Archives par étiquette : Penguin Random House Verlagsgruppe (Bertelsmann)

ACHT WÖLFE d’Ulla Scheler

Eight young people, lost in the Canadian wilderness – if they want to get out alive, they must stick together.

ACHT WÖLFE
(Eight Wolves)
by Ulla Scheler
Heyne/PRH Germany, September 2023

Eight young people join a guided hike through Canada’s biggest national park. For the next three weeks, they will experience the wilderness and see the Northern Lights. But even in the wilderness, you can end up in the wrong place at the wrong time. When they witness a crime, the eight have no choice but to run. Lost in the middle of nowhere, they have no equipment and nothing to help them find their way home. They also can’t stand each other. But their only chance of getting out of this alive is to work together.

A survival thriller for fans of « Rust Creek ».

Ulla Scheler, born in 1994, studied psychology and IT in Munich and Karlsruhe. Her debut novel « Es ist gefährlich, bei Sturm zu schwimmen » (« Swimming during a storm is dangerous ») was a big popular and critical success, and shortlisted for the German YA Prize. « Eight Wolves » is her first non-YA novel.

TERAFIK de Nilufar Karkhiran Khozani

The moving story of a daughter’s relationship with her father, of life lived between alien worlds, and of a family and a country in pain.

TERAFIK
by Nilufar Karkhiran Khozani
Blessing/PRH Germany, August 2023

© Erik Weiss

When Nilufar was a young girl, her father moved back to Iran, leaving her behind. Now, for the first time, she travels to his home country to meet the family she never knew. In Tehran, she finds a world of contradictions, and encounters new faces – all of them wounded, and each with their hopes and dreams. Nilufar slowly gets to know the life that might have been her own, yet her father keeps eluding her whenever she tries to get close to him. In the midst of this chaotic and restless city, among the well-meaning relatives who have welcomed her into their home, Nilufar little by little discovers and understands a fragmented country, a fragmented family and her own fragmented identity.

Nilufar Karkhiran Khozani, born in 1983, studied literature, comparative literature and psychology before qualifying as a behavioural therapist. She has contributed to several literary journals, and in 2020 published Romance Would Be a Very Fine Bonus Indeed, a volume of selected verse. She was artist-in-residence at the 2020 Prosanova Festival, and translated the script for Town Bloody Hall: A Dialogue on Women’s Liberation for the German feature Als Susan Sontag im Publikum saß (‘The Time Susan Sontag Was in the Audience’, 2021). TERAFIK is her first novel. She lives in Berlin.

DEMOKRATIE IM FEUER de Jonas Schaible

Rethinking climate change and democracy.

DEMOKRATIE IM FEUER
(Democracy in Flames)
by Jonas Schaible
DVA/PRH Germany, March 2023

Many people think that protecting our climate and democracy are mutually exclusive. For some, the fight against climate change is moving too slowly, while others are already feeling threatened by the prospect of an « eco-dictatorship ». In DEMOKRATIE IM FEUER, journalist Schaible shows that protecting the climate and democracy are actually prerequisites for each other. Without one, the other will become impossible. He exposes false contradictions, and argues that what we need is « climate democracy » – for the climate crisis is already starting to limit our freedoms, and we’ll only be able to save the planet by democratic means. DEMOKRATIE IM FEUER takes a new look at the relationship between democracy and climate change, and sketches an optimistic vision of a future where the two reinforce each other.

Jonas Schaible, born in 1989, is an editor at Spiegel’s Berlin office. He studied politics and media studies in Tübingen and Berlin, and graduated with a degree in journalism from Hamburg’s Henri Nannen School. He has been writing regularly about climate change and climate policy since 2018, and won the German Reporter Prize for Best Essay for his feature « Wer von Ökodiktatur spricht, hat das Problem nicht verstanden » (‘If you’re talking about eco-dictatorships you haven’t understood the problem’).

DAS ENDE DES ROMANTIKDIKTATS d’Andrea Newerla

« Relationships have changed, and we need to ask ourselves what kind of commitment might replace them. »

DAS ENDE DES ROMANTIKDIKTATS
(The End of Romance)
by Andrea Newerla
Kösel/PRH Germany, June 2023

Our relationship with other people, closeness and intimacy has fundamentally changed. This is due not only to the « safe distances » and lockdowns of the past couple of years or so, but to a social trend that has merely been intensified by the pandemic – as evidenced by rising divorce rates, an increase in polyamorous relationships, the rising number of single households and political discussions around « responsible communities ».
The concept of the romantic couple – our current gold standard for closeness and connection – is showing its cracks. Now more than ever, we ask ourselves: what kind of a relationship would make me truly happy? Sociologist Andrea Newerla examines the emergence of new relationship models, and shows how the monetisation and digitisation of the dating market is chipping away at existing norms. Yet she also reveals the opportunities that are emerging in the realm of friendship, ethics of care and chosen families.
Using original research as well as her personal experiences, Newerla inspires us to reflect more deeply on our relationships, and to ask whether there are different kinds of commitments we could be making.

Andrea Newerla is one of the best known voices in the field of intimacy research. She has a PhD in sociology and is a senior researcher at the Paris Lodron University in Salzburg, specialising in non-heteronormative intimacy, online dating and relationship patterns. Her study of intimacy behaviours during the pandemic prompted her to take a new approach to intimacy research, and her observations of changing social currents provide the basis of this book.

SCHATTENZEIT d’Oliver Hilmes

The brilliant new panorama of a historical year, by bestselling author Oliver Hilmes.

SCHATTENZEIT:
Deutschland 1943: Alltag und Abgründe
(Days of Darkness: Germany, 1943)
by Oliver Hilmes
Siedler/PRH Germany, January 2023

The catastrophe happens over coffee and cake: on a visit to his mother’s childhood friend in March 1943, Karlrobert Kreiten, a consummate 26-year-old pianist with a promising future ahead of him, claims that Germany has lost the war, and the Führer his mind. Six months after making these unguarded comments, he dies on the gallows.
Kreiten’s tragic fate is at the centre of 
« Days of Darkness », Oliver Hilmes’s superb account of life in Germany in 1943. That year, an entire army is wiped out at Stalingrad, and Goebbels calls for a ‘total war’; children are moved to the countryside for their safety, while millions of Germans crowd into cinemas to see the movie star Hans Albers as Baron Munchausen; the cities are already lying in ruins, yet people keep dancing; and while the Nazis’ ‘machinery of destruction’ is firing on all cylinders, some fantasise about the ‘final victory’ even as others try to stand up to the dictatorship.
In this brilliantly devised and meticulously researched kaleidoscope of stories and character portraits, Hilmes brings the dramatic events of 1943 back to life.

Oliver Hilmes, born in 1971, has a PhD in modern history and is curator at the Berlin Philharmonic foundation. He is the author of bestselling biographies of Alma Mahler-Werfel, Cosima Wagner, Franz Liszt and Ludwig II. His award-winning bestseller Berlin 1936: Sixteen Days in August was translated into numerous languages.