There was a time, around ten years ago, when S. Fischer Verlag seemed to be the new Suhrkamp, at least as far as contemporary German literature was concerned. Not everything, but a lot that has status and reputation and news value was in the publisher’s preview, which became more comprehensive from six-monthly to six-monthly. Judith Hermann, Christoph Ransmayr, Monika Maron, Julia Franck, Clemens Meyer, Marlene Streeruwitz, Felicitas Hoppe, Henning Ahrens, Michael Lentz, Thomas Hürlimann, Ulrich Peltzer and many other exciting young voices competed for the rare places in the top titles in every new book season.
In addition to the publisher Jörg Bong (under the pseudonym Jean-Luc Bannalec, a highly successful crime writer in personal union), the head of literature program Oliver Vogel shaped the distinctive profile of the house, which, in the old Fischer tradition, did not see public appeal and artistic awareness of the avant-garde as opposites. The old publisher Monika Schoeller, who died in 2019, watched over all of this.
But S. Fischer belongs (as does Rowohlt, Kiepenheuer
Gradually it became apparent that under the new management there was a climate in which tradition and publishing (history) were subordinated to smooth efficiency when in doubt.
But the new slimming course was not really successful either. In the midst of a veritable crisis in the industry, the literature enthusiast Oliver Vogel is triumphantly returning as a publisher; Bublitz has to go on October 1 “because of different views on further developments,” according to the Holtzbrinck press release.
For many Fischer authors, indeed for the entire industry, which is prone to depression, this is spectacularly good news. Vogel will make a sophisticated book program at the level of the present – today more than ever a risky balancing act. In any case, we can still count on S. Fischer, because there they will no longer just stare at the bare numbers.
