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Georgia (Intelekti)

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Speeches and essays by the bestselling author: Poetic and powerful speeches and essays on freedom, values, and democracy in troubled times

»Europe, we are bleeding. We can't take it anymore. We can either continue to wage war or we can stand on the barricades and try with our last ounce of strength to defend what you have taught us: democracy, freedom, dignity, and life itself.«

Nino Haratischwili — internationally acclaimed bestselling author and theater maker — is not only one of the most important literary voices in German-language literature, she is also one of the most important political German-language authors of our time. Our era is currently marked by political aggression and a social climate of hatred, upheaval, and concrete threats of war. The author has been fighting for years against the acute threat to freedom posed by Putin's imperialism. What happened in Ukraine must not be repeated – in Georgia, this fear has become a daily reality. This is one of the themes addressed in the texts and speeches collected here, which are emotional and personal, explosive and political, written in the unmistakably poetic and powerful language that has become Nino Haratischwili's trademark.

»Anyone who wants to better understand our international conflicts, which are currently being played out again in Eastern Europe, should read Nino Haratischwili.« DIE ZEIT

Born in Tbilisi in 1983, Nino Haratischwili is an award-winning novelist, playwright, and theatre director. She writes in German and is among the most acclaimed and widely-read authors of contemporary German literature. Her third novel, The Eighth Life (for Brilka) (FVA 2014), was translated into thirty languages and became an international bestseller. It won the Warwick Prize for Women in Translation, the Anna Seghers Prize, and the Bertolt Brecht Prize, and was longlisted for the International Booker Prize in 2020. The Lack of Light (FVA 2022) is her most recent novel. Haratischwili lives in Berlin.

Claire Beyer's second book consists of six mysterious, beautiful, finely worked, subtle and deep love stories about our five senses. They deal with the way in which our feelings are blind towards those we love. Five of the stories are dedicated to one of the human senses, and the sixth deals with thought, gathering up the essence of the first five stories and all our senses into thought.

Claire Beyer was born in 1947 and lives in Markgröningen near Ludwigsburg. She has written a musical about Camille Claudel and published numerous novels and short stories including, »Rauken«, »Remis«, »Rohlinge« and »Refugium«.

Ernst-Wilhelm Händler portrays the narcissistic struggle for power of three writers: two men and a woman. He discusses the ethics of being a writer and the relationship between fictional and virtual identity.

Ernst-Wilhelm Händler was born in 1953, and lives in Regensburg and Munich.

Where action meets reflection: »World of Glass« by Ernst-Wilhelm-Händler

Jillian and Jacob Armacost run New York’s most famous glass gallery. A truly disparate couple.  While Jillian has had a passion for the glasses of Tiffany’s ever since a childhood experience which at the age of twenty five made her a leading expert, thirty years older womanizer Jacob almost ruins their business with a really bad bargain.
Jillian wants to divorce Jacob, but first she has to secure the future of the gallery. A valuable collection of glass vases in Italy seem to be the last resort – without the slightest hesitation she flys to Europe. Meanwhile Jacob is at the mexican border. By entertaining an eccentric client he tries to come into money his own way.
Jillian and Jacob Armacost both committed their fate to the glass: She hopes for eternity, he lives life for the moment. Transparent but inaccessible, living yet still steady – the World of Glass. It means a lot of money for those who recognize what they see. While Jillian hits the bull’s eye in Italy, Jacob is kidnapped in Mexico …

Car chases in the streets of Tijuana, escapades in San Diego and in Venice – in Ernst-Wilhelm Händler’s great  novel action meets reflection in a both surprising and imposing way.

Ernst-Wilhelm Händler was born in 1953, and lives in Regensburg and Munich.

»Book Four is a piece of program music – a globally considered lyrical report.« Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung

»Book Four « / »Buch Vier« starts in September 2001 right in the middle of a typhoon in the Taiwanese metropolis of Taipeh, the CNN-pictures of 9/11 in the background, and ends in New York before Ground Zero. Infused with the traumatic beginning of the new century Gräf's poems position poetry as a contemporary art form. In four chapters, between the southeast asian upbeat and the American finale, the old world, Venice, Rome and Vézelay in particular, is being explored.
At their centre, the poems deal with death, from which a life and its meaning can be conceived. The art historian Winckelmann, the poet and filmmaker Pasolini, the radical left-wing publisher Feltrinelli, the fascist dictator Mussolini and the Black Muslim icon Malcolm X – they all have in common a mysterious, iridescent untimely end.

Dieter M. Gräf, born in 1960, lives in Berlin.

Nora Bossong in »Herabout« draws vivid portraits for a bizarre intimate play, which is resolved sparingly, but generates a strong pull towards the reader. Bossong writes in a laconic tone that is – in a unique and fortunate way – unlike the suspense it creates.

Nora Bossong was born in 1982 in Bremen and now lives in Berlin. She has been awarded several prizes and scholarships. An extract from »Hereabout« has been awarded the Leipzig Literary Scholarship and a Scholarship of the Jürgen-Ponto-Foundation. »Herabout« has been her first novel published by FVA, followed by »Weber's Record«.

Bittersweet tales by the author of the »Pollen Room«

These characters may appear fragile, but they demonstrate unexpected strength. The ground trembles beneath their feet, but they do not fall: they strike out in moments of danger, and escape their cages as soon as they feel the wind beneath their wings.
Ginza, for example, who asserts her independence by sharing a tiny flat with friends and working as a tourist guide in the vibrant, overwhelming megacity of Shangai. Or Sophie, a shy woman in her fifties, whose headstrong daughter Clarice brings her photographer boyfriend on a visit to the family’s summer cottage. It comes as a surprise when Sophie suddenly blossoms under the camera’s gaze, upsetting the family balance.
Mike, a young stepfather to two girls, is quietly fighting for recognition. His wife has very clear ideas about how her daughters should be raised: she only buys organic food, and throws out any clothes made of polyester. Mike secretly takes his stepdaughters to an ice cream parlour, in a battle for life’s sweetness that he can never hope to win. In another story, young Elena, watching a black condor crane his skinny, vulnerable neck, as he struggles to fly inside his cage, is reminded of her elopement.

Beneath each of Zoë Jenny’s soft sentences lie darkness and profundity, pervading them with a subtle melancholy. Fear of loss and the awareness of vulnerability resonate just below the surface, and we sense that the characters in her stories are deeply troubled - but their power should not be underestimated. Zoë Jenny captivates the reader with these haunting, bittersweet tales.

Zoë Jenny was born in Basel in 1974 and spent parts of her childhood in Greece and Ticino. Her first novel, »The Pollen Room« (FVA 1997), was a global bestseller and has been translated into 27 languages. Following this success, Zoë Jenny was invited to give readings and talks at schools and universities in Japan, China and the U.S. She has lived in New York, Berlin and London, and currently resides in Austria. She has published two more novels – »The Call of the Conch Shell« (FVA 2000) and »The Portrait« (FVA 2007). »Spätestens morgen« is her first short story collection.

»How can put so much suspense and feeling into such a small book? You have to be a magician between the lines — like Claire Beyer!« Brigitte

The story of a young boy, a child »left at the edge of the world« and the solitary teacher Karin Beerwald who is concerned about the  boy’s problems recognizing his unease and far behind his friendly nature.

Eleven-year-old Donald comes from Latvia to Germany with his father. But what should be a new home turns out to be troublesome and lonley. His schoolmates keep picking on him, the boy has to grapple with the German language. Karin, a teacher, recognizes the harms of young Donald and is willing to help him. One day she finds him in a ramshackled empty house, which he uses as a hideout and refuge. But Donald is not the only guest the cabin shelters. A newspaper article leads them to a businessman who is wanted by the police. Before Donald knows it he finds himself in an oppressive and dangerous situation …

Claire Beyer was born in 1947 and lives in Markgröningen near Ludwigsburg. She has written a musical about Camille Claudel and published numerous novels and short stories including, »Rauken«, »Rosenhain«, »Remis« and »Refugium«.

As the year 2006 comes to an end, Gustav von Achenbach, a German cultural sociologist and expert on post-colonial architecture, travels to Havana and finds that the city – and the political dreams connected with it – has undergone much change. »Maybe it was the moral decay that fascinated him more than the physical deterioration. It was the erosion of a system which, in a far-away past, had represented and incarnated adolescent hope from all around the globe.« Since that time, in light of the visible corrosion, the protagonist must revise his youthful enthusiasm: the city of Havana, once grand, is now in ruins, the dictator Fidel Castro is dying. Cuban life, however, goes on – Havana is full of heat. Aimlessly, Achenbach walks the dirty streets, pushes himself through the colorful, fun-loving crowds – every street corner offers quick sex. Yet Achenbach is looking for someone in particular: a mysterious young man. His search becomes a desperate one, which leads him down stray paths, until he finally finds the embrace which he has been yearning for his whole life.

The author Hans Christoph Buch lives in Berlin but has visited Cuba regularly for three decades. He has had insight into the country and people of Cuba and even taught at the University of Havana. His novel is an attempt to rewrite Thomas Mann's famous novella »Death in Venice«, inspired by the background of the excruciatingly long agony of the »máximo líder« Fidel Castro and the political system he created. The author can not – and does not want to – elude the morbid charm of this leader and his system.

His book is a declaration of his love of Cuba, but also challenges the unconditional Cuba-enthusiasm of leftist »revolution tourists«, amounting to political and literary provocation.

In 1963, at the age of 19, Hans Christoph Buch became the youngest-ever member of the influential German literary association »Gruppe 47«. He has written numerous political reports and essays, primarily about Caribbean and African conflict zones. His publications with the Frankfurter Verlagsanstalt are the novella »Tod in Habana« and the novel »Reise um die Welt in acht Nächten«. Frankfurter Verlagsanstalt also published »Elf Arten, das Eis zu brechen« (2016) and the essay »Boat People. Literatur als Geisterschiff« (2014).

There is a promise having been made years ago: The one, who will gain a foothold in the big city, will make the other follow. Now she has come after her boy friend overseas, first and foremost to give herself a try in the distant metropolis. What was meant to be a fresh start turns out as the beginning of a farewell. There are Gregor’s extra hours and their uneasiness in the evenings when they both lie side by side in the dark. And the cat in the patio, which he feeds when he feels unobserved. Chased by her longing for familiar terrain, the narrator roams the wintrily streets and searches for some signs of love and their former intimacy.
She remembers scenes from the beginning of their relationship: when their bodies’ interplay seemed to overcome every limit and they both clung to the same dreams, when she presented him the documents for the Green-Card-Lottery believing she could push their common future. Now she has to painfully accept that he refuses her warmth and secludes himself. Visiting an opera performance together turns out as a disaster. The atmosphere is fragile as glass and compares to someone holding his breath. It keeps on until both are visiting a party. Suddenly a scene flashes through her mind when? in front of an open fridge? everything between them had unnoticedly fallen into pieces.

With a trenchant and distinct voice Britta Boerdner creates an emotional world distinguished by high-minded authenticity, a melancholic microcosm within a metropolis whose rigidity already points towards departure. By using impressive images the novel describes the moment when a love relationship silently – in hiding – ends.

Britta Boerdner was born in Fulda. After training as a bookseller, she majored in American studies, German studies and historical ethnology in Frankfurt on the Main. Her debut novel »What Remains Hidden«, published in 2012, has been followed by her second novel »The Day That Frank Z. Came to the ›Green Tree Inn‹«, published by FVA in 2017. Britta Boerdner lives in Frankfurt on the Main.

Claire Beyers novel »Remis« / »Drawn Game« narrates with breathless excitement the story of two couples, whose paths of life are bound up inseparably at one fell swoop. Suspense and reflection, poetic charm and harsh reality balance each other and repeatedly take the reader by surprise.

Claire Beyer was born in 1947 and lives in Markgröningen near Ludwigsburg. She has written a musical about Camille Claudel and published numerous novels and short stories including, »Rauken«, »Rosenhain«, »Rohlinge« and »Refugium«.

The Portrait is an impressive and breathtaking novel about a young woman whose outstanding artistic talent is uncannily exploited by a famous art collector.

Helen, a young painter, is on her way to an unknown city. Through the window of the plane, she gazes at the unfamiliar places below: somewhere down there is the house that she is going to spend the next three months in, invited by a well-known and rich art collector.
She is supposed to portray him. One condition of their contract is that she is not allowed to leave his property during her stay. Whilst the portrait progresses, Helen's feeling of unease increases. The huge villa is deserted. The employees give her the cold shoulder. Her trips into the wide, park-like estate show her that something strange must be going on. The initial idyll turns into a disaster. Her host controls her and regards her as his personal trophy. She finds out that he once supported a young artist, who subsequently committed suicide. When she tries to escape, the collector knowingly prevents her getaway. However, in the end, Helen manages to save herself.

Zoë Jenny was born in Basel in 1974 and spent parts of her childhood in Greece and Ticino. Her first novel, »The Pollen Room« (FVA 1997), was a global bestseller and has been translated into 27 languages. Following this success, Zoë Jenny was invited to give readings and talks at schools and universities in Japan, China and the U.S. She has lived in New York, Berlin and London, and currently resides in Austria. She has published two more novels – »The Call of the Conch Shell« (FVA 2000) and »The Portrait« (FVA 2007). »Spätestens morgen« is her first short story collection.