Spring and summer 2011

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The surprise hit of winter 10/11! TABLE OF CONTENTS

Rowohlt·Berlin | fiction

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NON - FICTION

21

CHILDREN‘S AND YOUNG ADULT‘S BOOKS

34

CONTACT

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WOLFGANG HERRNDORF, born in 1965 in Hamburg, studied art, contributed drawings to Titanic amongst other publications, and began to write relatively late in his career. He lives in Berlin. In 2002 his debut novel, Velvet Thunder, was published, for which Joachim Lottmann declared him to be a ‘Doyen of Pop Literature’. In 2008 he was awarded the German Narrative Prize for On this Side of the Van Allen Belt.

© Mathias Mainholz

FICTION

TSCHICK With his mother in rehab and father away on a “business trip” with his pretty assistant, Maik is home alone in his parents’ villa. It’s the first day of the summer holidays. Together with Tschick, a German-Russian from the tower blocks on the wrong side of the tracks in Hellersdorf, Maik shows up in a stolen Lada at Tatjana’s birthday party, a girl he’s head over heels in love with. Soon after, the boys are tearing through the German countryside in the blazing sunshine, heading ever further south east, to Walachei, where Tschick’s grandfather lives. This is a story of an impossible friendship between two boys – a road novel packed with melancholy and humour.

«an intoxicating, authentic book packed with wit and situation comedy.» Süddeutsche Zeitung «this is a novel that we will still want to read in fifty years time. But it’s better if we start reading it now.» F.A.Z. • Rights sold to Finland (Atena), France (Thierry Magnier), Korea (Eunhaengnamu), Spain, Brazil (Alaúde), the Netherlands (Cossee) and Hungary (Scolar). • 100,000 copies sold in hardcover since publication. • Shortlisted for the Leipzig Book Fair Prize 2011

«Tschick is a bombastic book for fourteen-year-olds – and for 40-year-olds who remember what it was like being fourteen.» Der Spiegel

Please visit our website at www.rowohlt.de/foreign

Velvet Thunder

On this Side of the Van Allen Belt

September 2010 256 pages

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A novel about the potency of love, the power of belief and the cogency of language – and the art of riding a motorcycle. Rowohlt·Berlin | fiction

DORIS KNECHT, born in 1966 and hailing from Vorarlberg,

ALBRECHT SELGE, born in 1975 in Heidelberg, grew up in

MARTIN WALSER was born in

is one of the most original and humorous writers in Austrian journalism today. She was assistant editor-in-chief of Vienna’s Falter magazine and a columnist for the Swiss Tagesanzeiger. She has a daily column at the Kurier and she DJs regularly at Vienna’s Rhiz bar. Doris Knecht lives in Vienna with her family.

West Berlin and studied in Berlin and Vienna. He was a finalist in the Open Mike literature competition in 2004, and took part in the literature workshop in Klagenfurt and the Berlin Literary Colloquium. Among other awards, he received a grant from the Berlin Senate to pursue his literary work. He lives in Berlin with his wife and two children. Awake is his first novel.

1927 in Wasserburg and now lives in Überlingen by Lake Constance. He has received numerous awards for his work, among them the Georg Büchner Award and the Peace Prize of the German Book Trade. He has also been decorated with the medal Pour le Mérite medal and appointed Officier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres.

GRUBER’S DEPARTURE

AWAKE

Doris Knecht’s debut novel centres on Gruber, a career-orientated manager in his mid-thirties. Gruber’s life is composed of hard-nosed business meetings and casual relationships. Which is just the way he wants it. He fancies himself in the role of the arch-cynic who at times brings his girlfriend to tears just so that she knows what the difference is between TV soaps and real life. Then a diagnosis changes his life: a tumour is found in his stomach. Suddenly his self-image as a cool sex-god is shattered, and he realises that in reality he’s not quite as strong as he likes to believe. Gruber starts drinking, partying all night and getting into brawls. And during his course of chemotherapy starts to find out more about himself. Gruber falls in love. His cancer goes into remission. At the end of it all he’s not a better person. Perhaps just slightly more open, loving and ready to make compromises. Perhaps. A complex, spirited and angry novel featuring a hero in whom everyone can recognise themselves to some degree, whether they want to or not.

August Kreutzer can’t sleep. He aimlessly wanders around the city, at first in the evenings, then nights, walking ever further. He searches for experiences, collecting pictures and the stories behind them, in dilapidated shops, in bars and cemeteries, and on his way to the shopping mall in which he works. His rare moments of tranquillity are spent at Manja’s pancake shop. She feeds August desserts as well as stories from her own life. The summer drifts by, marked by the ever-growing distance he covers through the city, the drudgery of his daily routine and a leaden tiredness that curiously sharpens his senses. August feels pursued by a doppelganger who posts obscenities on the internet under his name. He begins to suspect himself. Somewhere between fantasy and reality, between grey suburbia and upmarket penthouses, a modern life is constructed. Albrecht Selge has created a rich, polychromatic depiction of our times that is stunningly lucid yet striated through with filaments of the past. Awake is a clear-sighted novel by an author who trusts in the sixth sense, the sense of the awareness of what is possible.

March 2011 240 pages

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Rowohlt | fiction

© Karin Rocholl

Rowohlt·Berlin | fiction

July 2011 256 pages

Percy also becomes renowned for his ability to speak to people in a way they have never been spoken to before. His unguarded way of speaking makes Percy famous in a world in which everything seems subsumed by preparation and preservation.

«in Mother’s Son, declarations of belief and deeds coalesce into a novel of life that raises the pulse while being ironic and perceptive.» Die Zeit • The new masterpiece by Martin Walser. • Rights to Walser’s last novel A Loving Man were sold to 21 countries.

MOTHER’S SON His mother gives him the name Anton, and calls him Percy. Working as a tailor, she lives alone, even when she is living with a man. Over many years she writes letters to Ewald Kainz, who once held a political speech on the steps of the Neue Schloss in Stuttgart. The letters are never sent, instead she reads them to her son. Percy works as a psychiatric nurse at the state hospital in Scherblingen; his career is advanced by Professor Augustin Feinlein, the director of the hospital, who is driven by a failed romance into the saving arms of religious belief. Ewald Kainz is admitted to the hospital following an unsuccessful suicide attempt. Having spent many years concerning himself with politics, Kainz has become a motorcycle instructor. Percy has by this time become somewhat famous, as, refusing to bow to worldly common sense, he preserves within him the idea that he is a child with no biological father. Although he doesn’t want to communicate this idea to others, he wants the freedom to believe.

A Loving Man

Blossoms of Fear

July 2011 512 pages

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“Germany has brought forth a new, first-rate storyteller: Dirk Kurbjuweit.” Der Tagesspiegel rororo | fiction

DAVID WAGNER was born in 1971 in Andernach, Germany.

GEORG KLEIN, born in Augsburg in 1953, has published –

DIRK KURBJUWEIT was born in

His debut My Night-Blue Trousers attracted significant critical attention. His most recent previous work is the novel Four Apples. He is a recipient of the Walter Serner Prize, the Dedalus Prize for Contemporary Literature, the Georg K. Glaser Prize and other awards. He lives in Berlin.

amongst others – the novels Libidissi, Barbar Rosa and The Naked Night Visitor, along with the short story collections Invocation of the Blind Fish and Something About Germans. He has been awarded the Brothers Grimm Prize and the Bachmann Prize for his prose, and received the Leipzig Book Fair Prize in 2010 for The Novel Of Our Childhood. Georg Klein lives with his wife and their two sons in East Frisia.

MY NIGHT-BLUE TROUSERS

THE NOVEL OF OUR CHILDHOOD

For most people, a pair of trousers is just a piece of fabric. But not for the first person narrator of this unusual novel. Maybe it’s because the first day he wore his new night blue trousers, he got to know a young woman. It’s the start of a romance set in Berlin, followed by a journey to the Rhine river and into the childhood of a generation.

A seemingly unending summer envelops the new settlement, including a disused public house nestled among old chestnut trees and the allotments where the children play during their long summer holidays. Slowly, almost imperceptibly, an otherworldly eeriness starts to seep in. A murder is prophesied. And then the messengers arrive, literally from another world. And it seems as though they will pull at least one of the children over to the shadow-side of this idyllic summer. The Novel of Our Childhood shows Georg Klein, winner of numerous awards and subject of much critical acclaim, at the height of his creative powers.

1962 in Wiesbaden and has worked as a journalist at Die Zeit and Der Spiegel. In 2008 he took over as head of Der Spiegel’s Berlin office. To date he has written fi ve acclaimed novels, three of which have been turned into film scripts, including Schussangst and Zweier Ohne. Among many other awards, Kurbjuweit has received the Egon Erwin Kirsch Award in both 1998 and 2002 for his journalistic work.

«a brilliant debut.» Der Standard

• Winner of the Leipzig Book Fair Prize 2010 • Rights sold to China (Jieli) and France (Denoel).

Rowohlt·Berlin | fiction

© Sabine Sauer

rororo | fiction

THE WAR BRIDE

«dirk Kurbjuweit touches the nerve of a generation with surgical precision.» Neue Zürcher Zeitung «anyone with a taste for literature that is rooted in the present day, that is concisely told yet multifaceted should read this highly intelligent storyteller, who doesn’t have to resort to sounding ‘literary’ to prove his literary skill.» Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung «Kurbjuweit’s books are superbly written, cleverly constructed, gripping and excitingly contemporary.» Die Weltwoche

Esther decides to join the army to give her young life a sense of direction. She soon finds herself in Afghanistan, enveloped in its dust and numbing heat, and lulled by a deceptive sense of boredom that could be interrupted at any moment by a terrorist attack. Esther jumps at the chance to join a hill patrol, and discovers a wild, beautiful yet in many ways inaccessible country. She meets the mysterious Mehsud, the headmaster of a local school. Hesitantly, the two begin a tentative and dangerous relationship, and risk breaking the rules of two communities. Meeting each other soon becomes so risky that Esther is forced to ask herself what she has to do to give their deepening relationship a future. At once evocative, poignant and grittily realistic, Dirk Kurbjuweit’s story brings us so much closer to the distant, unfamiliar country that we hear mentioned almost every day. A country in which Esther realizes for the first time how war can take possession of the human heart, a country in which she is forced to make choices that will change her life irrevocably.

«dirk Kurbjuweit succeeds at everything he tries, elegantly, and in a way that entertains us. and – in a very positive sense – without sounding like a journalist.» Die Welt June 2011 160 pages

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March 2010 448 pages

March 2011 336 pages

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Deceptively peaceful surroundings and best friends – a recipe for naked terror. rororo | fiction

SILVIA KAFFKE was born in 1962 in Duisburg. She has writ-

ALEX REICHENBACH has studied English and political

PETRA HAMMESFAHR, wrote

ten several historical crime novels and won the 2000 Cultural Development Prize for Literature of the City of Düsseldorf. She lives in the Ruhrort neighbourhood of Duisburg.

sciences and lives and writes in Frankfurt.

her first novel aged 17. Her breakthrough came with The Quiet Mr Genardy, after which she’s written one bestseller after another, including The Sinner, The Mother and Memories of a Murderer. Petra Hammersfahr lives near Cologne.

RAZOR-SHARP

WATER DAMAGE

Nothing could have prepared Barbara Pross, a profiler for serial killers with the Federal police, for a life of homelessness. Suffering from depression and unable to ask her friends and family for help, she loses her job, then her home and ends up on the streets. That happen to be roamed by a serial killer preying on homeless women and prostitutes. Barbara soon finds herself working an undercover job she never asked for...

A mutilated body turns up at a hydroelectric dam on the Main river. The dead woman’s face has been brutally ravaged by her murderer. No-one knows who she is, no-one seems to be missing her. Detective Chief Superintendent Winter, himself father of a 16-year-old girl, is encountering opposition to his investigation. A hot new lead in the case is unearthed by his somewhat overzealously politically correct and self-confident Turkish colleague Aksoy. Just as the case seems closed, Aksoy discovers that Winter’s daughter knew the victim. The case is reopened...

• Water Damage is the first in a new crime series around Detective Chief Superintendent Winter and his Turkish colleague Hilal Aksoy.

July 2011 304 pages

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September 2011 320 pages

Wunderlich | fiction

• Petra Hammesfahr’s novels have been translated into 16 languages. • The First Lady of German thriller writing with over four million copies sold.

© privat

rororo | fiction

THE WOMANHUNTER Nobody knows that he’s even there. No-one has read the signs, has found the bodies of the kept women he thinks are parasites, afforded easy lifestyles by the husbands they cheat on. Marlene doesn’t have to lift a finger, has everything she ever wanted, is married to a successful businessman, has two well-adjusted grown up children and a house. But the feeling of being needed escapes her. So she’s only too glad to help an old friend, Andreas Jäger, when he’s in trouble. Soon after, Marlene wakes up in total darkness and can’t remember how she got there.

The Sinner

Memories of a Murderer

February 2011 432 pages

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Kindler | fiction

rororo | fiction

BORIS MEYN was born in 1961 and received a doctorate

KATE LEONARD and her husband emigrated to Ireland in

ASTRID FRITZ

PETRA SCHIER

in the history of art and architecture. In addition to his scientific work he has published several historical crime novels with great success. He lives with his family in the North of Germany.

the 1980s, where she became a writer, starting with stories, features and audio plays. Today, Kate Leonard lives in Dublin and Hamburg. Early Snow is her first crime novel.

THE PLAGUE ANGEL

THE SPICE TRADER

CONTAMINATION

EARLY SNOW

The year is 1348. As the plague inexorably sweeps toward Freiburg, the town’s Jews are quickly made a scapegoat. When Clara discovers that her son has been meeting their Jewish neighbour’s daughter Esther, she is determined to protect her son from this dangerous relationship. Meanwhile, Clara’s husband realises that the Black Death is a transmitted disease and sends his family away from the town. After his death, Clara returns to Freiburg to assume his legacy. Setting malice and prejudice aside, she courageously begins a fight not only against the plague but also the town’s hatred of the Jewish community.

Luzia, a farmer’s daughter, enters service and moves with her employers to Koblenz. She is fascinated by the pace and variety of life in the city. When Martin Wied, a spice trader, asks her to work for him, Luzia soon realizes that she has found her vocation. Her new-found talents as a saleswoman and her beauty soon awake the interest of others. Of all people, the son of Martin’s biggest business rival wants to marry her. When Martin is accused of murder, Luzia, convinced of his innocence, tries to find the real murderer…

A body is found near the old Nobel dynamite factory. The dead man was a researcher in local history, father of a girl who died of leukemia and generally not an easy man to get on with. Kommissar Herbst soon discovers uncomfortable truths that have been swept under the carpet for six decades, secrets with fatal consequences. And he uncovers the shocking story of an American who, in the Spring of 1945, was parachuted in behind enemy lines carrying a Geiger counter…

May 2011 384 pages

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Deep in the snowy Dublin Mountains, the body of sculptor Aidan Flynn is found in his studio. He has been beaten to death. The investigation by detective Julia O’Sullivan and her assistant Luke is hampered by a wall of silence. The list of the charismatic artist’s enemies is long. Before his death, Aidan had been arguing violently with his partner, Sarah. Julia’s search for the murderer soon takes her in another direction, on a journey into her family’s past that leads towards her own father, who helped Aidan make his artistic breakthrough…

October 2011 288 pages

July 2011 416 pages

October 2011 480 pages

rororo | fiction

rororo | fiction

GUIDO DIECKMANN

SERENA DAVID

THE QUEEN OF LIGHT AND DARKNESS

THE DAUGHTER OF THE SEA

Hamburg in the 19th century: Jenny Biow’s dreams become reality when her brother, who has been tinkering around with Daguerreotypes, asks her to assist him with his work. With Jenny’s help his dusty studio is transformed into one of the city’s leading attractions. Suddenly, one of their clients is found dead, the first of a trail of corpses across the city. Every single one a former client of the Biow family enterprise...

On nights with a full moon, merpeople, the people of the sea, are granted anything they might wish. They are even permitted to walk among humans for a few hours. On one of these nights, a mermaid named Nixe meets Adrian, an architecture student spending his summer holidays in a coastal village in Scotland. To stay with Adrian, Nixe is ready to do the unthinkable. She is prepared to become human. But discarding your own sense of identity is no easy thing...

October 2011 320 pages

October 2011 352 pages

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Wunderlich | fiction

Polaris | fiction

rororo | fiction

MIA MORGOWSKI lives in Hamburg and works in an

HANS RATH, born in 1965, studied philosophy, German and psychology in Bonn. He lives in Berlin, where he earns a living as, among other roles, a script writer. His debut novel, Man tut, was man kann, was a smash hit. The sequel, Da muss man durch, was published in the summer of 2010.

MARK WERNER was born in 1969, studied German and

advertising agency. Her first novel No Sex Is Also Not the Answer was a huge success and sold more than 150.000 copies. Next, Please is her third novel.

SEBASTIAN SCHNOY was born in 1969 and lives in Hamburg. He studied history and then went on to become a well-known stand-up comedian with about 150 shows per year.

NEXT, PLEASE!

WHAT MORE DO YOU WANT?

CRUMPLE ZONE

LET’S STAY ENEMIES

Henny dreams of a rock-star lifestyle, with concomitant LA pad, parties and gorgeous women. The reality is a decent job at the council, a good-looking girlfriend with a rich father and the best friends in the world. Until some news shatters his world: “I’m pregnant, and...” Henny doesn’t even wait to hear the rest. While on the run, he suddenly finds himself on Natali’s car bonnet, marking the beginning of what might turn out to be the night of their lives.

Tim would, and does, do anything for Sarah: stop smoking, cook vegetarian food, get into feng shui and go tango dancing. Instead of his usual Saturday football practice with the lads, he goes to a fashion show instead. And doesn’t exactly have the time of his life. But Sarah does. The singer of the Helldrivers, who happen to be playing there, is a real man. So it’s not much of a surprise when Sarah soon has a new boyfriend. Tim has had enough: no more Mr Nice Guy. But how do you stop being nice? Is there some kind of school for this? And how much of a bastard does a man have to be to become irresistible to women?

Dr Paul Rosen has decided on a noble career fighting the signs of human aging, mainly because the money’s great and women are literally queuing up to take their clothes off. Nella isn’t one of them. OK, her new GP is certainly extremely attractive, but also very cheeky. Nella and Paul happen to be on the same flight to Geneva and find that they have to rely on each other: Nella is having a nasty reaction to the pill she’s taken against her fear of flying, while Paul needs a female companion for a business meeting at a Swiss clinic. He introduces the dazed Nella as his wife...

May 2011 320 pages

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Kids and a career – what more could you possibly want? Quite a lot, actually, as Paul is starting to realise. For a start, the mother of his child isn’t Iris, who he’s always held a torch for, but her sister Audrey. Not that he’s allowed to look after his kid much, anyway. And his career is going down the tubes. But with the help of his old flatmates from (better) days gone by he decides to get things back on track – with no idea that they’re all heading for a disaster of epic proportions...

history, and worked as a newspaper reporter and TV journalist before embarking on a glittering career as chief scriptwriter at an internationally renowned production company, where he developed feature films and TV shows. He has received many awards for his work, including the Deutscher Fernsehpreis. Mark Werner lives and works near Cologne.

• Rath’s two previous novels sold more than 150.000 copies

June 2011 256 pages

September 2011 288 pages

August 2011 256 pages

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Polaris | fiction

Kindler | fiction

PIA OSTERWALD

ANJA GOERZ

FRÄULEINWUNDER

LOVE FM

Cosima has it all sorted out. Her divorce has come through, and her son has moved out. Then she finds herself hurled back through time to the 1950s. It’s the time of kidney-shaped tables and petticoats, and a stifled life as a frustrated housewife. Women can’t open a bank account on their own, can’t work without the permission of their husband, and a healthy sense of self-confidence generally isn’t appreciated. Cosima is disgusted, and begins a spirited fight against injustice. Until she meets Paul, the love of her life....

Up to now, Ina’s life has worked like this: you fall in love, feel as though you’re on cloud nine, while the next Casanova is lying right next to you. But Ina has had enough of all that, and decides to start over on Sylt, the most beautiful island in the world. Almost straight away, she falls for the host of a local radio station. And it’s not just a cup of coffee she’s after, she wants a white dress and financial security. After a boozy night out, she wakes up with a love bite. Has her deepest wish finally come true?

BIRAND BINGÜL was born in 1974. Currently an editor at WDR, he has spent many years honing his insights into social integration and immigration questions, including a guest commentator role in the ARD’s flagship Tagesthemen current affairs show. Mr Hodscha and Mrs Piepenkötter is his second novel.

SUSANNE FALK was born in 1976 in Kappeln and studied German at the universities of Rostock and Vienna. From 1998 to 1999 she lived in Rome, where she met Luigi, the hairdresser from The Miracle of Treviso. Susanne Falk now lives in Vienna with her family. The Miracle of Treviso is her first novel.

MR HODSCHA AND MRS PIEPENKÖTTER

THE MIRACLE OF TREVISO

The large Turkish community of a mid-sized, run of the mill industrial city gets a new spiritual leader. Nuri Hodscha has big ideas, and announces the building of a splendorous new mosque – without first consulting the city’s mayor. A political conservative, Ursel Piepenkötter is furious, and senses an opportunity to score a few points ahead of a looming election with a well-measured dose of populism. But when she tries to show Hodscha who’s boss in the media, she finds out that she’s dealing with a very capable opponent.

Nestled in the north Italian countryside, the tiny village of Treviso is in suffering – because of its own insignificance. Don Antonio, the village priest, has had enough: the village needs a miracle. He arranges for a statue of the Madonna to be manipulated, and lo and behold the statue sheds red tears at the next mass.

June 2011 256 pages

May 2011 256 pages

rororo | fiction

rororo | fiction

HENRIETTE KUHRT

LILLI BECK

ONE MAN AFTER ANOTHER

YOU DON’T LOOK YOUR AGE!

It was supposed to be just a one night stand without breakfast, but turned out to have serious consequences. Katharina, a reporter, gets pregnant by would-be TV star Harry. Just as she manages to get her career back on track as a single mother, the good-looking Christian turns up. Everything might just turn out perfectly after all. Were it not for Harry, who suddenly reappears in Katharina’s life. Having landed it big in TV in the meantime, he’s convinced that being a responsible father is the key to his personal happiness...

Rosy is heading for her 50th birthday. Time for the bus pass and the walking frame? Far from it: Rosy has never felt more alive. Her divorce is finally through, the kids have moved out and a wellearned health spa holiday is coming up. But one after the other the members of her family turn up, including her annoying mother-in-law who brings all sorts of problems with her. And to top it all, Rosy opens the door one day to a long lost love from days gone by...

August 2011 256 pages

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May 2011 288 pages

Immediately the media pick up the story and the village is inundated with pilgrims from all over the world. Everyone profits, including the supermarket, the trattoria and even Don Antonio. His sister Maria arrives in Treviso to help him out with his new duties; a tender romance begins with Luigi, the village hairdresser. But then an emissary of the Vatican arrives charged with establishing the miracle’s veracity...

July 2011 256 pages

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CRISTINA CAMERA

JANNE MOMMSEN

RAINER MORITZ

ULI T. SWIDLER

THE SONG OF LONGING

A BEACH CHAIR FOR GRANDMA

THE BIG DREAM

THE POLIZIOTTO

It’s 1929 and a dream comes true for Theresa: a summer at the Grand Hotel in Rimini, favoured by earls, dukes and successful businessmen. Theresa has been sent there by her boss to sell his inventions. But in the evenings, Theresa revels in her true passion and performs as a singer in nightclubs. When she falls in love with a mysterious marquis, her happiness seems to be complete. Were it not for her fiancé in Berlin and the fact that all her documents have been stolen. Could it be that her new lover is just using her?

Sönke and Maria have been living happily for a year on the island of Föhr. When their cousin Jade turns up, they’re suddenly out of their depth. Instead of the sweet, well-behaved child they remember, Jade has mutated into a teenager with piercings all over her face. And they start to become a bit concerned about grandma, who seems to be getting more forgetful. Their luck has definitely run out when Maria’s ex turns up on the island. But here on this Caribbeanlike island in the North Sea, problems solve themselves in their own special way...

In 1874, Konrad Koch begins work as an English teacher at a high school in Brunswick still characterized by military exercises and the austere traditions of Imperial Germany. He decides to employ a sport unknown in Germany at this time: football. His class soon develops a zeal for the new sport, and is gripped by a feeling of team spirit. Not everyone finds liking in the new developments, and Koch is confronted with stern opposition, which heightens dramatically when the pupils themselves take the initiative…

Roberto Rossi is a poliziotto, a traffic cop in Urbino. 16,000 inhabitants, very Italian and very picturesque, that is if you ignore the corpse lying in the Palazzo Ducale. Strangely, Roberto is handed the job of clearing the murder up, despite being both a traffic policeman and not exactly the sharpest tool in the shed. He manages to do just that, though, with the help of his rather annoying neighbour, who turns out to be a retired detective from Munich.

July 2011 448 pagess

July 2011 256 pages

May 2011 320 pages

March 2011 256 pages

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Kindler | fiction

WIGALD BONING

PETER KNORR

PHILIPP MATTHEIS

JAN WEILER

MALLORCA: THE ISLAND OF ISLANDS

THE MIDDLE OF NOWHERE

THE BOOK OF THE 39 TREASURES

Every year, hordes of tourists travel to Mallorca to people its beaches, pubs and clubs. A nightmare scenario, admits Peter Knorr, but no reason to give up on Mallorca completely. Knorr fell in love with the Balearic island over 20 years ago, and has written a wonderful book for travellers who have the vague feeling that a fantastic holiday might await them, if they’d only dare to venture more than 50 metres away from their hotel...

In this highly entertaining book about a youth spent in the middle of nowhere, Philipp Mattheis tells of his woefully unsuccessful attempts at flirting with the village’s most attractive girl, of the fights at the bus stop, the drinking binges behind the farm sheds as well as of the endless longing to see the big, wide world outside the village he grew up in. Mattheis’ reminiscences are described in his characteristically dry, sarcastic style, and, despite it all, exude a certain measure of nostalgia...

This is a collection of Jan Weiler’s best work from the last 20 years, intertwining comedy with general knowledge, pop culture with the absurd, journalistic observations with personal reflections. If you want to know why Jan Weiler is a die-hard non-swimmer, exactly what it is that women like about having their hair played with and the secret of the legendary potato dish Braatzkartoffeln, then this is a must-read: the whole spectrum of Jan Weiler’s work in one volume.

THE SIGNIFICANCE OF SKIRTING BOARDS At long last, the pressing issues of the age are addressed. Well, sort of. In this highly pleasing, witty book, Wigald Boning shows us what the connection is between skirting boards and the French revolution, what a botanical safari in the pedestrian precinct next to Cologne’s cathedral is like, and how you can tell what the cultural tastes of politicians are based on their haircuts. A tome of essential (and not-so-essential) knowledge.

September 2011 224 pages

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June 2011 128 pages

October 2011 256 pages

March 2011 366 pages / illustrated

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„You white-haired, snow-covered, headless, wonderful, ostracized man of violence, who confuses himself with his victims, is removed from his own history and cowers whimpering and powerless in the darkness.”

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ROLF HOCHHUTH was born in 1931 in Eschwege, and was

THOMAS HARLAN was born in 1929 to the actress Hilde

THOMAS HARLAN was born in

working as a publishing editor when, on a trip to Rome, he started conceptual work on his first play, Der Stellvertreter (The Deputy). Staged for the first time in 1963 by Erwin Piscator in Berlin, the piece gained attention worldwide. Over the years, Hochhuth has produced a large body of plays, essays and poetry, for which he has received many awards. He lives in Berlin.

Körber and Veit Harlan, the director of the Nazi propaganda film Jud Süß. He has authored plays and several books, such as the novels Rosa (2000) and Heldenfriedhof (2006), as well as Die Stadt Ys (2007), a collection of stories. He died on the 16th October 2010.

ESSAYISTIC PROSE AND POETRY

HITLER WAS MY DOWRY

On its publication in 1965, Hochhuth’s essay "The Class War Is Not Over" ignited a firestorm of controversy among the political and economic establishment. It marked the beginning of a fascinating essayistic and journalistic oeuvre. Hochhuth’s guiding interests are history and politics. His erudite and insightful portraits examine a range of personalities, from the triumphs of Bismarck or Churchill and the tragic failures of the Scholl siblings or Bavaud and Elser, the would-be assassins of Hitler, through to thinkers like Jakob Burckhardt, Karl Jaspers or Oswald Spengler. The comprehensive selection of work presented in this volume allows us to take stock of Hochhuth’s output, but also includes many texts and poems never before published as well as the new play "The Flying Dutchman".

Thomas Harlan has lived and experienced history. This book takes us on a journey through his childhood during the Third Reich, his years in France and Poland, his friendship with Klaus Kinski, and his uneasy political and artistic relationship with the post-war Federal Republic of Germany. In a series of interviews with Jean-Pierre Stephan, Harlan discusses his unusual life with disarming frankness.

1929 to the actress Hilde Körber and Veit Harlan, the director of the Nazi propaganda film Jud Süß. He has made several films, including Torre Bela (1977) and Wundkanal (1984). He has also authored plays and several books, such as the novels Rosa (2000) and Heldenfriedhof (2006), as well as Die Stadt Ys (2007), a collection of stories. Thomas Harlan died on the 16th October 2010 only days after completing Veit.

March 2011 1744 pages

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May 2011 288 pages / illustrated

Rowohlt | fiction

© Filmmuseum München

Rowohlt | fiction

VEIT “Son, I think I understand you.” In April 1964, Veit Harlan calls his son Thomas to Capri, to his deathbed. But it’s too late for the conversation that could have begun with that sentence. His death draws itself out over three days, and for three days Thomas relives their shared history. He remembers his feeling of relief about the acquittal of his father in 1949, charged with crimes against humanity. And being appalled at the judge who acquitted him, a state prosecutor during the Nazi era who demanded and effected death sentences. We see the young Thomas, who leaves Germany for Paris, and serves tea to Thomas Mann, who has “retreated deep into his own shattered body”. We see scenes set in Munich after the war in which Veit celebrates his reunion with Kurt Georg Wiesinger; we see Klaus Kinski, who to Veit’s horror has become his son’s best friend and how he and Thomas set cars on fire in Munich’s English

Rosa

Heldenfriedhof

Garden park. We experience a “lost, confused family” that shattered, and not just because of Jud Süß. Veit is an apology by a son who has left his father alone for twenty years. A son who wants “to straighten out everything that has not yet been straightened out”. It is both a declaration of love and a condemnation, and a work of immense rhetorical power.

«his prose, with its wantonly sprawling sentence structure, powerful diction and astounding precision, seeks its equal in post-war literature.» Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung

March 2011 160 pages

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The Shadow – From Goebbels to Carlos the Jackal: The Life of François Genoud Rowohlt | non-fiction

MICHAEL DEGEN was born in 1932 in Chemnitz, and sur-

KLAUS MANN was born in Munich in 1906, the first child of

WILLI WINKLER was born in

vived the Nazi era with his mother in hiding in Berlin. After the war he completed an apprenticeship at Berlin’s Deutsches Theater. He has appeared on all the major German stages and worked with directors such as Ingmar Bergmann, Peter Zadek and George Tabori. His 1999 autobiography Not All of Them Were Murderers was a bestseller.

Thomas and Katia Mann. He began his literary career as the enfant terrible of the Weimar Republic. After 1933 he became an important figure in the German literary elite that had been forced into exile by the Nazis. Klaus Mann’s death in 1949 in Cannes was caused by an overdose of sleeping pills.

FAMILY BONDS

“DEAR AND VENERABLE UNCLE HEINRICH...”

1957 and studied in Munich and St. Louis. He has translated John Updike, Anthony Burgess and Saul Bellow into German and was an editor at the Zeit newspaper and Spiegel magazine. He currently writes for the Süddeutsche Zeitung. His previous books include Mick Jagger and the Rolling Stones (2002) and The Story of the RAF (2007). In 1998 he was awarded the Ben Witter Prize.

He raged and ranted, drank and lived a life of excess, but was never able to throw off the shadow of his all-powerful father. The story of the gifted, eccentric Michael Mann, youngest son of Thomas Mann, is masterfully told by Michael Degen. He tells of Michael’s childhood in the loveless family home under the emotionally cold spell cast by the Nobel laureate, and of Michael’s internationally successful career as a violist. And of his sudden, life-changing decision to become a professor of German literature at Berkeley and to dedicate his working life to the writings of his father, whose affections he had vainly attempted to gain throughout his life. Michael dies aged only 58 of a deadly mixture of alcohol and sleeping tablets. As his mother Katia hears of his apparent suicide, she remarks that he “didn’t want to get old anyway”. Family Bonds relates Michael Mann’s life in the context of a silent struggle for power, and depicts an existence that is destroyed by the overwhelming talents and influences of others. A powerful, opulent and emotive novel about the Mann family.

This book fills a gap in the 100-year chronology of the Mann family. The relationship between Heinrich and his nephew Klaus has until now been largely ignored by literary researchers, despite a relationship defined by their similar political views. A novel such as Klaus Mann’s Mephisto would be unthinkable without Heinrich Mann’s Der Untertan. In a certain context, Heinrich Mann was an intellectual father figure for his nephew, and from time to time even an ersatz father in a wider sense. This book focuses on correspondence between Klaus and Heinrich Mann, the majority of which has until now never been published. Their letters are included in their entirety, accompanied by a detailed commentary. Additionally, this volume includes every diary entry by Klaus Mann mentioning his uncle and every major text written by nephew or uncle about the other. The second focal point is an exhaustive portrayal of both uncle and nephew by Inge Jens and Uwe Naumann examining the role played by both authors in the political and literary developments of the time.

March 2011 464 pages

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July 2011 320 pages

Rowohlt·Berlin | non-fiction

© Kristina Krombholz

Rowohlt·Berlin | fiction

«Winkler describes his protagonist with the linguistic ability of an experienced journalist, the precision of a historian and the tender sarcasm of someone who is well familiar with the violent history of the 20 th century.» Spiegel Online

THE SHADOW No one knew him, and more than a few people doubt he ever existed – the Swiss banker, left-wing terrorism supporter and ideological Nazi François Genoud. Who was the man who united in his own person so many of the extremes of the twentieth century? During the Third Reich, Genoud spied on behalf of the German intelligence services and later secured the publishing rights to the writings of Nazi Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels. After World War II, he became involved in the Algerian liberation movement and established contact with the Palestinian terrorist organizations responsible for the massacre at the 1972 Olympic Games. He also helped organize assassinations and kidnappings for the left while remaining a Nazi war criminal on par with Adolf Eichmann and Klaus Barbie. Willi Winkler analyzes the psychology of a mysterious puppet master who pulled the strings in the background. This story sheds new light on the fascist network of the post-war era and its connections to left-wing terrorism.

The Story of the RAF

Mick Jagger and the Rolling Stones

256 pages January 2011

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Further than Wolfgang Büscher has ever been before. Rowohlt | non-fiction

Rowohlt | non-fiction

KARLA SCHEFTER was born in 1942 and was head surgi-

FRANZISKA STORZ, MARTIN LANGEDER, MAURITIUS MUCH, MARC BAUMANN AND BASTIAN OBERMAYER work as freelance writers in Munich

I WON’T GIVE UP ON PEOPLE In Spring 1989, just after the withdrawal of Soviet troops, Karla Schefter came to Chak in the province of Wardak. Even back then the country was at war. But today's war is far less tangible; ambushes, suicide bombings and kidnappings are everyday occurrences. In her time there, Karla Schefter has seen four regime changes in Afghanistan: The fight of the Mujahideen against the Communist Najibullah regime; the civil war, in which several Mujahideen groups fought each other; the brutality of the Taliban period. And the era of hope that dawned in 2001 with the first democratic elections and the subsequent disappointment when progress failed to materialise and instead gave over to conditions that worsen year on year. Schefter offers a startlingly frank view of a country ravaged by war, and provides a unique, previously unavailable inside view of conditions and life in Afghanistan. She could have given up long ago, but giving up is simply not an option. Because that would mean giving up on the people around her.

May 2011 256 pages

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born in 1951 and has written for Süddeutsche Zeitung, Geo and the Neue Zürcher Zeitung, and headed the travel desk at Die Welt. Today he writes for Die Zeit. Wolfgang Büscher has received many awards for his work including the Kurt Tucholsky Award, the Wilhelm Müller Literature Award and, in 2006, the Ludwig Börne Prize.

and write for SZ-Magazin. They have collected letters, emails and text messages from soldiers in Afghanistan and published them in SZ-Magazin. They received the Henri Nannen Award 2010 for their work.

FROM THE FRONT: LETTERS FROM SOLDIERS IN AFGHANISTAN When the German army found out that the SZ-Magazin, the colour supplement of the Süddeutsche Zeitung, was planning to publish letters by soldiers, it did everything in its power to stop the project from going ahead. In these documents, the men and women that go to war on our behalf tell their stories, offering a bleakly honest view of the difficulties of their everyday life. They tell of the horrors of terrorist attacks, of torturous boredom, of dangerous missions, of the local people, of anger, sympathy and death, of cabin fever, and talk about love, missing their families and friends, their personal fears and what they miss from home. And what they think of the politicians that have sent them to war. This book gives new, unvarnished insights into a controversy that has divided the modern world, and is a must-read for everyone that wants to know what the war in Afghanistan is really like. An uncensored look at the real-world situation for troops on the ground.

March 2011 160 pages

«as seen only in great writing, Büscher’s texts are compressed, making for an exactness and precision of style that sometimes is so charged that it almost crackles.» Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung

WOLFGANG BÜSCHER was

© Frank Zaunitz

cal nurse at the Dortmund municipal clinic until 1989. Then she went to Afghanistan and established a hospital under the most difficult circumstances imaginable that still offers free care to the people of Afghanistan. 86,000 patients were treated there last year alone. Karla Schefter has been awarded the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany (Officer’s Cross grade), the Bambi award and the Malalai Order, the highest decoration for women in Afghanistan.

Rowohlt·Berlin | non-fiction

«Büscher has a good chance of being counted to the classic writers of travel literature, and being placed even above Bruce Chatwin.» Süddeutsche Zeitung

HARTLAND Walking through America for three months; 3500 km from north to south. That’s the scale of the adventure attempted by Wolfgang Büscher. In the snow-covered North Dakota prairie he discovers Hartland, a town which used to be called Heartland, where he befriends a mysterious Indian cowboy. Then he follows Route 77 from Nebraska to the Rio Grande. In Kansas Büscher finds himself spreadeagled on the bonnet of a sheriff’s car in the middle of the road. He sleeps in eerie motels and Victorian mansions, flees from a doss house and is chased by dogs. Then on to Texas, with its ranches, some as big as small countries. The heat of the South. Through Waco, where the FBI laid siege to the armed Branch Davidian sect for weeks, and where he meets the man at the head of the group today. A man living insanity. Büscher drifts further south until he disappears into the Mexican desert... A unique travel adventure written by an author whose books, according to Der Spiegel, are among the best to appear in German in the last few years.

Berlin-Moscow: A Journey On Foot

Asian Absences

• Previous works by the author have been sold to ten countries.

May 2011 288 pages

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Nobody’s perfect. Not even the most gifted musicians in the world. Rowohlt | non-fiction

Rowohlt·Berlin | non-fiction

BETTINA WÜNDRICH has had a hugely successful publishing career in a range of roles, including editor-in-chief, writer and product developer. She has supervised or worked with many renowned magazine titles and currently advises newspaper and magazine publishers on the development of new products and works as a freelance writer.

SYLKE TEMPEL was born in 1963 in Bayreuth. After receiving

DANIEL HOPE was born in 1974 in

her doctorate she became the Middle East correspondent for Die Woche, and later became a staff reporter for the Jüdische Allgemeine. Since 2008 she is the editor-in-chief of Internationale Politik magazine. She has published many books, including Israel – Reise durch ein altes, neues Land (2008).

Durban, South Africa and grew up in London. Among his teachers was Yehudi Menuhin. He was a member of the Beaux Arts Trio from 2002 to 2008. He has received countless awards, including the Echo Award for classical music on several occasions.

ALONE AT THE TOP: WHY WORKING WOMEN ARE HAPPIER

A LIFE. A CENTURY.

30 years after leaving their all-girls school, a class meets up for a school reunion. And the crowd is quickly divided into winners and losers. Much to her surprise, Bettina Wündrich finds herself on the losers’ side despite a fantastically successful publishing career, including several posts as editor-inchief. But: she has neither children nor a husband. Stastically speaking, she is “alone at the top.” And often has to deal with outmoded stereotypes and even the the pity of men and women alike. This book is a plea not only for personal but also economic independence. Is it also a plea for a career being more important than having children? On the contrary. But it is only when we realise how important a working life is for women that we can demand that the option of having both children and a successful career is made viable.

July 2011 224 pages

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Freya von Moltke (1911-2010) was a living symbol of the civil resistance against Hitler. She and her husband Helmuth James were the focal point of the Kreisau Circle. They held secret meetings with opponents of the regime on their family estate to plan the return of democracy to Germany. While her husband was arrested in 1944 and later condemned to death, Freya escaped with her two sons to South Africa, before moving on to the USA. She was not only one of the last surviving members of resistance groups in Germany but also played a central role in the difficult process of German-Polish post-war rapprochement. Using many sources which have until now remained largely unexplored, Sylke Tempel traces the meandering path of Freya von Moltke’s life. From her early years as a member of a Cologne banking family, through her student life in Hitlerdeutschland, to her key role in the German resistance and the effects of her post-war work. This is the portrait of a formidable, courageous woman, the embodiment of German history in the 20th century.

February 2011 240 pages

«the new star among today’s violinists.» Welt am Sonntag • Rights to the author’s previous work When Am I Allowed to Clap? were sold to Croatia (Viza), Korea (Munhaksegyesa) and Russia (AST).

© H.Hoffmann

Rowohlt | non-fiction

BREAK A LEG! What does a classical pianist do when all of a sudden, during a sell-out concert, the grand piano in front of him starts to roll away of its own accord? How does a violinist react when a string breaks in the middle of a performance? What does a conductor do when someone in the front row of the audience falls asleep and starts snoring loudly? Or when a dress circle door slams? There are countless tales and anecdotes about musical mishaps and disasters, even about masters like Bach, Beethoven and Mozart. Today’s stars like Sting, Lang Lang, Yehudi Menuhin, Simon Rattle and Daniel Barenboim aren’t immune from them, either. Daniel Hope has performed with many of today’s most famous musicians and gives us an unvarnished inside view of what can and has happened in concert venues around the world. An entertaining and informative book.

Family Pieces

When Am I Allowed to Clap?

March 2011 192 pages

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Rowohlt·Berlin | non-fiction

Rowohlt | non-fiction

Rowohlt | non-fiction

GISELA GRAICHEN studied journalism, law and political

HENNING BURK ET AL. This book has been put together by a team of filmmakers, including Henning Burk and Erika Fehse, the WDR TV journalists Susanne Spröer and Gudrun Wolter and the well-known historian Marita Krauss. It is based on previously unpublished sources and interviews.

ALFRED GROSSER was born in 1925 in Frankfurt and

BAHMAN NIRUMAND was born in 1936 in Tehran, studied in Germany and wrote his doctoral thesis on Brecht. Returning to Iran, he was forced to flee in 1965 and again in the 1970s by the dictatorship of the Mullahs. He played an important role in establishing a democratic opposition not only to the Shah but also to Ayatollah Khomeini. Nirumand lives in Berlin.

science, and received her diploma in political economics. Her last book, Deutsche Kolonien, was on the Spiegel bestseller list for ten weeks. She lives in Hamburg. DR. ROLF HAMMEL-KIESOW is assistant director of the civic archives in Lübeck and honorary professor at the University of Kiel. Since 1994 he has been a member of the managing board at the Hanseatic Historical Society. He lives in Lübeck.

THE HANSEATIC LEAGUE: A COVERT SUPERPOWER In January 1358, a loose federation of international traders and cities landed a monumental propaganda coup. It gave itself a name, establishing a new financial superpower: the German Hanseatic League. At the height of its influence, it counted up to 200 cities as members. How did the League become so powerful that it waged wars on kings, shaped world trade for half a millennium over a huge region from Russia to Flanders and created a massive trading network that linked Iceland with Venice? What was the secret of its success? This book tells of courage and fraud, of speculators and financial crises, of adventurers and soldiers of fortune. And examines the question of how modern an entity the League was. Destined to take its place as the new reference work on the Hanseatic League, this absorbing book presents a gripping yet informative narrative, and features colour illustrations throughout.

May 2011 288 pages / illustrated

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FOREIGN HOMELANDS After World War II, around 12 million people came to Germany from all over Central and Eastern Europe with nothing – except the memories of their lost homes and homelands, and the determination not to give up. They came from Silesia, Pommerania and East Prussia and found that they were not welcome. They not only had to re-establish their lives, but also had to deal with enmity and sometimes even outright hostility. How did these displaced people deal with their situation? How did the local families react to this influx? Were these communities in which everyone was compelled to live together really characterized by solidarity and mutual understanding? Foreign Homelands focuses on a dramatic chapter in history, retelling the stories of those post-war refugees. It is only recently that many of those affected have felt able to tell their stories. Based on previously unpublished sources and including many interviews with displaced people and the locals who took them in, this book is a moving depiction of an important phase in recent history.

March 2011 288 pages / illustrated

was professor at the Institut d’études politique in Paris. Since the 1950s, he has become well-known in Germany through his newspaper articles, speeches, books and appearances on the radio. In 1975 he was awarded the Friedenspreis des deutschen Buchhandels as well as many other awards and commendations. He has written over 30 books; his last work, Von Auschwitz nach Jerusalem (2009) was published by Rowohlt.

BETWEEN JOY AND DEATH A RETROSPECTIVE OF MY LIFE Almost no-one has done more than Alfred Grosser to reestablish German-Franco ties in the aftermath of the Second World War. A professional political scientist, Grosser was born in Frankfurt as a Jew and now lives in France as a convinced atheist. He is not only a formidable public speaker but also a fearless spirit that has never allied itself to one particular political doctrine. This forms the moral legitimacy that allows him to take on a special role as a public figure who can warn and admonish us, and call to our attention that which we would prefer to forget. This autobiography is a deeply personal look at Grosser’s fascinating life and explains why he has always been politically active. His guiding creed has been to influence his fellow humans in an educational and enlightening way “with knowledge and personal warmth.” A fascinating and educational book for anyone with an interest in contemporary history.

March 2011 256 pages

FAR AWAY FROM WHERE I OUGHT TO BE Bahman Nirumand is 15 when he is sent away from the bustling life of Tehran to a boarding school in bleak post-war Germany. He learns German by studying Goethe, and memorizes the first volume of Faust. His first book makes him a celebrity almost overnight; Persia, a model of a developing nation is published in 1967. In its vilification of the dictatorship in Iran, the work became a literary rallying point for the protests against the Shah. Nirumand then takes his place in the vanguard of the German student movement of 1968 alongside his personal friends Rudi Dutschke, Daniel Cohn-Bendit, Peter Schneider and Ulrike Meinhof. But he is far more than a figurehead of the student movement. His life before and after this period is rich in fascinating experiences that are told here for the first time. This absorbing autobiography melds the political with the private, the anecdotal with the analytic, and exudes not only the passion of an activist but also the yearning of an exile. It is a book by and about a wanderer between two worlds.

July 2011 320 pagess

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Kindler | non-fiction

Wunderlich | non-fiction

rororo | non-fiction

Rowohlt·Berlin | non-fiction

AXEL BRÜGGEMANN was born in 1971. He studied

KLAUS "HÜPPER" WAGNER was born in 1958 in

BEATRICE POSCHENRIEDER is a couple’s therapist and

history, music and art history and has worked as a journalist for the BBC, national radio station Deutschlandfunk and for print media such as Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung, Frankfurter Rundschau and Stern.

Wattenscheid, and is one of the leaders – and the last active founding member – of the Freeway Riders, one of Germany’s oldest motorcycle clubs. Wagner is a defiantly proud defender of his club, and is one of the greats of Germany’s motorcycle culture.

coach for all kinds of troubles between the sheets. She has written several books on the topic and often functions as an expert on tv.

DENNIS GASTMANN was born in 1978. Since 2009 he has travelled the globe in the role of world reporter for the NDR programme Weltbilder. It was for this work that he was awarded the Golden Prometheus journalism award in 2009 in the Best Newcomer category. He was awarded the Axel Springer Prize in 2010 for Around the World in 80,000 Questions.

FRUSTRATIONS OF LIFE IN THE COUNTRY

FREEWAY RIDER – A BIKER’S LIFE

More and more city dwellers are either moving out to rural areas or daydreaming about getting that little house in the country. But will they really find the idyllic life they yearn for when they get there? Axel Brüggemann, who moved from Berlin back to his native village, goes on a journey through provincial backwaters to find the answer. He discovers that the country life that urbanites dream about is almost extinct. Villagers’ strong communal spirit, neighbourly help and a quiet life in harmony with nature are very hard to find these days. Instead, Brüggemann finds that schools and jobs are becoming rare and that young people are leaving rural areas for the cities. Axel Brüggemann’s book puts paid to many saccharine clichés about happiness and contentment between sheep pens and village pubs through a wealth of entertaining anecdotes and observations about life in his village, and offers both critical and affectionate views on life in the countryside. And one thing’s certain: life there is very much worth living, in spite of the downsides.

Klaus “Hüpper” Wagner’s life revolves around fast motorbikes, beautiful women and unshakable ideals. Raised in a tough mining town, his straight talking attitude pervades these unflinching recollections of childhood dares, the gruelling work down the mine, and his passion for powerful bikes. Wagner tells of the hard parties and his adventures as an outlaw biker, his time on the run, and the hard years in prison. And his untiring fight for the Freeway Riders. Wagner’s story is by turns funny, gritty and heart-warming.

SEX-CONFIDENCE

March 2011 244 pages

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What makes good sex good? Is it love? Or experience? Or being able to leave your personal taboos behind you? Or the way bodies react to each other? Beatrice Poschenrieder has found out that while these are all not exactly unimportant, they’re not essential for good sex. The secret is sex-confidence: self-assurance and feeling good about yourself, while being attentive not only to yourself and your partner but also to what might be holding you back...

Life beyond the law turns out to be a way of realising a dream almost everyone can identify with: a life of freedom where all that matters is what really matters.

March 2011 288 pages / illustrated

October 2011 256 pages

AROUND THE WORLD IN 80,000 QUESTIONS What did the Dead Sea die of? Why do all Finnish people tango? Are all Latin men machos? And how much vodka do you have to drink to be able to understand Russian? The reporter Dennis Gastmann has been on a journey around the globe for two years and has been searching for answers. He launches into his research with the stubbornness of Michael Moore and the fearlessness of Borat, but with more charm. His answers are sometimes startling, sometimes dramatic but always honest and often amusing. In Arkansas, he asks the head of the local Ku Klux Klan if he has any black friends; in Baku he tries to find out if Azerbaijan really is one of the most corrupt countries in the world. He talks with a Texan prison guard about death and with the owner of a Parisian swingers’ club about love and ‘travels’ on a circumcision train in Istanbul. In Around The World in 80,000 Questions, Gastmann relates the best and weirdest encounters he experienced across five continents.

March 2011 272 pages / illustrated

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rororo | non-fiction

rororo | non-fiction

rororo | non-fiction

rororo | non-fiction

FLORIAN SCHROEDER

MIKKA BENDER

RALPH CASPERS, CHRISTINE HENNING

JOACHIM BRAUN

OPEN FOR ANYTHING – AND NOTHING

HOLIDAYS IN HELL AND HOW TO AVOID THEM

YOU’RE NOT A WEREWOLF

BOYS IN PUBERTY – 100 THINGS YOU HAVE TO KNOW

Florian Schroeder is a self-confessed member of the STDWM generation – Something To Do With Media – and has crafted a shrewd study of his peers in the form of this book. With a BA degree in their pockets, a cool new Mac and impressivesounding projects, the STDWM generation venture forth into the global village – and often only make it as far as the nearest café. Paralysed by the choice between tall, grande and venti lattes they rev up their engines but don’t move out of neutral: A generation with myriad possibilities but powerless to make choices. June 2011 224 pages

The longed-for idyllic week in north Cyprus turns out to be a nerve-rending stay in the middle of a plastic, neon-lit hell, while the adventure trip to the Himalayas turns into an exercise in patience worthy of the Buddha himself. The list of potential holiday horrors is long to the chagrin of holidaymakers everywhere. Mikka Bender’s enormous experience as a travel writer provides the basis for this witty, telling book that shares the worst of Bender’s holiday experiences and shows you how to avoid repeating his mistakes. July 2011 224 pages

“This is about everything that goes on during that annoying phase called puberty. You’re like a werewolf at full moon. Your body’s changing, hair starts growing in places you’d rather it didn’t and you start longing for meat. No-one gets you ready for this, and that’s where we come in. We guide you through places that other people find awkward and embarrassing. For us, nothing’s embarrassing.” This book is full of practical information and help to get through a period in life that’s really not much fun: puberty.

September 2011 224 pages

How can I intervene if my son is drinking too much or taking drugs, or even closes himself off to me completely? What can I do if my son watches porn or is constantly telling lies? How should I react if he’s unhappy because of a relationship or if he stops caring about school? Joachim Braun guides through these and many other thorny issues in the lives of adolescent boys, and helps parents recognise when they still have opportunity to actively influence the situation and how to go about it in a constructive way. September 2011 192 pages

rororo | non-fiction

rororo | non-fiction

Rowohlt | non-fiction

rororo | non-fiction

HELLA VON SINNEN & CORNELIA SCHEEL

WALTRAUD AND MARIECHEN

ANNE KUNZE & KATRIN ZEUG

QUIRKS AND WHY WE LOVE THEM

BACK IN THE FAST LANE: THE SILVER GENERATION

OVER 18: YOUNG PEOPLE TODAY

UDO POLLMER, ANDREA FOCK, JUTTA MUTH, MONIKA NIEHAUS

From the age of 18, people make their own decisions and are responsible for what they do. What are the young people like that become adults in today’s world? Presenting the experiences of young adults in the form of interviews and transcripts, the two authors augment these authentic voices of a generation with questions that establish the overreaching social contexts behind their views and thoughts. The input of sociologists, psychologists and other experts completes this detailed picture of young people today.

Every time a new scandal surfaces involving the food we eat, politicians, scientists, the media and consumer protection activists all contribute to the creation of new myths. In these situations, the public wants truth but often gets spin. 30 years ago, Udo Pollmer asked in his bestseller Eat And Die, what can we still eat safely these days? This book asks another important question: who can we believe these days?

Hella von Sinnen never leaves the house without a small bottle of water, and Cornelia Scheel has to start her day on her right foot. But it’s not only the authors who have their own secret little idiosyncrasies. Like having to move cutlery so that it’s parallel to the edge of the table, or going sideways so that a new haircut isn’t ruffled by the wind. Unfortunately, these sorts of endearing quirks are often closely guarded secrets. Von Sinnen and Scheel show us that people revealing their little eccentricities makes for great reading...

October 2011 256 pages

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Getting old has its advantages, like the new freedom gleaned from not having to justify yourself to anyone. Waltraud and Mariechen make the most of their newfound liberty, ranting and gossiping tirelessly about everything and nothing, recounting the joys of causing trouble in the old people’s home, driving supermarket staff to desperation and using their walking frames as a weapon in crowded spaces. They reminisce about their lives lived to the full and show that sexuality in old age is not the taboo it once was. September 2011 224 pages / illustrated

March 2011 160 pages

COOKING IT UP: FOOD SCANDALS AND HOW THEY’RE MANUFACTURED

September 2011 224 pages

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rororo | non-fiction

HARALD BRAUN

GEORG RINGSGWANDL

VOLKER HAGE

THOMAS AMOS

GERMANY FOR FREE 2.0

LIFE: WHAT COULD BE WORSE?

MAX FRISCH

ERNST JÜNGER

Harald Braun admits that he’s a bit of a sissy and likes his cosy, secure life. But one question keeps shooting through his head: what would it be like to go without money and comfortable ways of getting around and just start walking? Braun starts off with his dog and only €20 in his rucksack for emergencies (i.e. for dog food). The only thing he takes with him is his iPhone. How reliable are social networks in real life? Will his facebook friends let him sleep on their sofa? Will his twitter followers give him a warm meal?

How do energy-saving houses affect the love lives of the people living in them? If a goiter that’s been surgically removed is radioactive, can you just throw it away? And how does small-time criminality create new jobs? Georg Ringsgwandl interweaves everyday experiences with his own keen, telling observations to create grotesquely funny stories about conflicts with his wife, his neighbours and dogs, the ailments of middle age, and rails against the annoyances of modern society with selfirony and a refreshingly earthy style.

Max Frisch’s novels and plays have long been regarded as modern classics. Among the many themes subtly yet incisively explored in Frisch’s work are identity, alienation and the human struggle to find its raison d'être. A moralist, Frisch was also a political writer, yet stood apart from all the standard ideologies of his time with his own brand of Enlightenment thought relocated to the 20th century. Volker Hage has created this insightful new portrait of the Swiss author and guides us through his major works, including the third volume of Frisch’s diaries which have only recently been published.

Ernst Jünger (1895–1998) was one of Germany’s most controversial and dazzling literary figures. Allegedly a contributor to the assumption of power by the Nazis, Jünger was a combatant in both world wars, a respected conservative author as well as an entomologist and self-confessed drug user. This work is a compact introduction to his multi-faceted oeuvre, and traces his career spanning the epochs of Imperial Germany, the Weimar Republic, the Nazi era and modern Federal Germany.

October 2011 288 pages

June 2011 160 pages

May 2011 180 pages / illustrated

September 2011 160 pages / illustrated

rororo | non-fiction

Rotfuchs | non-fiction

rororo | non-fiction

rororo | non-fiction

TOBIAS MOORSTEDT & JAKOB SCHRENK

REEVES, HOFER, KRONZUCKER

TIMO MARKWORTH

HILDE KAMMER & ELISABET BARTSCH

IN CASE OF EMERGENCY: OPEN BOOK

500 IDEAS THAT CAN HELP YOU CHANGE THE WORLD

BOB DYLAN

A YOUNG PERSON’S ENCYCLOPAEDIA OF POLITICS

Earthquakes, the H1N1 virus, pirates, plane crashes, pit bull attacks – a deadly threat seems to be lurking around every corner. At least that’s what the media suggest. Moorstedt and Schrenk have compiled a list of the most imminent life-threatening dangers and reveal how we can avoid them.

Believe in yourself “When people heard that Debo and me wanted to become singers, they laughed. But [...] we believed in ourselves. If we hadn’t, we’d never have got as far as we did.” Monika, singer of the band Sternblut Saving on letters The Century Gothic font uses 30% less ink than Arial. Other environmentally friendly fonts include Times New Roman, Calibri and Verdana. Set one of these as your standard typeface – it saves money and the use of chemicals!

March 2011 224 pages

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June 2011 256 pages / illustrated

Bob Dylan revolutionized pop music, establishing the classic role of the singer-songwriter, fearlessly transcending genres and opening popular music to moral, religious and political themes along the way. Dylan is indisputably among the very few outstanding personalities of popular music in the last 50 years. A folk singer, rock and roll poet, preacher and rock legend, Dylan has always been an individualist with a keen sensitivity for the spirit of the times. And, perhaps uniquely, he’s blazed a trail through his long artistic career without repeating or copying himself.

June 2011 160 pages / illustrated

The Young Person’s Encyclopaedia of Politics has been an institution in its own right for over 30 years. Its clear and reliable definitions of all essential political terms and concepts are a favourite not only among young people; many parents and teachers also find it indispensible. With its brief and lucid explanations, this volume helps gain a thorough understanding of current affairs as reported in newspapers, radio, TV and the internet. Completely revised and updated edition. June 2011 256 pages

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Foreign Rights Spring

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Summer

2 0 11

The new novel for young adults by bestseller author Sabine Ludwig rotfuchs | young fiction

rotfuchs | young fiction

CORA GOFFERJÉ, is an editor and producer, and writes

ALLYSSA ULLRICH has been living in Hamburg for two

SABINE LUDWIG is a successful

screenplays. She lives with her husband and son in Essen.

years, studies media management, and has just completed her second novel.

children’s author and translator for other authors including Kate DiCamillo and Eva Ibbotson. She was awarded the Leserkünstlerin des Jahres prize in 2010. Painting Marlene is her first book for young adults.

HORTENSE ULLRICH lives with her husband and her younger daughter in Bremen, having lived for eight years in New York. She is a successful author for children, teenagers and young adults.

LOVE, TO GO Hannah’s life is almost too good to be true. Jetting around the world, she goes diving with dolphins in Florida, takes part in a horse-whispering workshop in Canada and goes on a course in LA for up-andcoming young film directors. On Maui she meets Jeffrey, the love of her amazing life. But when things start getting tricky, she packs up and leaves – for an acting school in New York. Then her father announces that she’s going to business school and is to join the family business. When she refuses, she’s shocked to find that her credit card has been cancelled. Father and daughter negotiate a deal: if Hannah can keep her head above water on her own for six months, she’ll be allowed to go to New York. Hannah takes whatever jobs she can get, dresses up as a carrot for an organic supermarket, peels shrimps and ends up as a kitchen assistant in a restaurant. Then one day, Jeffrey turns up out of the blue...

MaySeptember 2011 2010 224 pagess288 pages

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LAST GIRL STANDING Charly, Leonie, Lavender, Emmy and Sofia are all in their early 20s and meet up every Friday – and mostly end up talking men. One thing is for absolute certain: nothing is ever going to push them apart. Especially not men, because their friendship comes first. Until the charming, witty Felix turns up one Friday night. Charly develops a bit of a crush on him. And then Leonie. And then Lavender. What they don’t know is that Felix has a bet going with his best friend Tim: the first one to get several relationships going at once over four weeks has won. Things are looking good for Felix, right up until the moment the girls find out what he’s up to. And revenge is going to be sweet...

January 2011 September 2011 192 pages 256 pages

© ullstein bild - Schleyer

rotfuchs | young fiction

«sabine Ludwig loves the bizarre. her stories always include the most improbable things.» Frankfurter Rundschau • A thriller for young adults – and a modern Dorian Gray.

PAINTING MARLENE 19-year-old Marlene has just passed her final school exams. To give herself some room to decide what she’s going to do with her new found freedom and, come to that, with the rest of her life, she moves into the artist’s studio of her dead father. There she sees a life-size portrait of herself that her father painted before he died. Marlene soon realises that the portrait is changing. The picture transforms so gradually that to begin with other people don’t notice. But soon it mutates unmistakably to show an increasingly salacious, even depraved, expression. Marlene starts doubting her own sanity, then becomes deeply afraid. Who is trying to terrorize her with her own portrait? Is it the caretaker that’s always hanging around? Or the girlfriend she’s just fallen out with? Or Jasper, who she suspects might only be using her? Or could it even be her own mother who can’t let go and fought tooth and nail to prevent Marlene from moving out? When Marlene finds out the culprit’s identity it’s almost too late...

September 2011 256 pages

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Foreign Rights Spring

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Summer

2 0 11

Our most successful export in 2010: David Safier rotfuchs | young fiction

rotfuchs | young fiction

Kindler | fiction

Kindler | fiction

CORNELIA FRANZ

CORNELIA FRANZ

DAVID SAFIER

DAVID SAFIER

LUIS AND ME – ROUND 2!

BAD KARMA

JESUS LOVES ME

Luis is fed up – he has to go to preschool gym while his sister can go to football practice every Thursday, and Sundays she even plays in real league matches. When Carlotta even gets her first swimming badge, Luis has had enough. He wants to prove that he’s great at sports, too; Luis and his friend Karim start their own boxing club. Secretly, of course, because Mum says that boxing is just violence, and not a sport at all. Carlotta sides with Luis, though, and starts to come up with excuses and fibs to cover for him, referees their ‘bouts’, and even becomes a nurse when someone gets a bloody nose.

TV presenter Kim is crushed to death by the debris from a crashed Russian space station. At the gates of Heaven, she is informed that she has collected too much bad karma in her life – she neglected her daughter and cheated on her husband. So, it’s back to square one: she is reborn as an ant. Life as an ant isn’t exactly a bundle of laughs and progressing up the ladder of reincarnation requires a lot of good karma…

Shortly after leaving her fiancé at the altar, Marie meets a carpenter. He’s different from all the other men she knows – sensitive, selfless and attentive. Unfortunately, on their first date, he tells her that he is Jesus. At first Marie thinks he’s crazy, but his story turns out to be true…

rotfuchs | young fiction

rotfuchs | young fiction

Kindler | fiction

ANGELIKA BARTRAM & JAN-UWE ROGGE

SYLVIA DELOY

DAVID SAFIER

LITTLE HEROES ON A BIG JOURNEY

STARS, STRESS AND KISSING

SUDDENLY SHAKESPEARE

This volume concludes the series, and is all about self-worth, self-respect, and the search for identity. Lina spends a lot of time thinking about where she comes from – where she was before she was born. With her friend Lumin and the wise Jau-Jau at her side, she climbs aboard a hot air balloon and journeys to different places to explore just this fascinating topic.

Where do I get the cash for all the things I want but my stupid parents won’t get me? Mathilda starts to sell self-made clothes at a flea market – and the money starts coming in. That doesn’t solve the problem with her boyfriend Jonas, though, who has been seen kissing his ex! Kalle, the boy from the stall opposite, can’t do much to brighten her mood, either. It’s only when Antoine, who goes past her stall week after week and is always talking about his “’ome countree”, that Mathilda’s eyes start gleaming again. And that’s when Ophelia, Antoine’s ex, turns up...

Lovelorn Rosa allows herself to be hypnotized and finds herself trapped in a man’s body: The year is 1594, and the man’s name is William Shakespeare. Rosa can only return to the present once she has found out the meaning of true love. That’s no mean task, especially as Shakespeare himself isn’t particularly pleased about having a woman controlling his body..

LUIS AND ME Luis can’t wait for his fifth birthday! He wants some pet rabbits, a wish supported wholeheartedly by his sister Carlotta. Mum and Dad give in, and Luis is greeted on his birthday by two rabbits: Hoppel and Paulinchen. When it’s decided that Hoppel is going to be castrated, Luis and Carlotta decide to quietly ‘forget’ about the operation. Which, naturally, has consequences: Paulinchen has a litter of babies. To prevent Mum and Dad noticing, the two dutifully clean up the cage themselves without being told, which should have been enough to arouse Mum’s suspicions... May 2011 128 pages / illustrated

June 2011 160 pages / illustrated

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• Rights sold to 9 countries!

• More than 1.5 million copies sold! • Rights sold to 28 countries!

May 2011 128 pages / illustrated

August 2011 192 pages

• 800.000 copies sold!

March 2007 288 pages

November 2008 304 pages

Kindler | fiction

• More than 150.000 copies sold in hardcover! • Rights sold to Spain, Italy, France and Turkey. March 2010 320 pages

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Foreign Rights Ms Carolin Mungard Hamburger Str. 17 D-21465 Reinbek Phone: 0049-40-7272-257 Fax: 0049-40-7272-319 [email protected] Baltic Countries Andrew Nurnberg Baltic Ms Tatjana Zoldnere P. O. Box 77 LV-Riga 1011 Phone: 0037-1-750-6495 Fax: 0037-1-750-6494 [email protected]

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