France (Héros-Limite)
Previously published in the respective language / territory; rights available again: Italy (Marcos y Marcos)
Peter Bichsel tells the story of Cherubin Hammer, who thinks that he is a writer and is trying, unsucessfully, to live the biography of a writer. He confronts him with a second Cherubin hammer, a man’s man and charmer who can’t be trusted and is still loved by everyone and who, on first glance, does have something akin to a biography. There are things that could be told about him, but only anecdotal ones.
What the two share is the fact that they live their life strictly and heedlessly....
Peter Bichsel tells the story of Cherubin Hammer, who thinks that he is a writer and is trying, unsucessfully, to live the biography of a writer. He confronts him with a second Cherubin hammer, a man’s man and charmer who can’t be trusted and is still loved by everyone and who, on first glance, does have something akin to a biography. There are things that could be told about him, but only anecdotal ones.
What the two share is the fact that they live their life strictly and heedlessly. Rosa Fässler and Bertha Schmied are the women who have to suffer these make-believe biographies. They don’t resent their misfits, even though one of them carries a stone »into the mountain« day after day and the other goes on his pub crawl with the taxi, even though the waterholes are a mere thirty metres apart.
The two men grow old with their stories, which take them to the Pantheon in Rome at times or to Munich or to far-away Aargau other times, to reading the Odyssey or to Goethe. One of them dies, even though he seemed indestructible, the other is put into a retirement home, from which he constantly escapes and walks through the fields »as though he was walking as the crow flies.« Yet the only ones who have true biographies are the women, who live their lives, just like that and without any grand ideas.
The first of Peter Bichsel‘s P.S.-columns, which have become an institution sui generis over the course of four decades, was published in Zurich’s Tages-Anzeiger in 1975. But even in the 1960s, the author had been writing numerous journalistic contributions and columns on questions of the times, that accompanied his early successes as a literary storyteller. Beat...
Talking about the weather, about anything, that is. Being understood, even if it’s just by someone who doesn’t even speak my language. Peter Bichsel’s columns can strike up a conversation with...
Uzbekistan (Turon-Iqbol)
Whether he talks about the suffering of professional footballers or about a strange journey on a train through Egypt, whether he chats about life in New York or an old postman who delivered his...
Previously published in the respective language / territory; rights available again: Italy (Marcos y Marcos)
»I believe«, says Peter Bichsel, »that the importance of literature lies not in conveying content but in maintaining storytelling. Because people need stories to survive. They...
Thailand (Gamme Magie Éditions), Azerbaijan (Alatoran), Iran (Nashr-i Naw)
Previously published in the respective language / territory; rights available again: French rights (Éditions d’en bas), Italy (Marcos y Marcos), Norway (Gyldendal Norsk), Turkey (Ayrac), India (Bengali, Tarjama Books), India (English, Tarjama Books), Israel (Babel)
Buzzard is a rich, homesick native of Solothurn with whose money Solothurn’s historic city centre is »beautified« (and made unlivable). Buzzard, however, is also the name of the...
French rights (Éditions d’en bas), Italy (Casagrande)
Previously published in the respective language / territory; rights available again: Spanish world rights (Espasa Calpe), Norway (Damm & Søn)
Peter Bichsel‘s five lectures from 1982 are not actually lectures but stories about lectures. They are refreshingly unpretentious and always exceedingly subtle – just as his works of fiction. At...
Turkey (Ketebe)
Previously published in the respective language / territory; rights available again: Italy (Comma 22), Denmark (Gyldendal), Sweden (Janus), Croatia (Naklada MD)
Catalan rights (Los Cuarto), France (Attila), Finland (Otava), Korea (Wisdomhouse), Japan (Asahi), Thailand (Gamme Magie Éditions), Slovakia (Milanium), Lithuania (Pamėginčius), Turkey (Ketebe), Azerbaijan (Alatoran), Iran (Aftabkaran)
Previously published in the respective language / territory; rights available again: UK (Calder & Boyars), USA (Delacorte), Spanish world rights (Santillana), Basque rights (Erein), Galician rights (Edición Obraidoro), Brazilian Portuguese rights (Atica), Portuguese rights (selection; ASA), Italy (Marcos y Marcos), Romanic rights (Uniun dals Grischs), Netherlands (Van Goor), Denmark (Gyldendal), Sweden (Norstedt & Söner), Norway (Gyldendal Norsk), Poland (Longin Studio), Czech Republic (Host), Hungary (Holnap), Romania (RAO), Estonia (Kirijastus Ilmamaa), Croatia (Stajer-Graf), Serbia (Draganic), Slovenia (LUD Literatura), Greece (Ekdoseis Epikuros), Macedonia (Kultura), Ukraine (Golovna Specializovana Redakcija), Belorussia (Logvinau), Georgia (Bakur Sulakauri), India (Hindi; Saar Sansaar), India (Urdu; Punjab Book Department)
This the story of a house, an ordinary residential house, and the people and objects in it. The author raises the inventory and he invents a character, who is called Kieninger. Kieninger rents a...
France (Gallimard), Turkey (Ketebe)
Previously published in the respective language / territory; rights available again: Italy (Comma 22), Netherlands (Meulenhoff), Denmark (Arena), Sweden (Norstedt), Korea (Bookstory), Poland (Państwowy Instytut Wydawniczy), Czech Republic (Odeon)
Catalan rights (Lleonard Muntaner Editor), Thailand (Gamme Magie Éditions), Georgia (Intelekti), Iran (Aftabkaran)
Previously published in the respective language / territory; rights available again: UK (Calder & Boyars), Spanish world rights (Espasa Calpe), France (Gallimard), Italy (Marcos y Marcos), Denmark (Gyldendal), Sweden (Norstedt & Söner), Norway (Gyldendal Norsk), Korea (Munhakdongne), Hungary (Bookart), Croatia (Mlinarec & Plavic), Slovenia (LUD Literatura), Turkey (Kabalci), Greece (Grammata), Belorussia (Logvinau)