Rightslist

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«.

Jürgen Ponto Prize for Best Debut 2015

18-year-old Marie is deeply disappointed by life. She feels not belonging to the world. She loathes the evenings with her housemates, and can’t stand the advice that Sarah, the well-meaning medical attendant, tries to offer. Psychiatric hospital was even worse: she never wants to go there again, and this is the only reason she accepts the deal offered to her by her therapist, Willi. He promises to keep her out of medical institutions if she gives her word that she will attend every single one of her therapy sessions with him. Above all, she also has to promise that she won’t contemplate suicide for at least one year. On one of her visits to Willi’s office Marie meets Emanuel. Despite her conviction that people her own age are idiots, and the concern that Emanuel may be even more damaged than she is, she agrees to go on a date. They become involved and Marie mentions her desire to end her life. They make an outrageous agreement – but the results are quite different from what either of them expect ...

Sandra Weihs, born in Klagenfurt in 1983, lives in Upper Austria and Vienna. She studied social work, and works with deprived children, adolescents and families. Her debut novel, »Das grenzenlose Und« (»The Limitless And«), was awarded the 2015 literary prize of the Jürgen Ponto Foundation. 

Mara, a writer, has been returning to the same little Croatian island for years now. She loves its smell – of sun, sea, salt and rosemary – and the caprices of its changing winds. But this summer is different. The wind bora is stormier than usual, and the equilibrium of Mara’s life has also been disturbed. One morning Andrej arrives on the island, a photographer who travels restlessly around the world. Like so many people from the island, his parents fled Tito’s dictatorship in the 1960s, emigrating to Hoboken, New Jersey. Mara and Andrej become close, but as Mara probes deeper and deeper into Andrej’s family story of rootlessness and yearning for a sense of home, both are forced to make a decision.
In high-resolution images, Ruth Cerha tells of two seekers who meet and find themselves unexpectedly confronted with the possibility of great love. »Bora. A Story of the Wind« is a novel of wild beauty: it examines, with great sensitivity, the risks of true closeness, and what it means to feel at home.

Ruth Cerha, born in Vienna in 1963, studied psychology and was a musician and composer with a number of bands before starting to write prose in 2004. Following her short story collection, »The Song of the Wheels on the Rails« (2007), and her novels »Head Out of the Clouds« (2010) and »One-Tenth Brothers« (2012), Frankfurter Verlagsanstalt published her  novel »Bora. A Story of the Wind« (2015), for which she was awarded the Austrian State Scholarship for Literature.

BDI Literature Prize of the Association of Arts and Culture of the German Economy 2016

Sold to: Egypt (Mahrousa)

Holle is an artist from Berlin. She takes pictures of cities and empty spaces to capture their hidden energy. She spends several months in Istanbul, an achingly beautiful city she tries to understand in a new way, leaving behind her dividing terms like occident and orient. But then the encounter with Christoph Wanka causes her to sway. Although Wanka represents everything Holle is opposed to in her life and art, this silky and successful businessman fascinates her. When Wanka offers to finance her next project in Mumbai, Holle, in an endless trial of strength, has to question her whole life script and concept of art. Back in Istanbul, she would love nothing better than to get lost in the labyrinthine body of the city. When the Gezi Park demonstrations begin and the whole city is in turmoil, it seems the perfect opportunity ...

»The Endless City« tells the story of two women in two adventurous cities, Istanbul and Mumbai, and their search for an existence in accordance with their values. An eclectic and outstanding novel about art, power and the fragile construction of identity.

Ulla Lenze, born in Mönchengladbach in 1973, studied music and philosophy in Cologne. In 2003 her debut novel »Schwester und Bruder« was awarded the Ernst Willner Prize at the Klagenfurt Bachmann Competition, the Jürgen Ponto Prize for best debut novel, and Cologne’s Rolf Dieter Brinkmann Scholarship. She lived as a writer-in-residence in Mumbai, Venice and Istanbul, travels have taken her to Libya, Syria and Iran. Her novel »The Small Remains of Death« was published by Frankfurter Verlagsanstalt in 2012.

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.

The international bestseller of the award-winning author: more than 1.5 million copies sold worldwide!

The Warwick Prize for Women in Translation, nominated for the 2020 International Booker Prize

Sold to: Armenia (Antares), Bulgaria (Paradox Publishing), China (Xiron), Croatia (Fraktura), Czech Republic (Host), Denmark (Gutkind), English world rights (HarperVia), Estonia (Rahva Raamat), Finland (Aula & Co), France (Gallimard), Georgia (Intelekti), Hungary (Európa), Italy (Marsilio), Latvia (Zvaigzne), Lithuania (Alma Littera), Netherlands (Meridiaan), Norway (Aschehoug), Poland (Otwarte), Romania (Editura Trei), Russia (AST), Slovakia (Inaque), Slovenia (Mladinska knjiga), Spanish world rights (Alfaguara), Sweden (it-lit), Ukraine (Komora)
 
Film rights sold to:
The Ink Factory, London / L.A.

»Nino Haratischwili has proved herself as one of the most interesting and original writers of her generation«, New Books in German, US Jury Pick

»Heart-stopping, sublime. (...) The book concludes with a devastatingly brilliant announcement of hope.« The New York Times

»Harrowing, heartening and utterly engrossing epic novel.« The Guardian

The Eighth Life (For Brilka) is an epic family saga beginning with the Russian Revolution and swirling across a century, encompassing war, loss, love, ghosts, joy, massacres, tragedy – and a secret recipe for hot chocolate, which gives both salvation and misfortune over six generations.
 
At the start of the twentieth century, on the edge of the Russian empire, a family prospers. It owes its success to a delicious chocolate recipe, passed down the generations with great solemnity and caution. A caution which is justified: this is a recipe for ecstasy that carries a very bitter aftertaste…
Stasia learns it from her Georgian father and takes it north to St. Petersburg with her husband Simon, at the center of the Russian Revolution. This is just the first of a series of grand, doomed romances that sweeten and sour the epic tale of the red century. Across years and distances, generation after generation hears echoes and sees reflections. A ballet dancer never reaches Paris, a singer longs for Vienna. Great characters and relationships come and go, the world shakes, and the reader savors a classic where you live, learn, be lost and found, and make lasting new friends.
 

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.
 

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.

»It’s not about trying to prove anything. It’s about finally following my inner voice. It’s about my life.«

A hot July day in 1890. Theo van Gogh is hurrying to Auvers, a small town outside Paris, in consternation. His brother Vincent has tried to kill himself, and is now languishing in a pitiable state in the attic of the Ravoux guesthouse. That night Vincent dies, leaving Theo in despair. All their efforts to establish Vincent on the Paris art market during his life-time have failed.

More than a century later, the body of a former German businessman is found in van Gogh’s death chamber. Ten years ago, Arthur Heller abandoned his career to go to Paris and become a writer, but never published a single book. An unsuccessful author who decided to end his life where van Gogh ended his? When Heller’s niece Sabine Bucher arrives in Auvers, she soon realizes that all is not quite as it seems. She becomes increasingly caught up in Heller’s fate, until finally she discovers the truth – about her uncle’s death, but also about herself.

J.R. Bechtle’s first novel takes the artist’s tragic life and connects it to the thrilling investigation of a crime. The story of Vincent van Gogh and the efforts of his brother and sister-in-law Johanna to secure his posthumous reputation are intertwined with that of the dropout Arthur Heller, who wrote about the thorny subject of German-Jewish relations while, in real life, coming into confrontation with Islam. The two stories interlock, each posing the same, eternal question: What is the right way to live?

J.R. Bechtle, born in 1943, grew up in the Rhineland and studied in Munich, where he qualified as a lawyer. He now lives as a freelance writer in San Francisco. »Hotel van Gogh« is his first novel. In 2015 the Frankfurter Verlagsanstalt published his second novel »1965 – Rue de Grenelle«.

»Flamboyant, certainly, but highly concentrated, à la Kleist, in its style and language. Kudos to the author!« Deutschlandradio

Rimbaud’s motto is a fitting introduction for the new novel by Hans Christoph Buch, one of Germany’s great literary travellers. The central protagonist is a fictional character called H.C. Buch, who may or may not resemble his creator.

Accompanied by his ex-wife, Judith, this Buch visits the places where the author spent his youth: the monastery La Sainte Baume, where he first learned French; Marseille, where his father was the German consul; and Sanary-sur-Mer, where the narrator pursues the traces of prominent writers-in-exile – Brecht, Feuchtwanger, Thomas and Heinrich Mann.
Gradually, the path of memory leads us into fiction. H.C. Buch metamorphoses: he becomes Count Dracula, travelling through time, or the husband of a voodoo goddess. In Haiti – the focal point of Buch’s real and literary existence – he is confronted with the consequences of the catastrophic 2010 earthquake. The country as he knew it no longer exists. The loss of the past is clearly apparent, and Buch finally begins to face his own mortality. After his death, Judith, his ex-wife, decides to travel in his place. Finally, she recovers him in the Latin America of magic realism.

Buch’s novel is a game of literary deception. The text is split into a kaleidoscope of different stories and repeatedly mirrored in the narratives of literary characters and role models. In this way it gradually spirals in to converge on the real life of the author, without ever laying claim to biographical authenticity. Buch paints life as a journey into the realm of the dead and a quest for God. His protagonist and narrator becomes one of the living dead: filled with lightness, yet condemned to repeat the errors and mistakes he made during his lifetime.

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 previous 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.

A great social novel, caustic, humorous, serious, it depicts the insidious, growing precariousness of life in Berlin in the early 21st century.

Thomas Frantz is a freelance journalist, bohemian, flâneur and chessboxer. He lives a rather unstructured life; his girlfriend is too old to have children, and he has, in any case, little desire to settle down. Frantz spends his days wandering around Berlin, encountering the city in all its variety: kabbalists, swingers, demonstrators, rundown betting offices, and the bourgeois haunts of the old West.
As he does so, he comments on all that he sees: the growing army of the precariate, people who still dream of making it big as they scrape by doing occasional jobs and turn to esotericism, volunteering and Pecha Kucha nights to give their lives some semblance of meaning. He researches the history of the former head office of the East German Communist Party: previously the headquarters of the Hitler Youth, originally a Jewish-run department store, and reinvented today as a luxurious private members’ club by London property speculators breathtakingly indifferent to the horrors and ironies of history.
Thomas Frantz, the chronicler of this new Berlin, unmasks the everyday lies he sees around him. Then the Ph.D student Sandra sweeps into his life like Hurricane Katrina, and it seems that everything is about to change. But is Frantz really prepared to start afresh?

Helmut Kuhn, born in 1962, studied history and media studies in Berlin and Paris. He worked as a trainee at the German-Jewish magazine Aufbau in New York. Today he lives as a freelance journalist and author in Berlin. He writes for publications including the Süddeutsche Zeitung, Die Zeit, Neue Zürcher Zeitung, Stern, Focus and mare. Helmut Kuhn has been awarded the Hansel Mieth Prize for Best Report, was the recipient of a literary grant from the Kunstraum Syltquelle, and participated in the Ingeborg Bachmann Competition in Klagenfurt. »Sidewalk Damages« has been published in 2012 with Frankfurter Verlagsanstalt, followed by the novel »Omi« (FVA 2016).

Maria Brecht spends her holiday with her friend on Crete. She has just been chosen a student of the diplomatic school of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. She is heading to a career as a diplomatic. But why is an inner voice telling her: This is not your way?
On a biking excursion in the mountains of Crete she encounters a mysterious stranger. She catches sight of a metallic case – and a blood trail from the trunk to the brushes. She flees; the stranger follows her with a knife. She can escape; a stone's throw hitting his shoulder saves her life. Inspector Gerakákis wants to know more: about the stranger, the blood, especially about the case. A speedboat coming from Libya has been found on the Cretan south coast. The case has probably been brought to the island last night. About the content he only says: It is precious enough to kill Maria, the only witness. He makes her an offer she cannot reject in her situation.
Athens. A city in state of exception. Garbage piles up in the streets, activists are occupying the Acropolis. The journalist Eléni Galánis is interested in Marias story. She is suspiciously well informed about it. Why does she warn of Gerakákis? Why do Cretan journals report on a German, who is the main subject in a murder case and now gone underground.
The stranger has brought the metallic case to Athens. He has a mission. And he has a score to settle with this country. Lots of people will die. But on Crete something went wrong. His commissioners are nervous. They do not believe that the German has been in the mountains by coincidence. What does she know? For whom is she working? She is posing a risk. She hurt his shoulder. This German will have to pay, too.

Kai Hensel, born in Hamburg in 1965, has been awarded several awards for his screenplays, stage plays and travel reports, and lives in Berlin.