Blumenbar Verlag GmbH&Co KG is a small avantgarde publishing house in Germany. ''Blumenbar'' is German for "bar of flowers", alluding its beginnings in the Blumenstraße close to the

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Munich Munich ( ; german: München ; bar, Minga ) is the capital and most populous city of the States of Germany, German state of Bavaria. With a population of 1,558,395 inhabitants as of 31 July 2020, it is the List of cities in Germany by popu ...

in 2002. The two founders, Lars Birken-Bertsch and Wolfgang Farkas, publish non-mainstream authors such as

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. The graphic design of the books (by Chrish Klose) is especially noted. In 2009, Blumenbar moved to

Berlin Berlin ( , ) is the capital and largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's most populous city, according to population within city limits. One of Germany's sixteen constitue ...

. Since March 2012, Blumenbar has continued as an imprint of the Berlin-based

Aufbau-Verlag Aufbau-Verlag is a German publisher. It was founded in Berlin in 1945 and became the biggest publisher in the GDR. During that time it specialised in Socialist literature, socialist and Russian literature. It is currently led by Matthias Koch ...

History

Blumenbar emerged from the literary salon of the same name, which the two founders had been organizing since 1997 in their apartment at Blumenstrasse 3 in Munich and at changing locations. A decisive factor in the founding of the publishing house was the formation of the ''Blumenbar Club'', a community interested in literature and culture. In 2002, members received a keychain with the publisher's logo upon payment of a minimum membership fee of 50

euros The euro (symbol: €; code: EUR) is the official currency of 19 out of the member states of the European Union (EU). This group of states is known as the eurozone or, officially, the euro area, and includes about 340 million citizens . T ...

. The keychain entitled members to reduced admission to Blumenbar events. The money raised through the campaign helped finance the beginnings of the publishing house. Blumenbar subsequently developed into one of the best-known and most influential labels in the recent publishing scene. From 2006, the publishing house was operated as a limited partnership. In 2008, a venture capitalist bought in. Blumenbar belonged to the group of independent publishers. The program, which focused on contemporary German-language and international literature, stood for a crossover of literature, art, pop culture, club culture and sociopolitical issues. At the beginning of 2012, the Blumenbar brand was sold to Aufbau Verlagsgruppe. Publishing responsibility for the repositioned Blumenbar Verlag was assumed by Aufbau managing director René Strien until his departure. Today, publishing responsibility lies with Aufbau publishing director Gunnar Cynybulk, who brought Monika Zeiner and Bov Bjerg to the publishing house, among others. At the end of October 2022, it was announced that Blumenbar publishing house founders Wolf Farkas and Lars Birken-Bertsch had sold the extensive publishing house archive from 1997 to 2012 to ''Monacensia'' (the City of Munich's literature and research archive).

Authors

Among the authors in original german language are: Matthias Hirth, FX Karl, Olaf Kraemer,

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, Hans-Peter Kunisch,

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, Thomas Palzer, Jasmin Ramadan, Walter Rufer, Alexander Schimmelbusch, Carmen Stephan, Alexander Wallasch, Raul Zelik and Anne Zielke. International translated authors are:

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, Zaza Burchuladze,

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, Erin Cosgrove,

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, Alban Lefranc,

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, Tony Parsons, Joseba Sarrionandía und

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References

External links

* {{Official, http://www.blumenbar.de/
Information on the publishing house by the Goethe institute
Book publishing companies of Germany Companies based in Berlin Publishing companies established in 2002 Mass media in Berlin Mass media in Munich 2002 establishments in Germany