When a young reader once asked Franz Fuhmann if he considered his work to be science fiction, he was quick to deny it: he wanted nothing to do with the genre. As he began writing the stories that make up this volume, however, he found himself coming...

"The Silences of Hammerstein", the latest work from one of Germany's most significant contemporary authors, engages readers with a blend of a documentary, collage, narration, and fictional interviews. The gripping plot revolves around the experiences...

Two fathers with two daughters: Martin, professor of German, writes but is studying Earth Sciences at MIT; Tariq, a doctor in Baghdad and Muna, is studying the archaeology of a region that is seen as the cradle of civilization. These two parallel rel...

In our era of mass migration, much of it driven by war and its aftermath, "A Slap in the Face" could not be more timely. It tells the story of Karim, an Iraqi refugee living in Germany whose right to asylum has been revoked in the wake of Saddam Huss...

Breviaries, books of standard religious readings for particular denominations, are a familiar genre with a long pedigree. But you've definitely never seen a breviary like this one. "The Sex of the Angels" is a playful, often ironic take on the brevia...

The work of poet Georg Trakl, a leading Austrian-German expressionist, has been praised by many, including his contemporaries Rainer Maria Rilke and Else Lasker-Schuler, as well as his patron Ludwig Wittgenstein. Wittgenstein famously wrote that whil...

The second book in Seagull's ambitious series of Georg Trakl's works, "Sebastian Dreaming" was the second, and final, collection prepared for publication by Trakl himself. Published after his death, it was perhaps even tied to it: forced into a milit...

Peter Handke, a giant of Austrian literature, has produced decades of fiction, poetry, and drama informed by some of the most tumultuous events in modern history. But even as these events shaped his work, the presence of his mother – a woman whose li...

"Summer Resort", the first novel by noted translator Esther Kinsky, is set in a village somewhere on the endless Hungarian plain. It is the hottest summer in memory and everyone in the village dreams of the sweet life in Udulo, a summer resort on a r...

In "The Shadow-Boxing Woman", a novel from German writer Inka Parei, a decaying apartment building in post-Wall Berlin is home to Hell, a young woman with a passion for martial arts. When Hell's neighbor disappears she sets out across the city in sea...