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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«.

Sold to: USA (Metropolitan/New York), Italy (Neri Pozza), Netherlands (Signature)

Two women of different ages with two different pasts:  an elderly survivor of the Holocaust and a young Jewish woman who for the fi rst time is confronted by the personal account of her family’s story.

Minka Pradelski, daughter of Holocaust survivors, a sociologist and documentary writer, has written a touching, humorous novel; a charming read about an almost forgotten time and about the drift between generations: the generation which survived the Holocaust and the generation of their children, who know little about that time and even less about the peaceful time »before«.

»And Along Came Mrs. Kugelmann« is the first novel by sociologist and documentary writer Minka Pradelski. She has been working for a project on the consequences of the massive trauma experienced by survivors of the Nazi regime. She has also been working as an honorary member for the Steven Spielberg Shoa Foundation and for several other social commissions of the Jewish community in Frankfurt where she lives. She has published several articles about Jewish life in the ghetto of Theresienstadt and of life in Germany after 1945.

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«.

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.

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.

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).

»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.

»Composed with the suspense of a crime novel, the objective of philosophical concerns, with historical precision and psychological flair.« Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung

Konrad Weber is the deputy head of the German Consulate in Milan, which, seeming a peaceful place in 1943, protects him from the daily routine of the Nazi dictatorship. After his superior retires he has a much younger and inexperienced henchman plonked in front of him. Palmer finds out about some discrepancies in the books of account Weber is responsible for. Wendler, an acquaintance of his, provides a way out of Webers more than difficult situation, certainly not in an act of charity.  He proposes a risky deal ...

Nora Bossong's debut novel »Hereabout« (FVA, 2006) was praised »one of the best in the last years«. In her second book »Weber's Record« a young narrator reconstructs Weber's past with the help of an old diplomat: an exciting novel, artistically synchronizing various time levels – a book about a german diplomat under Hitler, and in Post-War Germany, where everybody's trying to forget about the past.

»A highly concentrated character sketch of a contemporary witness and a suspenseful crime novel!« Frankfurter Rundschau

»The most talented writer of her generation! Comparably young authors pale into insignificance beside the historical precision and the stylistic intuition of Nora Bossong.« Neue Zürcher Zeitung

Nora Bossong lives in Berlin. Her research took the young writer to Rome, Milan and Zurich where she came into contact with the highly official but secretive world of diplomats and state secretaries. She got a scholarship for the German House in New York for »Weber's Record«

»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«.

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.

Sold to: UK & Australia (Scribe), France (Libella), Georgia (Intelekti), Slovakia (Inaque)

»We have a new heroine of German contemporary literature.« Deutschlandradio Kultur

»Nino Haratischwili’s ›My Gentle Twin‹ is full of life and zappy, authentic and to the point.« Welt Online

»A love affair like a suicide commando. A book like a gathering place for the world’s tears, with so much courage for sentimentality.« KulturSpiegel

An intriguing love story between a man and a woman who can impossibly love each other ...

... due to a stroke of fate that binds them together like brother and sister. A narrative about two people who can only assert their identities by being with each other and who nevertheless attempt to forge their own paths. With »My Gentle Twin«, Nino Haratischwili presents a novel that combines both her dramatic and narrative skills with a language that is pervaded by Georgian passion und images.

Ivo and Stella have been chained to each other since early childhood by a common fate and a passionate but destructive love. Each of their attempts to live without each other, to escape the vicious circle of their wild erotic encounters and quarrels filled with hatred, fails. »My Gentle Twin« narrates the story of this big love relationship and fatal passion. Step by step and layer by layer, a dire family drama is unveiled that forever binds Stella and Ivo together.

»My Gentle Twin« displays a powerful, yet melancholic voice that is grave like the autumnal sea. With a sharp eye it captures the abysses and imponderabilities of human nature and tells a shattering family drama of a lost childhood and a great love that has no place in this world.

Nino Haratischwili, born in Georgia in 1983, writing in German, is an internationally bestselling and award-winning novelist, playwright and director. »The Eighth Life (For Brilka)« has been awarded the prestigious BDI Literature Prize of the Association of Arts and Culture of the German Economy 2015, the Anna Seghers Prize 2015, the Lessing Prize Stipend 2017, the Bertolt Brecht Prize 2018 and the Schiller Prize 2019. The English translation of »The Eighth Life (For Brilka)« by Charlotte Collins and Ruth Martin won the PEN Translates award 2016 and was nominated for the 2020 International Booker Prize. Her novel »The Cat And The General« was shortlisted for the German Book Prize 2018.