Rightslist

»Atmospherically dense like Marguerite Duras.« DIE ZEIT, reviewing ›Iva Breaths‹

»Her art is political. The fact is: she has something to say, and say it she does it. Amanda Lasker-Berlin is a name to remember.« MDR, reviewing ›Elijah’s Song‹

The skin of ten-year-old Spes is as sensitive as a butterfly’s wing. When will she throw off her gauze cocoon and finally be able to fly?

Mirjam travels to a country in upheaval. How do you tell a story when everything is in ruins?

Paul is on the run from his photo, plastered on front pages. It's only an accusation, but what is the truth?

Achura fears a catastrophe, the end of her political career. But would she take back what she said?

Spes, Mirjam, Paul and Achura are each at a turning point. How do you reinvent yourself without losing yourself? Can enough strength be found for a utopia, for a new beginning? Amanda Lasker-Berlin tells the story of four characters, trying to break free from classifications and overcome a crisis. Rapidly intercut perspectives, colliding points of view and voices form together an energy that gathers its power with each page. »Spes Means Hope« is a novel that is bursting with our present moment, and one that widens our view of what is important.

Amanda Lasker-Berlin, born in Essen in 1994, studied fine arts at the Bauhaus University in Weimar and studied stage direction at the Akademie für Darstellende Kunst Baden-Württemberg in Ludwigsburg, where she lead a production of Herta Müller’s »Atemschaukel« Her drama ICH, WUNDERWERK AND HOW MUCH I LOVE DISTURBING CONTENT premiered in 2021 as part of the Autor:innentheatertage at the Deutsches Theater in Berlin and was awarded the Hermann Sudermann Prize. Her first novel »Elijas Lied« (FVA, 2020) was awarded the debut prize at lit.COLOGNE, followed by the novel »Iva Breathes« at FVA in 2021. She lives in Frankfurt am Main.

Rights: Liepman AG, contact

In Elija's Song, Amanda Lasker-Berlin presents us with a brilliant portrait of three very different sisters, boldly addressing highly topical issues in irresistible, gripping prose.

Elija is the oldest of the sisters. Born with Down syndrome, she takes in the beauty of the world through her heavy-lidded eyes. She adores the stage. When she plays the role of Hagar who is sent to the desert, alone and with child, Elija is a mother. In real life, she will never be.
Noa works in a canteen. Every lunchtime, she hopes to spot Akim, her lover who works on the top floor of the glass tower overviewing the river Elbe. They talk about many things, her exmatriculation, her travels to East Asia, but not about where she goes every day when her shift in the canteen is over.
Loth, the youngest, is striking in her statue-like beauty. And she is angry. At demonstrations they call her a Nazi. She in turn suspects the left of being twisted fascists. She has moved to Halle, into a flat share with her like-minded friends, and she is ready to fight.
Elija, Noa and Loth used to be close before Loth changed sides. Maybe a trip to the moor, retracing their childhood footsteps can help bridge the abyss between them.
The hike is Loth's idea: so they can be sisters once again – cross the moor and climb the mountain and sing the song their father wrote for them. But the moor has changed as much as the sisters have. Elija, Noa and Loth spend the day alone together, each of them absorbed by her own thoughts and memories. Memories even the moorland can’t swallow. And nothing to hold on to.

Amanda Lasker-Berlin masters the art of reduction, of leaving traces, of generating ever increasing vibrations up to a final eruption that will leave readers breathless. Her smooth, condensed language, her empathy and confidence in the power of her characters as well as her skilled portrayal of social controversies show Lasker-Berlin as an outstandingly talented debut author.

Amanda Lasker-Berlin, born in 1994 in Essen, staged her first play at the age of 18. Following her studies of the liberal arts at the Bauhaus University in Weimar she is currently studying directing in Ludwigsburg. For her drama Yellow Desert / Pink Room she was awarded the „ThOP-Nachwuchsdramatikerpreis“, her play Amazonen verrecken won the 3rd “Osnabrücker Dramatikerpreis“ in 2019. For her prose she was awarded the jury prize of the Münchner Kurzgeschichten Wettbewerb and she was a finalist of the Hattinger Förderpreis für junge Literatur. Elija's Song is her first novel and nominated for the LitCologne Debut Prize 2020.

»A suspenseful and highly psychological read, it paints portraits of three relationships between women of different generations, examining themes of female
desire, alienation and social expectation. (…) While comparisons could be drawn with Dorothy Bussy and Michelle Tea, Landfried is a distinctive new voice in German literature. Relatable, nuanced and compelling, ›Pasteurgasse 4, täglich‹ offers a fresh and timely addition
to the growing body of queer narratives.« New Books in German
 
»Andrea Landfried's narratively and stylistically powerful recordings of relationships – an encounter with love as a feverish, tumbling search for oneself, haunting, confounding, touching.« Bernhard Schlink
 
 
A young singer in Vienna falls in love with Ruth, a married photographer. Every day, before Ruth picks up her daughter from school, they share exactly two-and-a-half hours together, for two years. At the beginning, Ruth had warned her: the only and at the same time most important thing she could promise her was that she would not deceive her.
 
A woman accompanies her husband on his research fellowship in California. There she meets the much older Angela. Despite the many years and kilometers that separate them, a fragile erotic closeness develops between them.
 
Sarah falls in love with her psychotherapist. As Sarah's behavior becomes more and more obsessive, her therapist has her committed against her will, and a true psychiatric journey to hell begins. During a visit to the sanatorium, she is told, »And now you're going to have a great time.«
 
Andrea Landfried portrays three variations of female desire, each simmering with rebellion against social constraints, accepted psychological patterns, and role expectations. These women's longing to be truly seen and recognized triumphs again and again over fears of falling outside the norms and being socially ostracized. They take the risk of revealing themselves and feeling everything – one of the greatest risks one can take.
 
 
Andrea Landfried, born in 1976, lives with her children in Heidelberg. She studied law in Berlin and Oxford, among other places, and is currently the head of a foundation.

A youth spent in late 1980s Soviet Union, a story of love and disappointment, of farewell and departure. Anna Galkina's perspective on the harsh realities of life in Russia is so unrelenting and fearless that it goes straight to the heart.

Tamara, the matronly director of a library who is revitalized by her relationship with the sickly Wiktor; Sergej with his faux leather sandals whose barn is a popular hangout for the youth; and the three “sluts”: Lena with her mustache, Dina whose father is in jail and Oksana who is an expert when it comes to abortions.
Nastja has been observing them ever since she was a little girl. She lives with her mother and grandmother in a small town not far from Moscow that is long past its prime. Meat and dairy products are just as hard to come by as a private telephone line or running water. The residents dwell in small wooden shacks, surrounded by buckets and canning jars, they drink bitter beer and moonshine, they curse and delight, they love and hit each other. At first, the narrator Nastja seems to be above it all, but then she is sucked right into the pop-up panorama of the Russian province. She lives through stories full of poetry and violence, tragedy and humor, episodes with unknown outcomes – until she falls in love with the young soldier Dima and it seems as though her life is about to take an unexpected turn.

»The Cold Light of Distant Stars« is an unusual and vibrant debut, an outstanding novel of rare charm. Anna Galkina’s voice is both adamant and lighthearted and she tells the tales of her protagonists with such great warmth and humor that they continue to resonate for a long time.

Anna Galkina, born and raised in Moscow, came to Germany with her parents in 1996. After receiving a degree in computer science she has been working as a software test engineer, a painter and a photographer. Anna Galkina currently lives in Bonn and writes in German. »The Cold Light of Distant Stars« is her first novel, in 2017 Frankfurter Verlagsanstalt has published her second novel »The New Life«.

»Borders, transculturalism, finding identity in the interplay between two cultures: the accuracy and power and defiant audacity of the portrayal in this text completely won us over.« Jury of the Bremen Literature Office in the artist’s house Worpswede

»Don’t touch the interesting ones, marry someone who knows how to cook.« Like all women in the Atanassov family, Grandma Denka is as happy to share her life’s wisdom as her granddaughter, our narrator, is to throw it to the wind. She left Bulgaria shortly before the fall of the Berlin wall, and now lives with her husband and daughter in an apartment building in Bremen where hair curlers and soap suds rule. She feels alienated and misunderstood, even in her own marriage. When her father dies, she travels back to her hometown on the Black Sea. There, in her grandmother, mother, and mother-in-law, she encounters strong, dominant women who have always held the strings, and for the first time she investigates the blind spots that reach far back into the country’s communist past. She comes to an understanding of how deeply she is woven into this colorful family web and recognizes which connections provide support and which threads need to be undone.
Antonia Bontscheva describes a generation of self-confident women, the history of individual fates in communist Bulgaria through the transition period, and the realities of migration and self-assertion. With passionate, sensual language, warm and humor, the author’s human-centered gaze make this captivating novel shine.

»The sun poured its gold onto the water. A still-summery, lush, lavish gold upon a green and inviting water. Yet a thin, gauzy ache lay over it all. The beauty of Balchik is not a serene one. The beauty of Balchik is wise and somehow dramatic. It’s beauty breaks your heart.«

Antonia Boncheva was born in Varna, Bulgaria and lives today with her family in Bremen. She studied German language and literature in Berlin, worked as a German teacher and as a journalist, including on a literary radio column for »Funkhaus Europa.« The Beauty of Balchik is not Serene is her debut novel, for which she received the Bremen Author’s Scholarship from the Senator for Culture and a grant from the Bremen Literature Office in the artist’s house Worpswede.

»Witches Don’t Feel Ashamed moves with a delicate sensitivity through what lies between people: desire, insecurity, intimacy, origin, body. It doesn’t offer solutions, but rather contradictions – and in the very places where language often falters, it provides a tone that remains both tender and clear.« Sophia Fritz
 
»Bianca Nawrath strikes a nerve. She dares to do a lot, and it feels as though she's looking you straight in the eye while doing it.« Judith Poznan
 
»To all the Christians out there who want to know what female desire and fantasy might look like. Ask about it. Or at least read this book!« Anton Weil
 

Two Couples, One Single Friend, A Baltic Weekend – What Could Possibly Go Wrong?
 
Four friends head to the Baltic Sea for a weekend getaway, and for the first time, Ola joins them. Ola is single, attracted to both women and men, and brings along a biography of Hildegard von Bingen. For Amalia's boyfriend Christian, Ola’s feminist remarks are nothing short of a disaster. The first evening threatens to become a fiasco, revolving around the question of who can light the grill and a conversation about female masturbation. The second couple, Kata and Lenny, are increasingly unsettled by Christian's behavior, but are mostly preoccupied with their own suppressed conflicts. The situation escalates when Amalia and Ola suddenly disappear without a trace.

How can one free oneself from a self-destructive relationship, and when does non-interference become complicity? Bianca Nawrath demonstrates a keen eye for the gray areas of friendship and love, for the subtle workings of shame and guilt. With sharp dialogue, psychological tension, and believable characters, she challenges traditional power structures and leads her readers through many, often highly amusing, detours to the realization of how valuable female solidarity truly is.
 
 
Bianca Nawrath, born in 1997 in Berlin, is an author and actress with Polish roots. At the age of 14, she appeared in front of the camera for the first time as the host of a youth program. In 2018, she made her acting debut and has since appeared alongside stars such as Judi Dench, Jürgen Vogel, and Christian Ulmen. In 2021, she released her first novel, Iss das jetzt, wenn du mich liebst, followed by Wenn ich dir jetzt recht gebe, liegen wir beide falsch in 2022. Bianca Nawrath lives and works in Berlin.

German Book Prize 2016, 21st Century Best Foreign Novel of the Year 2017 award (China)

Rights sold to:

France (Gallimard), Italy (Neri Pozza Editore), The  Netherlands (Lebowski), Denmark (Bechs Forlag), Czech Republic, (Akropolis), China ( People’s Literature Publishing House), Korea (Redsamnamu), Turkey (Can Yayınları), Greece (Aiora Press), Egypt (General Authority für kulturelle Paläste, Ministerium für Kultur)

Until recently, Reither ran a small publishing company in the big city, now he lives a solitary life on the edge of the Alps. In the evening, his pondering over a mysterious book is interrupted by the sound of the doorbell. He opens the door and right there and then, the encounter which will take him to Sicily within three days, begins. The hand that takes him there is Leonie Palm's. Leonie used to own a hat-shop. But now that the world lacks faces that look good with hats on and writers have come to outnumber readers, they both had good reasons to quit. Yet, an even stronger bond between the two is provided by the fact that neither of them is prepared for true love anymore. Upon arrival on the Mediterranean, after three full days in the car, this love does hit them and they are joined by a girl who does not speak a single word. She is just there ...

In his novella »Widerfahrnis«, Bodo Kirchhoff presents the parable of a twofold fall: into love, without being able to fully feel it and into humanity, without being good enough.

Bodo Kirchhoff, born in 1948, is one of the most important and well-known authors of the contemporary German literature. His last two novels »Desire and Melancholy« (2014) and »Love in Broad Strokes« (2012) were published with Frankfurter Verlagsanstalt and celebrated by readers and critics alike. His novella »Widerfahrnis« has been awarded the German Book Prize 2016 and the Dutch edition (Lebowski 2017) has been longlisted for the Europese Literatuurprijs 2018. The Chinese translation of Widerfahrnis was announced as the 21st Century Best Foreign Novel of the Year 2017.

Rights sold to: The Netherlands (Lebowski)

As he sets out to bring to life the eros of childhood and youth within an autobiographical novel, Bodo Kirchhoff takes us into narrow-minded, penny-pinching post-war Germany. It is these decades of dusk, these decades of turmoil, that will ultimately turn the boy into a writer.

Whose voice is it we hear when someone tells a tale from way back when? From the very same room in a small hotel by the sea, his parents had occupied decades earlier, when they’d still helped themselves to large servings of bliss, the last few of those, in fact, before they’d separated, the writer seeks to explore the emergence of his sexuality. And while he does employ professional distance in the telling of the story of his youth, putting it out there for anyone to claim, this story also remains the very path that took him into writing in the first place.  

In »Dusk and Turmoil«, Bodo Kirchhoff, approaches early biographical themes within the framework of a novel, telling his own but also his parent’s stories. The beautiful young actress from Vienna and the dashing one-legged young man from Hannover who is talented but penniless – a match made by the war. Both are determined to escape the plight of these times, each in their own way. The marriage is doomed and the narrator sent off to boarding school at eleven, a dramatic escalation of small events, once again beyond all that is conceivable through language, a dance on an alluring blade of violence.

With this most recent work, Bodo Kirchhoff continues his grand literary project to consolidate language and sexuality to a point where neither will expose the other as he tells a story of eros throughout childhood and adolescence, a story of what was and what it inspired.

Bodo Kirchhoff, born in 1948, is one of the most important and well-known authors of the contemporary German literature. His novels »Desire and Melancholy« (2014) and »Love in Broad Strokes« (2012) were published with Frankfurter Verlagsanstalt and celebrated by readers and critics alike. His novella »Widerfahrnis« has been awarded the German Book Prize 2016 and the Dutch edition (Lebowski 2017) has been longlisted for the Europese Literatuurprijs 2018. The Chinese translation of »Widerfahrnis« was announced as the 21st Century Best Foreign Novel of the Year 2017.

»Bodo Kirchhoff is an author who succeeds in everything: Writing great dialogues. Creating scenes, developing them and, with a dreamlike sureness, interrupting them at the right time. He also has a language of rare and traditional elegance. Entirely great literature.« ZEIT online

Sold to: Turkey (Can), Egypt (Masr El Arabia)

Since his wife passed away nine years ago after a leap from 43 meters height, Hinrich lives alone. He wallows in memories of Irene, the mother of his daughter and a translator for high Italian literature. He remembers the summers in Italy, their journeys to Rome and Pompeji, where they lingered in front of the frescoes of the Villa dei Misteri for hours to understand their meaning. They loved cinema, the melancholy of the black-and-white images, but were also seduced by something light. However, what has really happened nine years ago? And what does the letter with the black edging contain? Only a journey to Warsaw can bring light into the dark.

»Desire and Melancholy« is charged with emotionally subtle suspense, a novel which takes the reader on a quest. Slowly but relentless, the protagonist discovers the truth about his wife’s death. Bodo Kirchhoff’s masterful novel is about aging and longing, describing the desire to stay eternally young and a melancholy that turns out to offer some solace at the end.

Bodo Kirchhoff, born in 1948, is one of the most important and well-known authors of the contemporary German literature. His last two novels »Desire and Melancholy« (2014) and »Love in Broad Strokes« (2012) were published with Frankfurter Verlagsanstalt and celebrated by readers and critics alike. His novella »Widerfahrnis« has been awarded the German Book Prize 2016.

There are many GIs stationed in the Wetterau region, between 1958 and 1960 even Elvis Presley. American soldiers and German ›Fräuleins‹ roam the streets hand in hand; many children are born out of wedlock these days and less generous observers call the ›Fräuleins‹ ›Ami-Liebchen‹ or ›GI-mistresses‹. Yet, the everyday routine of the people in Randstetten, a small town in this region, remains largely untouched by the wild 60s, flower power and beat music.

In the summer of 1969 all that seems to change abruptly when Frank Z's car breaks down in the small town. The hippie from Laurel Canyon rents a room in the local Green Tree Inn since his car cannot be repaired until the replacement parts arrive. The musician from California arrives in that sleepy town like a bolt of lightening, with his long dark hair and his washed out jeans he is immediately the talk of the town on this Saturday. Things are going to change, everything is going to change, Ev is certain of that. Ev is the seventeen year-old daughter of the house, her mother Rosie is running the Green Tree Inn. The girl falls in love with Frank Z. but she will not be the only one whose life is touched by the musician. While not everyone seems to be thrilled about it, the process of change is set into motion.

Britta Boerdner has great intuition when it comes to the mood and the mental state of her protagonists; she skillfully captures the atmosphere of the time and brings it to life through language. »The Day That Frank Z. Came to the ›Green Tree Inn‹« is a riveting story and Britta Boerdner's insightful way of telling it demonstrates the great talent of this extraordinary novelist.

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« was published in 2012 by FVA. In 2015 she received a grant from the Hessian Council for Literature which brought her to the Emilia Romagna. Based on a sample from her novel »The Day That Frank Z. Came to the ›Green Tree Inn‹« she was invited to be a writer in residence on the island of Sylt. She lives in Frankfurt on the Main.

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.

»A novel about friendship, trust, and the honest examination of one’s own motives. This story stayed with me for a long time after I finished reading it.« Laura Beck, Bayerischer Rundfunk
 
»An invigorating debut with precise, incisive dialogue that masterfully illuminates the complexity of human relationships.« Demian Lienhard
 
An escape, an unequal friendship, a betrayal – an intense, original novel about global issues, where its light-footed prose and witty charm make it all the clearer: simple answers can’t be trusted.
 
Tom and Farid play table tennis, ride skateboards, swim in the Isar: They are friends. At the beginning of their friendship was a mentorship, which Tom, a PhD student in physics, had taken on for sixteen-year-old Farid, who had fled from Quetta. Together with Laura, Tom’s girlfriend, they form an unusual trio – until Farid makes a risky decision. Amid the unfolding events, Tom is confronted with questions: about Laura's supposed loyalty, his own feelings and aspirations, and, not least, about Farid’s silence regarding the harrowing experiences of his flight.
 
In his debut novel, Christian Mitzenmacher not only approaches major social issues like flight and the treatment of refugees, but he also tackles the problem of how, and from which perspective, these topics can be told. He doesn’t offer simple answers, but instead presents a tapestry of incisive questions, unexpected twists, unforgettable characters, and clever dialogue, all wrapped in a surprisingly light, often even humorous prose.
 

Christian Mitzenmacher was born in 1986 and grew up in Bad Buchau, Germany. A mathematician by training, he conducted research at the Technical University of Munich and at the M.I.T. in Cambridge, earning his doctorate in Operations Research. He was a fellow of the Bavarian Academy of Writing (2014), a finalist at the 24th ›open mike‹ (2016), and a fellow of the Prose Workshop of the Literarisches Colloquium Berlin (2019). He lives in Berlin.