Literature – they captured me

For years, the first word that I heard when I entered the rooms of the criminal publisher was a “fascist!”. That always came from behind left, where Werner Labisch was still sitting at the time: I once explained to him that in innerlinks discussions always gained the person who calls the counterpart as the first Nazi. That is the rule. From then on, Werner was located to make it clear to me every time I was scrambled to the first floor in the Mehringhöfen in Berlin that I had already lost, regardless of what we would talk about. Sometimes he was on the phone when I entered, but that didn’t prevent him: afterwards he only said that one of his authors had just entered the office.

Werner Labisch is no longer sitting there, he is now an educator. Anyone who is still there is Jörg Sundermeier – and to him against Kristine Listau. In the meantime, they have gathered a team around them that is basically not a team, but a family; As far as I can judge this: a warm, facing, not always with all the happy but warm and loving family.

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It would be much more interesting, of course, I could report hidden dismantling or at least of rough disappointments. They will be sure: after all, it is a left publisher, so it is part of the mouse sometimes has in their hair. Above all, because the publisher was originally only a scam to be able to tap texts: Sundermeier and Labisch originally never had to lay anything. They only wanted to read manuscripts from author. Unfortunately, they then liked the first manuscript to take it in this way, so well that they made a book out of it: Dietmar Daths »Cordula kills you! Or: We are not the nemesis of every pipe hine. Roman of the resurrection «. As it should be, they did not give the layout the floppy disk with the corrected and editing version, but the original text. You basically print the manuscript.

It is widely known that the name came about an evening during many beers, also the logo that Werner Labisch had drawn on a beer lid. For such decisions, Maus has a very long time: I do not know how it is today, but 15 years ago half of all the manuscripts have been sent to any regional crime novel. Otherwise, I think they are all satisfied with the name.

Of course, there is a whole series of excellent texts in the publisher (I can only call those that I have read): Manja Präkels, Anke Stelling, Dilek Güngör, Lisa Kränzler, Nino Hartischwili, also these completely insane overall editions of the hard-day diaries or J. J. Voskuils »Das Büro« work. All of these are important, great texts that still stand out from this program. As an author who has also written for many newspapers, I can say: It is a very special gift if Maus does not have to be ashamed of 95 percent of the texts that appear in a publisher in addition to their own books.

The office still looks like a paper shit here.

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Gisela Elsner is one of the texts that have changed me significantly. Your attitude and your understanding of the situation, your understanding of satire, which is aimed at a truth where others are just looking for a punch line; Her sincerity above all, their intellectual integrity have always impressed me. Ironically, the encounter with Elsner’s work was a reason for me to become economical with the jokes: compared to her, most of the point -fixed contemporaries look like Fips asmussen. I think the genius and importance of Elsner is an outstanding publishing performance; At a time when West German communism itself was only considered to be stupid.

In addition to the works of Elsner, I regularly read “vacation in the country” by Peter O. Chotjewitz; One of the few crime novels. The brittle elegance of this novel tells a lot about an author who has not been compromised; I have rarely been told the homely immobility of the province more clearly and easier.

And another book that I have more often in my hand is “my 7000 neighbors” by Eva Ruth Wemme. Wemme is a translator from Romanian and interprets, among other things, for Romanian immigrants. Among them are many Rome*Nja, and their stories and fates have almost documented them. They are short, precise demolition, without great garlands around it, but because of this sobriety of many people who have to fight, fight hard, just to be alive.

The place where Werner Labisch was once sitting is now the place of work by Kristine Listau. When she got into the publisher, he actually became more modern; I would also say: more radical and more cosmopolitan. From the project of two reading nerds, which gradually opened up the cultural world of Berlin via this publisher and pumped so much strength and life into it that they themselves became the indispensable part of this world, Kristine became a project that was still far beyond. And the shop also got a little more professional. Not overly professional: The office still looks as if a paper shit hunt for half a decade was enclosed in this cave.

In the very beautiful social-political Elsner biography “The world, viewed without eyelids”, Tanja Röckemann reports of a letter that a Berlin author collective (including Amendt, Enzensberger and Dutschke) wrote to its publisher. “We do you the favor of putting our valuable productive power into the service of your shitty-capitalist company, which we plan to do until we can either hunt you with other liberals in the process of the cultural revolution with a paper hat through Hamburg or get a free flight to the ČSSR.”

Sondermeier and Listau are by no means in danger of having such letters, not only because no one who has released such a masculinist and self-controlled indictment sound that publishes in this publisher. But above all because they do not offer any reason. For 30 years now, the criminal publisher has been keeping this look: not being cynical and still left. Not to be ideological and still reliable. To give a robe of radical humanity; No matter whether it pays off.

I am pleased that it pays off that the criminals are successful; I am also happy for the world in which they work; And for me too. As long as there are criminals, not everything is in the ass.