There are stories so inconceivable that they cannot be told publicly, explicitly, but can only be recounted. Naturally, by the author himself. Here they are. Forty-five in number, and each of them illustrated by Kai Pfeiffer.
»Some months ago«, writes Clemens Setz, »I found some old stories in a folder that I had written when I was eighteen or nineteen. Leafing through the texts, I realized that, when written below one another, the titles formed a poem in the style of a New York poet. I put up the title list on the Suhrkamp-Blog (LOGBUCH), and wrote summaries for some of the stories. That’s how the idea for the present volume came about. That is, it was actually Kathrin Passig who suggested I make a whole book out of them.«
»Clemens Setz Remastered. […] concise abstracts of the grotesque, quirky summaries of youthful creativity. Setz presents 45 gems of paraphrased absurdity. Happy as Lead in a Corn Field is a medical cabinet of curiosities, a panopticon of pathology.« Julian Ingelmann, Litlog
»It’s not every day that a new genre is being invented« Literarische Welt
»[…] the sketches of these stories are highly amusing and read like the programme of a publishing house about whose future one needn’t worry, and that – quite to the contrary – holds back the releases of the new books like American production companies do the new seasons of their series.« Literarischer Monat
»Happy as Lead in a Corn Field is a show where you watch with your mouth open as fantasy overflows.« Kurier, Wien
»With Setz’s unpretentious, self-mocking tone, this volume […] becomes an entertaining documentation of earlier setbacks and creative failures.« Mario Osterland, fixpoetry.com
»entertaining miniatures that shorten the wait for his next novel.« Steirerkrone
»a surprisingly exciting experiment.« Hendrik Werner, Weser-Kurier
»Clemens Setz Remastered. […] concise abstracts of the grotesque, quirky summaries of youthful creativity. Setz presents 45 gems of paraphrased absurdity. Happy as Lead in a Corn Field is a medical cabinet of curiosities, a panopticon of pathology.« Julian Ingelmann, Litlog
»It’s not every day that a new genre is being invented« Literarische Welt
»[…] the sketches of these stories are highly amusing and read like the programme of a publishing...
Worms in the early twenties of the last century. Peter Bender, a former lieutenant pilot in the German Army, makes a name for himself as the founder of a new religious community and with the...
Spanish world rights (H&O Editores), Italy (La Nave di Teseo)
Domestic Rights Sales: German Audiobook (Roof Music)
Life plans are worrisome worlds apart, transitions and nuances threaten to disappear in the public debate. David is dead, as published by the influencer Tim and some journalists, but from the parents’ point of view their boy has been suffering from a kind of dementia ever since his traffic accident. Renate and Konrad are looking for a school for their son, who takes the form of a tablet in a...
Pure meaning, pure poetry – this idea seems to worry and spur on people throughout the centuries. It is the driving force behind the invention of languages like Esperanto, Volapük or...
Spanish world rights (H&O Editores), Korea (Eulyoo), Esperanto world rights (Mondial)
An Alsatian soldier in the First World War discovers the constellation of the Great Young Kid in the night sky, but it is so awful that he can’t tell anyone about it. A young man, who has fallen...
Russia (Symposium), France (Actes Sud), Italy (La Nave di Teseo), Denmark (Vandkunsten), Japan (Kokusho Kankokai), Poland (Filtry), Greece (Gutenberg)
Domestic Rights Sales: German Audiobook (Griot)
Imagine you’re a famous writer and are asked to give an extensive interview. You’re expected to disclose information about your interests and intellectual preferences, about the premises and backgrounds, the motifs and topics of your large body of work. Imagine not being able to think of anything to say, nothing whatsoever, try as you might. Well, someone else has to talk about you then. But...
France (Jacqueline Chambon), Italy (La Nave di Teseo), Bulgaria (Paradox)
In the northern part of Styria, Austria, lies Helianau, a boarding school for children suffering from a mysterious condition known as indigo syndrome. Everyone who comes to close to them is struck...
USA (W. W. Norton / Liveright), UK (Serpent's Tail), Chinese simplex rights (CITIC Press / Sight), France (Jacqueline Chambon), Italy (La Nave di Teseo), Netherlands (Leesmagazijn), Denmark (Vandkunsten), Korea (Eulyoo), Japan (Kokusho Kankokai), Croatia (Hena Com), Greece (Gutenberg)
Previously published in the respective language / territory; rights available again: Chinese complex rights (China Times), Czech Republic (Fra), Hungary (Europa), Bulgaria (Funtasy)
Domestic Rights Sales: German Audiobook (Roof Music)
Chinese simplex rights (CITIC Press / Sight), Arabic world rights (Al'Asreya), France (Actes Sud / Jacqueline Chambon), Czech Republic (Fra), Hungary (Europa), Bulgaria (Funtasy), Romania (Univers), Macedonia (Blesok)
Previously published in the respective language / territory; rights available again: Denmark (Vandkunsten)
Domestic Rights Sales: German Audiobook (Griot)