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The German publisher ends its collaboration with the writer
Monika Maron published with Fischer for forty years. That is over now.
Rejections are well known to Monika Maron. Also that the reasons for this are not convincing. Forty years ago the author wanted to publish her first novel. But GDR officials prevented the appearance. In a devastating criticism, they declared: “It would have been possible if something had been worked on.”
These beginnings are remembered today. But this time the cancellation comes from the publisher, of all people, who released the debut “Flugasche” in 1981 in the Federal Republic of Germany. As it became known recently, S. Fischer Verlag will not publish any more books by the 79-year-old author. This marks the end of forty years of journalistic collaboration. And the reasons sound vague.
Against the zeitgeist
It is clear that Monika Maron is a writer who has always been controversial. He denounced environmental pollution in the GDR and diagnosed a gap between citizens and intellectuals during the fall of the Wall. His most recently published literary works raise questions behind German immigration policy.
Criticism was not long in coming. But Siv Bublitz, S. Fischer’s managing editor, stuck with its author. While the “Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung” credited Maron with the “new rights” following the publication of the latest novel (“Artur Lanz”, 2020), Bublitz described the book as “controversial, intelligent and artistically demanding”.
Since then, this relationship has cooled off. The editor reproaches the Berliner. But these are in no way related to the content, theses, positions or themes of the new volume of essays do not interfere. The reason for the “expulsion” is the place where the work was published. And especially who sells it.
Dresden scandals
Maron published the collection of texts at the Loschwitz publishing house. The Dresden bookstore is known throughout the country; In 2015 and 2016 he received the German Bookstore Award. But he made a name for himself primarily from an open letter that co-director Susanne Dagen addressed to the German Book Trade Association in 2017. She criticized “disrespectful and unworthy” deals with right-wing publishers.
For S. Fischer Verlag, however, the deciding factor was who sells the Dresden titles. Antaios, the edition of AfD pioneer and right-wing editor Götz Kubitschek, is responsible for this. And it is precisely this association that the usual editor of Marons, S. Fischer, does not want to accept.
In an interview with “FAZ”, Siv Bublitz said: “The limits of our range of opinions are deliberately set broad, but at the same time clear. It is unacceptable for us that an author publishes at the same time in the Antaios publishing house and in S. Fischer. “For her part, Monika Maron spoke of having been” expelled “in a conversation with” Die Welt. ” and she didn’t know she was selling the books. “Show me a writer who handles the sales,” she said.
In the editor’s preview for Spring 2021, Fischer announced a volume of Monika Maron’s essays. It does not seem clear if it will continue to appear there. But its title is all the more appropriate. It says, “What’s really going on?”
