Jonathan Landgrebe on Suhrkamp Verlag, Germany's Faber & Faber

The Biblio File hosted by Nigel Beale

Jonathan Landgrebe is the publisher of Suhrkamp Verlag. We met at his offices in Berlin to talk about his role as head of one of Germany's most revered publishing houses, and to riff off Siegfried Unseld's book The Author and His Publisher. Topics covered in our conversation include: important books that just don't sell; the publisher-author relationship; books that change both readers and the world; explaining and transferring feelings and enthusiasms to others; forcing values on the public; the war and recognizing Ukrainian literature; how to gain attention; authors towering above us; making Rachel Cusk known in Germany; Lutz Seiler's writing on the GDR; the growth in sales of English language books in Germany; publishing Hesse, Brecht and new voices; illness; the frozen sea within; the single reader counting most; enriching life; German publishers' sense of duty to society; Returning to Reims by Didier Eribon, and Sasha Marianna Salzmann's Beside Myself.