New Book Ideas
January 19, 2007
Leni Riefenstahl
By Jürgen Trimborn, published in English by Farrar, Straus & Giroux
Release: Jan. 2007
Jürgen Trimborn's biography recounts the life of Leni Riefenstahl (1902-2003), a German film director most widely know for creating propaganda films for the Nazi party. Despite her association with Hitler and the Nazis, Riefenstahl earned respect in the film industry for her aesthetic developments.
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Echoes of Violence: Letters from a War Reporter
By Carolin Emcke, published in English by Princeton University Press
Release: Feb. 2007
As a foreign correspondent and editor the German magazine Der Spiegel, Carolin Emcke has often reported from combat zones. Echoes of Violence is a compilation of letters she wrote to friends while on assignment in Kosovo, Romania, Nicaragua, Bucharest, Iraq, Pakistan and Lebanon. She focuses on the suffering caused by war and seeks to give its victims a voice.
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The China Code. What's Left for Us
By Frank Sieren, published in English by Palgrave UK
Release: Feb. 2007
China is good for the global economy, theorizes Frank Sieren in his new book The China Code. The author discusses the country's rapid economic development and influence on the global playing field, as well as its underlying strategies. The China Bureau Chief for the German business weekly Wirtschaftswoche, Sieren has lived in China since 1994.
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Guantanamo
By Dorothea Dieckmann, published in English by Soft Skull Press
Release: March 2007
Dorothea Dieckmann's novel, organized in six chapters, follows 20-year-old Rashid, who was born in Hamburg to a Muslim Indian father and a German mother. On a journey to Pakistan, he attends an anti-American demonstration, where he is arrested and eventually taken to the Guantanamo Bay prison. The author's fictitious but meticulously researched account of Rashid's imprisonment explores both his physical and psychological hardship, which culminates in a suicide attempt. This is Dieckmann's first book to appear in English.