Complete Catalog 250 Result(s)

Gesa Olkusz uses spare, pared-back prose to explore human loneliness—and to overcome it through the magical power of her language.

A simple story, written in poetic and crystal clear prose: Parker and Kasimir immigrated from Poland to the USA when they were young, brought by their mother so that they could have a better life. After this single act of resolve, their mother loses all interest in life, and the brothers develop a powerful symbiotic bond, isolated from those around them. They survive in this foreign country but never feel at home there. Parker works nights as a private chauffeur, while Kasimir never leaves the house. When footloose Luzia moves in with them, she brings a new breath of life, but in doing so she destroys the brothers’ almost wordless bond. When the young woman leaves abruptly for Panama, one thing is clear: Kasimir is going to follow her, even to the ends of the world.

A story of young love—between two people who have grown old

They haven’t seen each other for more than sixty years, but one day Luisa bumps into HIM on the street: Heinrich was once the love of her life, her childhood sweetheart, but they fell out of touch. They arrange to meet again, and this rendezvous is followed by many more … As they talk, Luisa and Heinrich look back on their short-lived romance and on the decades they have spent apart. Gradually they grow closer again, travelling in their conversations through the highs and lows of their separate lives. Is a new love story developing, in the magic of the present? Because: ‘I think we’re both at an age now when it’s best not to put things off.’

Discomfort takes us on a journey under the thin skin of civilisation—and into the overwhelming power of the natural world.

Lorenz Urbach, a teacher, is increasingly troubled by a vague discomfort: a political dissatisfaction, a sense of being overwhelmed and world-weary. Suddenly he has an outburst of aggression—he gets into a fight and his life is turned upside down. When reports start to appear of a blood-thirsty animal causing trouble in the Alps, it triggers deep-seated memories in Lorenz. The media is speculating wildly—could it be a wolf? or perhaps a human being?—and Lorenz thinks of his childhood friend Theresa, the perennial outsider, the social dropout, forever primed for violence … He sets off on a solitary hike into the mountains, grappling with the forces of nature, searching both for the ‘monster’ out in the wilds and for the origins of the violence in himself.

These small masterpieces of the imagination are also an impassioned plea against the human exploitation of nature.

Dazzling blue beetles, furry moths, bold grasshoppers and shimmering dragonflies are the heroes of Barbara Frischmuth’s new short stories. Yet when we look more closely, we realise they are about more than just carefully observed insects: they are about the delicate symbioses between humans and nature, about rare hybrid beings, half girl and half beetle, about talking dragonflies and about what we can learn from the ingeniousness of grasshoppers. Written with affectionate humour, these stories reveal how profoundly human beings are a part of nature. As gardener and poet Barbara Frischmutch never tires of repeating: our only chance of survival is to develop a relationship with nature based on respect and mindfulness.

Writing with tremendous charm, Russo tells the story of two people in love, of a stolen block of parmesan cheese, and of romance in an uncertain age.

Masha and Iggy are in love, yet somehow they can’t quite connect: Iggy wants to be a filmmaker, but as yet he hasn’t managed to get into film school. Masha is lost in the labyrinth of online dating—and studying medicine in her spare time. A chance meeting brings the two together, but how does anybody fall in love these days? And how do you talk about it when you can talk about literally anything else, and when you’re aware of so many other types of relationship? Before Masha and Iggy become a couple, they must first travel to Italy with a dying woman, rob a church, swim naked in Lake —and learn that sometimes it’s best if you don’t say anything at all. And like all partners in crime, they pull off all sorts of madcap exploits before they face the hardest one of all: letting someone in …

Clemens Berger paints a wildly comical picture of our society in this touching tale of solidarity, struggle for survival and motherly love.

Babies need milk – from the breast or the bottle. This is where Clarissa begins with the “House of Liquid Gold”: women like Maya, a single mother who was previously making a living from casual jobs, express their surplus milk in a comfortable environment and take a share in the profits. Things are going well until the biggest manufacturer can no longer supply families with formula; then breast milk becomes a matter of life and death. When Maya takes the side of the desperate women and their hungry babies, she becomes a social media icon. Clemens Berger’s fast-paced satyr takes us on the rollercoaster of emotions Maya experiences on social media: she is celebrated, suffers backlash and receives offers of millions of euros, not to mention death threats – and she has to find her own way.

With a subtly humorous touch, Jana Volkmann tells a story of animals, humans and egalitarian forms of coexistence that are as self-evident as they are revolutionary.

Two women are on their way home in central Vienna one summer’s night when they happen upon a horse without a rider in a small alley. The slightly neglected animal trots along behind them until they reach their house in the suburbs, where it takes up residence in the garden. From this point on, the two women look after the latest addition to the household. What seems like a fairytale fantasy at first grows into an extraordinary novel about the coexistence between animals and humans, about animal rights and exploitation, self-determination and its limits. With elegance and wit, Jana Volkmann tells a highly topical story in which chicken factories are stormed and pigs gallop across the high street – a story in which every individual must decide for themselves how we, collectively, want to live in the future.

This is a novel of a young generation that wants to turn the united Europe into its playing field, only to find itself becoming a pawn in questionable political strategies.

Upon graduating, Hanna Fürst secures a highly competitive internship at the European External Office and is determined to make the most of the opportunity. Along with NGO activists Lej and Jakov, she is assigned to the “Future Working Group”, tasked with promoting the peaceful rapprochement of two warring neighbouring states on the margins of Europe. Amid the rapid pace of work, however, Hanna loses herself in the grey area between intrigue and networks. She succumbs to her fascination for the charismatic Lej, who seems to be the only one with any real plan. By refusing to get caught up in a war that has been happening since before they were born, the working group make an enemy not only of their institution but also the two nation states.

With painful candour, humour and tenderness tells Moritz Franz Beichl the story of two unequal brothers and his search for alternative images of masculinity.

In Moritz Franz Beichl's novel, two men meet who have nothing in common - except one essential thing: their father. Because everything distinguishes the narrator from his brother Konrad, the lawyer and family man who lives in a nice house - and perpetuates a conventional image of masculinity. More attractive, more modern, but with all the normative violence that has always been there. But now the father has died, the two brothers have to organise the funeral together - and for the first time the narrator has something to offer his older brother: a self-determined life as a ballet dancer, as a gay man, as a stubborn single man. The old conflicts break out, but reconciliation may also be possible without fully understanding each other's lives.

Tara C. Meister sensitively tells a contemporary story about alternative life plans and dreams, about failure and new life.

The unpredictable but charismatic Johanna is a director in a small theatre collective. She has a close, perhaps too close, friendship with Caro, who works as a biochemist in a laboratory. When Johanna becomes unintentionally pregnant, Caro offers to raise the child together - a courageous alternative to traditional family patterns? Tara C. Meister's exciting debut novel confronts dreams with their validity in reality. She describes moments of intimacy and closeness, but also conflicts and assaults, with a light touch and a clear view. But Johanna and Caro are determined to live out their courageous decision - and to assert themselves in a world in which utopias are not intended...