One night, German philosopher Hans Blumenberg returns to his study to find a shocking sight a lion lying on the floor as if it's the most natural thing in the world. The lion stretches comfortably on the Turkmen rug, eyes resting comfortably on Blumenberg. The philosopher with some effort retains his composure, even when the next day during his lecture the lion makes another appearance, ambling slowly down the center aisle. Blumenberg glances around; the seats are full, but none of his students seem to see the lion. What is going on here?Blumenberg is the captivating and witty fictional tale of this likable philosopher and the handful of students who come under the spell of the supernatural lion including skinny Gerhard Optatus Baur, a promising young Blumenbergian, and the delicate, haughty Isa, who falls head over heels in love with the wrong man. Written by Sibylle Lewitscharoff, whom Die Welt called the "most dazzling stylist of contemporary German literature," Blumenberg will delight English readers for the first time.

Travel is a fundamental experience of human existence. For Max Beckmann it was of existential importance both in a symbolic, but also in a deeply personal sense. In the 1920s, he regularly traveled to the noble health resorts and palace hotels on the Dutch, Italian, and French coasts. His defamation as a "degenerate" artist by the Nazi regime, however, forced him to retreat, first from Frankfurt to Berlin and subsequently into exile in Amsterdam. His emigration to the United States marked the culmination of a life entwined with the longing to travel as well as uprooting, transit and exile. Max Beckmann. DEPARTURE assembles an outstanding selection of artworks and initiates a dialogue with hitherto unseen objects and materials from the Max Beckmann Archive. It shows Beckmann’s relationship to film and literature as a producer of images of aspirations and longing resonating with notions of identity and home.

Now in paperback, from one of the most dazzling authors of contemporary German literature comes this delightful tale of a philosopher and his encounter with a supernatural lion. One night, German philosopher Hans Blumenberg returns to his study to find a shocking sight-a lion lying on the floor as if it's the most natural thing in the world. The lion stretches comfortably on the Turkmen rug, eyes resting on Blumenberg. The philosopher with some effort retains his composure, even when the next day during his lecture the lion makes another appearance, ambling slowly down the center aisle. Blumenberg glances around; the seats are full, but none of his students seem to see the lion. What is going on here? Blumenberg is the captivating and witty fictional tale of this likable philosopher and the handful of students who come under the spell of the supernatural lion-including skinny Gerhard Optatus Baur, a promising young Blumenbergian, and the delicate, haughty Isa, who falls head over heels in love with the wrong man. Written by Sibylle Lewitscharoff, whom Die Welt called the "most dazzling stylist of contemporary German literature," Blumenberg will delight English readers.

“Gone, finito, The End, I say. A father who puts an end to it all before he wears down the whole family deserves more praise than damnation.” Two sisters travel to Sofia—in a convoy of luxury limousines arranged by a fellow Bulgarian exile—to bury their less-than-beloved father. Like tourists, they are chauffeured by the ever-charming Ruben Apostoloff—one sister in the back seat, one in the passenger seat, one sharp-tongued and aggressive, the other polite and considerate. In a caustic voice, Apostoloff shows them the treasures of his beloved country: the peacock-eye pottery (which contains poisonous dye), the Black Sea coast (which is utterly destroyed), the architecture (a twentieth-century crime). His attempts to win them over seem doomed to fail, as the sisters’ Bulgarian heritage is a heavy burden—their father, a successful doctor and melancholy immigrant, appears in their dreams still dragging the rope with which he hanged himself. An account of a daughter’s bitterly funny reckoning with her father and his country, laden with linguistic wit and black humor, Apostoloff will introduce the unique voice of Sibylle Lewitscharoff to a new and eager audience.