In großartigen Prosaminiaturen erzählt Walter Benjamin von seiner Kindheit im Berlin der Jahrhundertwende. Die Ausgabe enthält die umfangreichste Fassung letzter Hand in der von Benjamin selbst festgelegten Anordnung.

Never before have Dmitry Gromov and Oleg Ladyzhensky written documentary prose - only fiction. We never kept diaries. But the invasion of Ukraine changed everything. These diaries are not the fantasy that Oldie is used to. A different language, a different style - to match the circumstances.

Mit Florian Illies kann man Vergangenheit plötzlich als Gegenwart erleben. In »Zauber der Stille« breitet er erstmals die abenteuerlichen Geschichten Caspar David Friedrichs vor uns aus. Eine wilde Zeitreise zu dem Mann, der für die Deutschen die Sehnsucht erfand.

Die Lagerkommandantin verkündet das Todesurteil. Da schneidet sich die Gefangene Mala Zimetbaum mit einer Rasierklinge in die Pulsadern. Ein SS-Mann packt sie am Arm. Mala reißt sich frei, schlägt ihm ins Gesicht und ruft: »Mörder, bald werdet ihr bezahlen müssen.« Und zu den Tausenden jüdischen Frauen, die im Lager Auschwitz-Birkenau gezwungen sind, Malas Ermordung mitanzusehen: »Habt keine...

In «Der Lärm des Lebens» erzählt Jörg Hartmann auf hinreißende Weise seine Geschichte und die seiner Eltern und Großeltern. Es ist eine Liebeserklärung an die Kraft der Familie - und an den Ruhrpott. Ob es um die Situation seiner gehörlosen Großeltern im Nationalsozialismus geht, die Lebensklugheit seiner Mutter, die für kurze Zeit eine Pommesbude betrieb, die Demenzerkrankung seines Vaters,...

Serhii Dukhno spent 25 days in the Azovstal bunker with his family. ‘Azovstal’ is his native enterprise, the whole family worked at this plant. At first they didn't think of running away from the city, but when a shell hit the playground near their house, leaving a huge hole, they decided to leave. Due to constant shelling, they could not use their car and reached the familiar and reliable...

In 1927, Zora Neale Hurston went to Plateau, Alabama, just outside Mobile, to interview eighty-six-year-old Cudjo Lewis. Of the millions of men, women, and children transported from Africa to America as slaves, Cudjo was then the only person alive to tell the story of this integral part of the nation’s history. Hurston was there to record Cudjo’s firsthand account of the raid that led to his...

This book is an attempt to rethink the biography of Lesya Ukrainka, in which illness and creativity, Ukraine and ‘foreigners’, politics and literature, classics and modernity, love and death are intertwined. Illness and writing. The birth of creativity from the trauma experienced at the bedside of the terminally ill Merzhynskyi. Spiritual and intellectual closeness to Drahomanov. Relations with...

After the revolution and Civil War, the large Burliuk family became divided—some members left Soviet Russia forever, while others remained in their homeland. The same happened with the family and wide circle of friends of Sonia Delaunay. Despite the seemingly closed borders, correspondence between the two families continued for years. The main theme of these endless letters was the debate...

A narrative book about the most famous Prague native, Franz Kafka, brings his life and work closer to everyone who wants to get to know his world in more detail. The world of Prague German-written literature, the world of his interests, family and friends, and also the world of very special stories come to life, which still puzzle readers and experts at their word. The author of the text is the...

On February 24, 2022, Valery Zaluzhny, while giving orders, uttered the words that became a symbol of the Ukrainian resistance: ‘This country rests on our shoulders.’ An iron general, a legendary figure, Hero of Ukraine, Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine (2021–2024), a military leader who will be remembered by history as the man who thwarted the Russian ‘blitzkrieg’ plan and...

On the fiftieth anniversary of Churchill’s death, Boris Johnson celebrates the singular brilliance of one of the most important leaders of the twentieth century. Taking on the myths and misconceptions along with the outsized reality, he portrays—with characteristic wit and passion—a man of contagious bravery, breathtaking eloquence, matchless strategizing, and deep humanity.