Literarische Agentur Michael Gaeb Stargarder Str. 8 10437 Berlin ...

Dear All,
Literarische Agentur Michael Gaeb Stargarder Str. 8 10437 Berlin
info@litagentur.com
International Newsletter Spring 2009
here comes our spring-newsletter with some brief information about the agency’s latest authors
and titles available for translation. We hope that some of these authors will catch your attention
and we would be happy to send you the originals and/or galleys and further information.
In 2008 we sold Ariel Magnus’ wonderful novel Un chino en bicicleta (“A Chinese man on a
bicycle”) to Germany (Kiwi), Italy (Gran Vía), Israel (Hakkibutz Hameuchad), Romania (Trei
Publishers) and Croatia (Fraktura).
Another success was Adam Soboczynski’s Die schonende Abwehr verliebter Frauen (“The Art of
Parting Gently with Female Admirers”). This extraordinary book is a manual of strategy, a
modern and hilarious Machiavelli for our rough times. Rights have been sold to Italy (Feltrinelli),
Spain (Anagrama) and France (Belfond).
Wiebke Eden’s novel Zeit der roten Früchte (“Season of red fruit”) is a magnificent novel about
the fate of women during wartime, published by Arche Verlag. After many wonderful reviews
this debut novel is in the third edition and has sold nearly 10.000 copies so far.
We now present one of the most authentic voices of new Mexican fiction. Mario González
Suárez’ dark novel A wewo, padrino (“Come on, man”), a sinister panorama of life in northern
Mexico, the abnormal violence of the drug war and the terrible consequences for an unguilty,
good-hearted man. This novel is a piercing portrayal of inner desolation and it’s a strong social
panorama of the area already well-trodden in literature by Cormac McCarthy, but from the other
side of the fence.
Also new on this list a great new novel by Guillermo Fadanelli: Lodo (“Mudd”). The novel was
one of the major titles of Bourgois Editeur of this year’s rentrée and enthusiastically received by
the French critics at the Salon du livre, this year dedicated to Mexico. We have sold rights to:
France (Bourgois), Italy (Marco Tropea) and Germany (Matthes&Seitz).
Furthermore we have one of the most terrific pop-science books in Germany of the year: Max
Rauner’s and Tobias Hürter’s Die verrückte Welt der Multiversen (“The crazy world of the
Multiverses”). The challenge of this book is to write a new creation story for the 3rd millennium!
If Simon Singh whetted your appetite but you didn’t quite get your head around Lisa Randall,
you’ll be blown away by this book!
Enjoy the reading!
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Fiction
The second novel of Mario González Suárez, one of the great authentic voices of Mexican
fiction today, throws us into the violent world of drug trafficking in northern Mexico. The
protagonist of this first-class novel called A wewo, padrino, published recently by Mondadori, is
a good man at heart, he is forced to commit a crime against his will. The simple taxi driver,
headed north with his wife, stumbles into an old school friend, Jaime Cuéllar. Cuéllar now heads
one of the major drug cartels in the north. Against his will, the narrator gets sucked into a spiral
of violence and crime. He ends up killing everyone close to him, leaving only a future of crime
ahead of him. The novel is set in north Mexico, an area where stories of abnormal brutality often
steal the international headlines. Murders, drug dealing, human and organ trafficking are daily
occurrences in this closely-guarded border area between the third and the first world.
González Suárez’ novel is a piercing portrayal of inner desolation and it’s a strong social
panorama of the area already well-trodden in literature by Cormac McCarthy, but from the other
side of the fence.
Ariel Magnus, winner of two prestigious literary prizes, is considered the shooting star of
Argentinian fiction. Un chino en bicicleta (“A Chinese man on a bicycle”), Norma Editorial, is
an utterly comic novel, that introduces the reader to the miraculous world of Chinese piracy, to
Absurdistan in Buenos Aires. It’s one of the funniest romantic comedies of its time. The whole
town is looking for a mysterious arsonist called “el Fosforito” (the little match), who is said
always to escape the scene of the crime by bicycle – after all, he is Chinese. When Li is finally
caught, he takes a hostage: Ramiro, the narrator of this novel. He carries him off to Buenos Aires’
Chinatown, and the two become friends. Ramiro is more and more enchanted by his kidnappers
and their surroundings, where he does not understand a word, but is having the greatest sex of
his life. Move over magic realism. Magic capitalism is on the up. The novel was awarded the
Premio La otra orilla. For fans of Woody Allen and Michael Chabon.
Sold to: Germany (Kiwi), Israel (Hakkibutz Hameuchad), Croatia (Fraktura) and Romania (Trei)
Bolaño 2.0! One of the major and most ambitious literary voices of Latin American fiction is
Álvaro Enrigue. His new masterpiece Vidas perpendiculares ("Perpendicular lives"), published
by Editorial Anagrama, tells the life story of Jerónimo Loera, a young boy from Mexico in the
thirties. Everybody knows him on account of his protruding eyes and his strange appearance.
And everybody thinks he’s mad. But he’s exactly the opposite. He lives many lives simultaneously
and can remember his previous existences. He takes the reader back to the Middle Ages, back to
Judea in the days of the Roman Empire and to Naples in the baroque period. But the thread of
the tale is his current existence in sway between the Mexican wasteland and the American Dream.
Magic realism revisited!
For Fans of David Foster Wallace and Roberto Bolaño.
Álvaro Enrigue, 38 years old, lives in Mexico and collaborates in different magazines. He was
selected among the best 39 authors younger than 39 years by last year’s Bogota Festival.
Sold to: France (Gallimard)
We’ve also taken over one of the living classics of Argentinian fiction: Antonio Dal Masetto.
Dal Masetto’s works, translated into various languages are an example of the good combination
of great storytelling and great literary ambition. In one of his darkest and best-known novels
Siempre es difícil volver a casa (“It’s hard to be home again”) Dal Masetto tells the story of four men
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who arrive at a silent village. They’re destitute and keep a low profile. However, they have a plan:
they are going to rob a bank. But the robbery fails and the two burglars get trapped. The village is
surrounded by the residents who club together to chase the robbers. In the end it turns out to be
the most distinguished citizen who turns most criminal. There is little time left to the robbers.
This novel is a dark crime novel that takes place in the burning heat of South America, and a
captivating, sometimes utterly comic tale about greediness, despair and the human abyss.
Sold to: France (Seuil), Germany (Rotpunkt, Suhrkamp), Italy (Einaudi) and Portugal
(Livrododia)
Dal Masetto’s recent novel Sacrificios en dias santos (“Holy sacrifices”) a group of girls
witness an act of sodomy from their boarding school window. The story does the rounds of their
small town in the Argentine pampas. A staunchly religious retired teacher rallies a protest against
the offender, the local roof tiler, who will feel the full weight of the law. Meanwhile the 15-yearold
Lucrecia is trying to lose her virginity in an act of rebellion against her strict, Catholic parents.
Antonio Dal Masetto’s style is simple, yet vividly portrays a spectacle of collective violence and
religious hypocrisy.
Sold to: Italy (La Nuova Frontiera)
One of the most successful German debut novels in 2008 was Wiebke Eden’s novel Zeit der
roten Früchte (“Season of red fruit”), published by Arche Verlag.
Stettin, Summer 1939. Greta is pregnant. She’s 19 years old and unmarried. And she refuses to
marry the father of her child, as custom would have it. Ignoring the gossip as well as her
disapproving family, she goes off smoking, drinking, flirting with labourers at harvest festivals
and sitting in dockside bars, where all other women are prostitutes. She does not feel bonded to
her baby, which she has left to her mother. The only one on her side is her father, but he’s drawn
in by the military. Still, she throws herself at complete strangers or tramples aimlessly through the
fields, desperately searching for love. As the war draws to a close, she’s picked up by some Polish
soldiers and thrown into prison. When she reappears, horribly abused, her mother, father and
daughter are gone. Only Edgar is still waiting for her. A magnificent novel about the fate of
women during wartime. The book was one of the best sold literary debuts in Germany in 2009, in
six months it has sold nearly 10.000 copies.
Sold to: Poland (Arkadia)
In November 2008 Anagrama launched the new novel by Guillermo Fadanelli, Lodo (“Mudd”).
What happens when a gorgeous twenty-year-old girl, who has just committed a crime, seeks
protection by an aging professor who is teaching philosophy? He throws his morals over board
and starts on his ultimate road trip. One night Eduarda, a chick from the supermarket around the
corner, knocks on Benito Torrentera’s door and makes herself comfortable. The professor, single
and turning fifty soon, receives her with great pleasure, however she only sells her body. She has
robbed the local supermarket and accidentally killed someone. Now it’s up to Torrentera to
protect her from the law. Soon he turns just as odious as his corrupt brother. He manipulates
Eduarda’s identity and takes her to the north of Mexico. But there are male competitors all along
the way. In spite of the deal made between the criminal couple, the philosopher, who tells his
story retrospectively from prison, becomes violently jealous and finally murders two men. But
fate has another surprise in store for him. A sarcastic comment on self justice and corruption –
made by a disillusioned moralist and a ‘dying animal’.
Sold to: France (Bourgois), Germany (Matthes&Seitz Berlin), Italy (Marco Tropea)
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Non-fiction
Life is not easy today – neither for men nor for women. Be it at the workplace, in friendship or in
love affairs: the latter is full of baseness, jealousy and intrigues. Die schonende Abwehr
verliebter Frauen (“The Art Of Parting Gently With Female Admirers”), published by
G.Kiepenheuer, the recent book of Adam Soboczynski, one of the most acclaimed young
journalists in Germany, is a guideline of strategies on how to handle our fellow citizens, an elegant
Machiavelli for our times. Soboczynski takes familiar situations from modern everyday life, where
moral and immoral behaviour get muddled by self-interest. Sometimes it may be beneficial to
appear slightly hurt, while at other times showing outrage at the cruelness of the world puts us in a
heroic light. With great sympathy for the weaknesses of his protagonists, the author portrays men
and women struggling through a civilized jungle, and provides the reader with all necessary
techniques in order to survive. And in order to unmask all others. More than telling a story, this
book evolves around an idea. It is written in an ironic and playful style, full of wit and charm. It
teaches a still blue-eyed species the high art of dissimulation and the narrator proves himself to be
the greatest master of his kind.
Sold to: Italy (Feltrinelli), Spain (Anagrama), France (Belfond)
One of the major pop-science books of the year in Germany is Max Rauner’s and Tobias
Hürter’s The Crazy Theory of the Multiverses, published by Piper Verlag. The authors, both
with PhDs in physics and philosophy, are editors at important German popular science
magazines. The challenge of this book is to write a new creation story for the 3rd millennium!
A groundbreaking idea has seized the scientific world. Could our universe be just one of many?
Could we be living in many different worlds at the same time, as replicas of ourselves? This
multiple universe theory is starting to take root in modern cosmology. Britain’s Astronomer
Royal, Sir Martin Rees would bet his dog’s life on its existence. The cosmologist Andrei Linde
from Stanford University would bet his own life. This book reveals the latest on this scientific
revolution. Since Nicolaus Copernicus declared that earth was not the centre of the universe,
man lost his privileged position in the cosmos. In this book , the authors, Tobias Hürter and Max
Rauner, spoke to Nobel laureates, papal astronomers, philosophers and the most prominent
defenders and opponents of this new world theory. They explain the theory of multiple universes
and ponder what it would mean for us, if there really were multiple replicas of ourselves. They go
in search of the roots of the image of the multiple universe in literature, philosophy and religion.
Here the third millennium gets its own creation theory.
If Simon Singh whetted your appetite but you didn’t quite get your head around Lisa
Randall, you’ll be blown away by this book!
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