolfYear of Publication: 2020
Medea lives in Corinth as the wife of the argonaut Jason, having followed him there from her homeland of Colchis. In the Corinthian palace, she becomes ensnared in a web of denunciations, intrigue,...
Rights sold to:

English world rights (Doubleday), Spanish world rights (Cuenco de Plata), Brazilian Portuguese rights (Estação Liberdade) Korea (Minumin), Turkey (Kültür), Georgia (Palitra L)

Previously published in the respective language / territory; rights available again: Chinese simplex rights (Shanghai Translation Publishing), Russia (AST), Portuguese rights (Cotovia), Arabic world rights (Al-Kamel), France (Librairie Artheme Fayard), Italy (E/O), Sweden (Norstedts), Finland (Tammi Publishers), Japan (Dogakusha), Czech Republic (Odeon Verlag), Romania (Editura Polirom), Estonia (Eesti Raamat), Lithuania (Vaga), Croatia (Demetra), Bosnia (Svjetlost), North Macedonia (Kongresen Servisen Centar), Albania (Institute of Dialogue and Communication), Hindi (Radha Krishna Prakashan)

Accident: A Day's News
Year of Publication: 2019
Christa WolfYear of Publication: 2019
In the spring of 1986, in the East German countryside, the blossoms on the cherry trees are positively exploding – but the word »explode« has taken on a dark weight since the news began to spread:...
Rights sold to:
English world rights (University of Chicago Press), Korea (Boobooks)

Previously published in the respective language / territory; rights available again: Spanish world rights (Circulo de lectores), Catalan (Edicions de la Magrans), Portuguese rights (Dom Quixote), France (Stock), Italy (E/O), Netherlands (Van Gennep), Finnland (Naisten Kulttuuriydistys), Japan (Kobunsha), Czech Republic (Odeon), Turkey (AFA Publishers)
»We truly got used to all sorts of things«
Year of Publication: 2019
Sarah Kirsch, Christa WolfYear of Publication: 2019

»Dearest, dearest Christa, how nice that you remain here on this daft planet!«, Sarah Kirsch writes in the autumn of 1988 to her friend who has just recovered from a life-threatening illness. One...

Rights sold to:

Domestic Rights Sales: German Audiobook (Random House Audio)

It’s Quite Comfortable Being Caught in the Middle
Year of Publication: 2016
Christa WolfYear of Publication: 2016

»Mail, mail, mail«. This cri de cœur, jotted down in the calendar underneath the date of Sunday, 4th of March 1990, is not unfounded: Christa Wolf was a tremendously productive correspondent. Her letters to relatives and friends, colleagues, editors, politicians and journalists provide a fascinating insight into her thoughts, her writing process and her social engagement. Whether she...

Moscow Diaries
Year of Publication: 2014
Christa WolfYear of Publication: 2014

»Moscow! I had asked myself beforehand what the first thing to make an impression upon me might be.« So begin Christa Wolf’s writings about a city which she visited for the first time in 1957. In...

Rights sold to:

Russia (Text)

Obituary for the Living
Year of Publication: 2014
Christa WolfYear of Publication: 2014

Charlotte, mother to the fifteen-year-old first person narrator of the novel, is the beloved center of the family, all commanding and outright. And yet, Charlotte has kept the obvious quiet: that...

Rights sold to:

English world rights (Seagull), Italy (Edizioni e/o)

One Day a Year in the New Century
Year of Publication: 2013
Christa WolfYear of Publication: 2013

After the overwhelming success of City of Angels now follows the eagerly awaited posthumous publication of the second half of Christa Wolf's diary project One Day a...

Rights sold to:

English world rights (Seagull), France (Seuil), Japan (Dogakusha)

»They Call it Scream«
Year of Publication: 2013
Thomas BraschYear of Publication: 2013

Thomas Brasch, poet, playwright, filmmaker and translator, is one of the most striking figures in contemporary German literature. From poems with personal dedications and occasional poems to...

Rights sold to:

Previously published in the respective language / territory; rights available again: France (selection; Hochroth)

August
Year of Publication: 2012
Christa WolfYear of Publication: 2012

In 1976, Christa Wolf published Patterns of Childhood, her major autobiographical book. It has since been translated into twenty languages. Thirty-five years later, her last...

Rights sold to:

English world rights (Seagull), Spanish world rights (Las migas también son pan), Brazilian Portuguese rights digital (Jaguatrica), France (Christian Bourgois), Italy (e/o), Catalan (Lleonard Muntaner), Serbia (Radni Sto), Slovenia (Modrijan)

Previously published in the respective language / territory; rights available again: Estonia (Loomingu Raamatukogu),

Speak, that I May See You
Year of Publication: 2012
Christa WolfYear of Publication: 2012

Speak, that I May See You – this Socratic imperative gives a sense of the goal Christa Wolf was striving for with her writing: to make her presence known, »to get to the roots...

Rights sold to:

Italy (e/o)

City of Angels or The Overcoat of Dr. Freud
Year of Publication: 2010
Christa WolfYear of Publication: 2010

It amounts to a veritable literary event: Christa Wolf’s completion of the major new novel on which she worked for more than ten years. City of Angels or The Overcoat of Dr....

Rights sold to:

English world rights (FSG), Spanish world rights (Alianza), Arabic world rights (Al Kamel), France (Seuil), Italy (e/o), Netherlands (van Gennep), Sweden (Norstedts), Norway (Gyldendal Norsk), Korea (Marco Polo Press), Serbia (Albatros), Turkey (IS Kültür), Greece (Kastaniotis), Macedonia (Blesok), Albania (Santori), Azerbaijan (Alatoran), Israel (Hakibbutz Hameuchad)

Previously published in the respective language / territory; rights available again: Chinese simplex rights (People’s Literature Publishing House), Denmark (Vandkunsten), Hungary (Kalligram), Bulgaria (Lettera), Romania (Univers)

Domestic Rights Sales: German Book Club (Der Club Bertelsmann)

 

Another View
Year of Publication: 2005
Christa WolfYear of Publication: 2005

Shortly after the collapse of Communism, Christa Wolf spent some time at the Getty Center in Los Angeles. Far away in the West, in a foreign world, she looks back at her life in the east...

Rights sold to:

Greece (Kastaniotis)

Previously published in the respective language / territory; rights available again: Spain (Circula De Lectores), Italy (Edizioni E/O)

One Day a Year
Year of Publication: 2003
Christa WolfYear of Publication: 2003

»In 1960, following an invitation from a Moscow newspaper asking her to describe one day, the twenty-seventh of September, ›as precisely as possible‹, Christa Wolf...

Rights sold to:

English world rights (Europa Editions), Russia (Kabinetny Utcheny), France (Fayard)

Previously published in the respective language / territory; rights available again: Spanish world rights (Galaxia Gutenberg), Italy (Edizioni e/o), Denmark (Aschehoug), Japan (Dogakusha)

Lovely Rita — Rotter — Dear Georg
Year of Publication: 1989
Thomas BraschYear of Publication: 1989

Lovely Rita (premiered & first published: 1978), Rotter (premiered: 1977, first published: 1983), Dear Georg (premiered: 1980, first published: 1979): The three...

Rights sold to:

Previously published in the respective language / territory; rights available again: Korea (Sung kyun kwan University Press), Israel (Papyrus Academic Publishing House)

No Place on Earth
Year of Publication: 1979
Christa WolfYear of Publication: 1979
In 1804, Karoline von Günderrode and Heinrich von Kleist met at a tea party in Winkel am Rhein – or at least that’s where they could have met. Christa Wolf lets the two outsiders...
Rights sold to:

English world rights (FSG), Spain (Las Migas de Pan), Arabic world rights (Al Karma), France (Stock), Italy (e/o), Sweden (Lind & Co.), Turkey (Is Kültür)

Previously published in the respective language / territory; rights available again: Catalan rights (Ediciones la Deriva), Netherlands (Van Gennep), Denmark (Vandkunsten), Japan (Kobunsha), Poland (Wydawnictwo Poznańskie), Czech Republic (Mladá Fronta), Bulgaria (Narodna Kultura), Romania (Univers)

Patterns of Childhood
Year of Publication: 1976
Christa WolfYear of Publication: 1976
This novel is a testament of what seemed at the time a fairly ordinary childhood, in the bosom of a normal Nazi family in Landsberg.


Returning to her native town in East Germany forty years...
Rights sold to:

USA (FSG), UK (Virago), Spanish world rights (Galaxia Gutenberg), Chinese simplex rights (Chunfeng Literature), Russia (Prawda), Arabic world rights (Kanaan), France (Stock), Italy (e/o), Netherlands (Van Gennep), Sweden (Norstedts), Japan (Kobunsha), Poland (Czytelnik), Czech Republic (Odeon), Slovakia (Smena), Hungary (Magvetö), Romania (Univers), Estonia (Eesti Raamat), Serbia (Svetlost), Greece (University Studio Press)

They Divided the Sky
Year of Publication: 1963
Christa WolfYear of Publication: 1963

»We didn't know then, none of us knew, what kind of year lay ahead: a year of the most exacting ordeals that were not easy to survive. A historic year, is what they will say...

Rights sold to:

English world rights (Ottawa University Press), Chinese complex rights (Chi Ming), France (Éditions Stock), Korea (Minumsa), Bengali (Jadavpur University Press)

Previously published in the respective language/territory; rights available again: Chinese simplex rights (People’s Publishing House), Netherlands (Uitgeverij Van Gennep), Slovenia (Druzba Piano), Greece (University Studio Press)

DISCOVER

News
On 19 February 2025, the poet, playwright, filmmaker and translator Thomas Brasch would have turned 80.
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